Editing Harold Macmillan (section)

===End of premiership===
By the early 1960s, many were starting to find Macmillan's courtly and urbane Edwardian manners anachronistic, and satirical journals such as ''[[Private Eye]]'' and the television show ''[[That Was the Week That Was]]'' mercilessly mocked him as a doddering, clueless leader.<ref name="Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.179">Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.179</ref> Macmillan's handling of the [[Vassall Tribunal|Vassall affair]] – in which an Admiralty clerk, John Vassall, was convicted in October 1962 of passing secrets to the Soviet Union – undermined his "Super-Mac" reputation for competence.<ref name="Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.179"/> D. R. Thorpe writes that from January 1963 "Macmillan's strategy lay in ruins", leaving him looking for a "graceful exit". The Vassall affair turned the press against him.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|p=613}} In the same month, opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell died suddenly at the age of 56. With a general election due before the end of the following year, Gaitskell's death threw the future of British politics into fresh doubt.<ref>{{cite news |title=1963: Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell dies |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/18/newsid_3376000/3376971.stm |url-status=live |publisher=BBC News |date=21 October 1963 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715010620/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/18/newsid_3376000/3376971.stm |archive-date=15 July 2015 }}</ref> The following month Harold Wilson was elected as the new Labour leader, and he proved to be a popular choice with the public.<ref>{{cite news |title=1963: a year to remember |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/21957868 |url-status=live |newspaper=BBC Democracy Live |date=28 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426084616/http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/21957868 |archive-date=26 April 2016 }}</ref>

====Profumo affair====
The [[Profumo affair]] of 1963 permanently damaged the credibility of Macmillan's government. The revelation of the affair between [[John Profumo]] ([[Secretary of State for War]]) and an alleged call-girl, [[Christine Keeler]], who was simultaneously sleeping with the Soviet naval attache Captain [[Yevgeny Ivanov (spy)|Yevgeny Ivanov]] made it appear that Macmillan had lost control of his government and of events in general.<ref name="Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.180">Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.180</ref> In the ensuing Parliamentary debate he was seen as a pathetic figure, while [[Nigel Birch]] declared, in the words of [[Robert Browning|Browning]] on [[Wordsworth]], that it would be "Never glad confident morning again!".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1963/jun/17/security-mr-profumos-resignation#S5CV0679P0_19630617_HOC_296 SECURITY (MR. PROFUMO'S RESIGNATION) (Hansard, 17 June 1963)]</ref> On 17 June 1963, he survived a Parliamentary vote with a majority of 69,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1963/jun/17/security-mr-profumos-resignation#column_170|title=SECURITY (MR. PROFUMO'S RESIGNATION)  |website=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]]|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160507140736/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1963/jun/17/security-mr-profumos-resignation#column_170|date=17 June 1963|archive-date=7 May 2016}}</ref> one fewer than had been thought necessary for his survival, and was afterwards joined in the smoking room only by his son and son-in-law, not by any Cabinet minister. However, Butler and [[Reginald Maudling]] (who was very popular with backbench MPs at that time) declined to push for his resignation, especially after a tide of support from Conservative activists around the country. Many of the salacious revelations about the sex lives of "Establishment" figures during the Profumo affair damaged the image of "the Establishment" that Macmillan was seen as a part of, giving him the image by 1963 of a "failing representative of a decadent elite".<ref name="Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.180"/>

====Resignation====
By the summer of 1963 [[Conservative Party Chairman]] [[Oliver Poole, 1st Baron Poole|Lord Poole]] was urging the ageing Macmillan to retire.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=551–552}} The full [[Alfred Denning, Baron Denning|Denning]] report into the Profumo Scandal was published on 26 September 1963.{{sfn|Lamb|1995|p=488}}

Macmillan had a meeting with Butler on 11 September and was careful to keep his options open (retire now, retire in the New Year, or fight the next election). He talked the matter over with his son Maurice and other senior ministers. Over lunch with [[Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton|Lord Swinton]] on 30 September he favoured stepping down, but only if [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Baron Hailsham]] could be shoehorned in as his successor. He saw Butler on the morning of 7 October and told him he planned to stay on to lead the Conservatives into the next General Election, then was struck down by prostate problems on the night of 7–8 October, on the eve of the Conservative Party conference.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=284–285}}{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=558–559}}

Macmillan was operated on at 11:30&nbsp;am on 10 October. Although it is sometimes stated that he believed himself to have inoperable [[prostate cancer]], he in fact knew it was benign before the operation.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|p=565}} Macmillan was almost ready to leave hospital within ten days of the diagnosis and could easily have carried on, in the opinion of his doctor Sir John Richardson.{{sfn|Lamb|1995|p=491}} His illness gave him a way out.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=566–567}}

====Succession====
While recovering in hospital, Macmillan wrote a memorandum (dated 14 October) recommending the process by which "soundings" would be taken of party opinion to select his successor, which was accepted by the Cabinet on 15 October. This time backbench MPs and junior ministers were to be asked their opinion, rather than just the Cabinet as in 1957, and efforts would be made to sample opinion amongst peers and constituency activists.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=566–567}}

Enoch Powell claimed that it was wrong of Macmillan to seek to monopolise the advice given to the Queen in this way. In fact, this was done at the Palace's request, so that the Queen was not being seen to be involved in politics as had happened in January 1957, and had been decided as far back as June when it had looked as though the government might fall over the Profumo scandal. [[Ben Pimlott]] later described this as the "biggest political misjudgement of her reign".{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=569–570}}<ref>{{cite book|last=Pimlott|first=Ben|author-link=Ben Pimlott|title=The Queen : A Biography of Elizabeth II|year=1997|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc|location=New York|isbn=047119431X|page=335}}</ref> 

Macmillan was succeeded by Foreign Secretary [[Alec Douglas-Home]] in a controversial move; it was alleged that Macmillan had pulled strings and utilised the party's grandees, nicknamed "The Magic Circle", who had slanted their "soundings" of opinion among MPs and Cabinet Ministers to ensure that Butler was (once again) not chosen.<ref>the "soundings" and the accompanying political intrigues are discussed in detail in [[Rab Butler]]'s biography</ref>

He finally resigned, receiving the Queen from his hospital bed, on 18 October 1963, after nearly seven years as prime minister. He felt privately that he was being hounded from office by a backbench minority:

{{quote|Some few will be content with the success they have had in the assassination of their leader and will not care very much who the successor is. ... They are a band that in the end does not amount to more than 15 or 20 at the most.<ref>Anthony Bevins, 'How Supermac Was "Hounded Out of Office" by Band of 20 Opponents', ''The Observer'' (1 January 1995), p. 1.</ref>}}