Editing Harold Macmillan (section)

==Political career, 1924–1951==

===Member of Parliament (1924–1929)===
Macmillan contested the depressed northern industrial constituency of [[Stockton-on-Tees (UK Parliament constituency)|Stockton-on-Tees]] in [[1923 United Kingdom general election|1923]]. The campaign cost him about £200-£300 out of his own pocket;{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=69}} at that time candidates were often expected to fund their own election campaigns. The collapse in the Liberal vote let him win in [[1924 United Kingdom general election|1924]].{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=246}} In 1927, four MPs, including Boothby and Macmillan, published a short book advocating radical measures.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=246}} In 1928, Macmillan was described by his political hero, and now Parliamentary colleague, David Lloyd George, as a "born rebel".{{sfn|Thorpe|2010}}{{pn|date=October 2022}}{{sfn|Fisher|1982|pp=32–33}}

Macmillan lost his seat in [[1929 United Kingdom general election|1929]] in the face of high regional unemployment. He almost became Conservative candidate for the safe seat of [[Hitchin (UK Parliament constituency)|Hitchin]] in 1931.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=243}} However the sitting MP, [[Guy Kindersley]] cancelled his retirement plans, in part because of his own association with the anti-Baldwin rebels and his suspicion of Macmillan's sympathy for [[Oswald Mosley]]'s promises of radical measures to reduce unemployment. Instead, the resignation of the new candidate at Stockton allowed Macmillan to be re-selected there, and he returned to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] for his old seat in [[1931 United Kingdom general election|1931]].{{sfn|Fisher|1982|pp=32–33}}

===Member of Parliament (1931–1939)===
Macmillan spent the 1930s on the backbenches. In March 1932 he published "The State and Industry" (not to be confused with his earlier pamphlet "Industry and the State").{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=103}} In September 1932 he made his first visit to the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=100}} Macmillan also published "The Next Step". He advocated cheap money and [[economic planning|state direction of investment]]. In 1933 he was the sole author of "Reconstruction: A Plea for a National Unity". In 1935 he was one of 15 MPs to write "Planning for Employment". His next publication, "The Next Five Years", was overshadowed by Lloyd George's proposed "New Deal" in 1935.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=103}} Macmillan Press also published the work of the economist [[John Maynard Keynes]].{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=246}}

Macmillan resigned the government whip (but not the Conservative party one) in protest at the lifting of sanctions on Italy after her [[Italian conquest of Abyssinia|conquest of Abyssinia]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Betts|first=Lewis David|date=3 April 2018|title=Harold Macmillan and appeasement: implications for the future study of Macmillan as a foreign policy actor|journal=Contemporary British History|volume=32|issue=2|pages=169–189|doi=10.1080/13619462.2017.1401475|s2cid=148757056|issn=1361-9462}}</ref> [[Henry Channon|"Chips" Channon]] described him as the "unprepossessing, bookish, eccentric member for Stockton-on-Tees" and recorded (8 July 1936) that he had been sent a "frigid note" by Conservative Prime Minister [[Stanley Baldwin]]. Baldwin later mentioned that he had survived by steering a middle course between Macmillan and [[John Gretton]], an extreme right-winger.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=249}}

The Next Five Years Group, to which Macmillan had belonged, was wound up in November 1937. His book ''The Middle Way'' appeared in June 1938, advocating a broadly centrist political philosophy both domestically and internationally. Macmillan took control of the magazine ''New Outlook'' and made sure it published political tracts rather than purely theoretical work.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=103}}

In 1936, Macmillan proposed the creation of a cross-party forum of antifascists to create democratic unity but his ideas were rejected by the leadership of both the Labour and Conservative parties.<ref>Seidman, Michael. Transatlantic Antifascisms: From the Spanish Civil War to the End of World War II. Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 89</ref>

Macmillan supported Chamberlain's first flight for talks with [[Hitler]] at Berchtesgaden, but not his subsequent flights to Bad Godesberg and Munich. After [[Munich Agreement|Munich]] he was looking for a "1931 in reverse", i.e. a Labour-dominated coalition in which some Conservatives would serve, the reverse of the Conservative-dominated coalition which had governed Britain since 1931.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=117–118}} He supported the independent candidate, [[Sandie Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker|Lindsay]], at the [[1938 Oxford by-election]]. He wrote a pamphlet "The Price of Peace" calling for alliance between Britain, France and the USSR, but expecting Poland to make territorial "accommodation" to Germany (i.e. give up the [[Danzig corridor]]). In "Economic Aspects of Defence", early in 1939, he called for a Ministry of Supply.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=119}}

===Phoney War (1939–1940)===
Macmillan visited Finland in February 1940, then the subject of great sympathy in Britain as it was being [[Soviet invasion of Finland|invaded by the USSR]], then [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|loosely allied]] to Nazi Germany. His last speech from the backbenches was to attack the government for not doing enough to help Finland. Britain was saved from a potentially embarrassing commitment when the [[Winter War]] ended in March 1940.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=134–135}}

Macmillan voted against the Government in the [[Norway Debate]] of May 1940, helping to bring down [[Neville Chamberlain]] as prime minister, and tried to join in with [[Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood|Colonel Josiah Wedgwood]] singing "[[Rule, Britannia!]]" in the House of Commons Chamber.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=139}}

===Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Supply (1940–1942)===
Macmillan finally attained office by serving in the [[Churchill war ministry|wartime coalition government]] as the [[Parliamentary Secretary]] to the [[Ministry of Supply]] from 1940. Channon commented (29 May 1940) that there was "some amusement over Harold Macmillan's so obvious enjoyment of his new position".{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=252}}

Macmillan's job was to provide armaments and other equipment to the [[British Army]] and [[Royal Air Force]]. He travelled up and down the country to co-ordinate production, working with some success under [[Lord Beaverbrook]] to increase the supply and quality of [[armoured fighting vehicle|armoured vehicles]].{{sfn|Fisher|1982|pages=78–79}}

===Colonial Under-Secretary (1942)===
[[File:Harold Macmillan in 1942.jpg|thumb|upright|Macmillan in 1942]]
Macmillan was appointed [[Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies]] in 1942, in his own words "leaving a madhouse to enter a mausoleum".<ref>Harold Macmillan, ''The Blast of War, 1939–45'' (London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 161.</ref> Though a junior minister he was a member of the [[Privy Council]], and he spoke in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] for [[Secretary of State for the Colonies|Colonial Secretaries]] [[Lord Moyne]] and [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Cranborne]]. Macmillan was given responsibility for increasing colonial production and trade, and signalled the future policy direction when in June 1942 he declared:

{{quote|The governing principle of the [[British Empire|Colonial Empire]] should be the principle of partnership between the various elements composing it. Out of partnership comes understanding and friendship. Within the fabric of the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] lies the future of the Colonial territories.{{sfn|Fisher|1982|page=82}}}}

Macmillan predicted that the Conservatives faced landslide defeat after the war, causing Channon to write (6 Sep 1944) of "the foolish prophecy of that nice ass Harold Macmillan". In October 1942 [[Harold Nicolson]] recorded Macmillan as predicting "extreme socialism" after the war.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|p=254}} Macmillan nearly resigned when [[Oliver Stanley]] was appointed Secretary of State in November 1942, as he would no longer be the spokesman in the Commons as he had been under Cranborne. [[Brendan Bracken]] advised him not to quit.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=151–160}}

===Minister Resident in the Mediterranean (1942–1945)===
After [[Harry Crookshank]] had refused the job, Macmillan attained real power and [[Cabinet of the United Kingdom|Cabinet]] rank late in 1942 as British Minister Resident at [[Algiers]] in the Mediterranean, recently liberated in [[Operation Torch]]. He reported directly to the Prime Minister instead of to the [[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (UK)|Foreign Secretary]], [[Anthony Eden]]. [[Oliver Lyttelton]] had a similar job at Cairo, while [[Robert Daniel Murphy|Robert Murphy]] was Macmillan's US counterpart.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=151–160}} Macmillan built a rapport with US General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], then Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean (SACMED), which proved helpful in his career,{{sfn|Horne|2008|page=158}} and [[Richard Crossman]] later recalled that Macmillan's "Greeks in the Roman Empire" metaphor dated from this time (i.e., that as the US replaced Britain as the world's leading power, British politicians and diplomats should aim to guide her in the same way that Greek slaves and freedmen had advised powerful Romans).{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=160}} Macmillan told Crossman: "We, my dear Crossman, are the Greeks in the American empire. You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans—great big, vulgar bustling people, more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues, but also more corrupt. We must run AFHQ ([[Allied Forces Headquarters]]) as the Greek slaves ran the operations of the Emperor [[Claudius]]".{{sfn|Ashton|2005|p=697}} At the [[Casablanca Conference]] Macmillan helped to secure US acceptance, if not recognition, of the [[Free French]] leader [[Charles de Gaulle]].{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=170}} Macmillan wrote in his diary during the Casablanca conference: "I christened the two personalities the Emperor of the East and the Emperor of the West and indeed it was rather like a meeting of the late Roman empire".{{sfn|Ashton|2005|p=697}} For Macmillan, the "remarkable and romantic episodes" as President Roosevelt met Prime Minister Churchill in Casablanca convinced him that personal diplomacy was the best way to deal with Americans, which later influenced his foreign policy as prime minister.{{sfn|Ashton|2005|pp=697–698}}

On 22 February 1943, Macmillan was badly burned in a plane crash,<ref>{{cite tweet |title=Harold MacMillan only just survived a plane crash in N Africa 80 years ago today, in 1943. He would be the only British Prime Minister who was badly wounded in both the First and Second World Wars.|user=thehistoryguy |number=1628503689890496512 |via=Twitter}}</ref> trying to climb back into the plane to rescue a Frenchman. He had to have a plaster cast put on his face. In his delirium he imagined himself back in a Somme casualty clearing station and asked for a message to be passed to his mother, now dead.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=174}}

[[File:Allied leaders in the Sicilian campaign.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|Macmillan (top row, left) with Allied military leaders in the Sicilian campaign, 1943; [[Major general (United States)|Maj-Gen]] [[Bedell Smith]] to his left. Front Row: General [[Eisenhower]] (then Supreme Commander, Mediterranean), [[Air Chief Marshal]] [[Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder|Tedder]], [[General (United Kingdom)|General]] [[Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis|Alexander]], [[Admiral (Royal Navy)|Admiral]] [[Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope|Cunningham]]]]

Together with [[Gladwyn Jebb]] he helped to negotiate the Italian armistice in August 1943, between the [[Operation Husky|fall of Sicily]] and the [[Salerno Landings]]. This caused friction with Eden and the Foreign Office.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=195–199}} He was based at [[Caserta]] for the rest of the war. He was appointed UK High Commissioner for the Advisory Council for Italy late in 1943.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=201}} He visited London in October 1943 and again clashed with Eden. Eden appointed [[Duff Cooper]] as Representative to the [[French Committee of National Liberation|Free French government in Algeria]] (after the [[Liberation of France|liberation of mainland France]], he later continued as Ambassador to France from November 1944) and [[Noel Charles]] as Ambassador to Italy to reduce Macmillan's influence.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=210}} In May 1944 Macmillan infuriated Eden by demanding an early peace treaty with Italy (at that time a pro-Allied regime under [[Badoglio]] held some power in the southern, liberated, part of Italy), a move which Churchill favoured. In June 1944 he argued for a British-led thrust up the [[Ljubljana Gap]] into Central Europe (Operation "Armpit") instead of the planned diversion of US and Free French forces to the South of France ([[Operation Dragoon]]). This proposal impressed Churchill and [[Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis|General Alexander]], but did not meet with American approval. Eden sent out Robert Dixon to abolish the job of Resident Minister, there being then no job for Macmillan back in the UK, but he managed to prevent his job being abolished. Churchill visited Italy in August 1944. On 14 September 1944 Macmillan was appointed Chief Commissioner of the [[Allied Control Commission]] for Italy (in succession to General [[Noel Mason-MacFarlane]]). He continued to be British Minister Resident at Allied Headquarters and British political adviser to [[Henry Maitland Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson|"Jumbo" Wilson]], now Supreme Commander, Mediterranean.  On 10 November 1944 he was appointed Acting President of the Allied Commission (the Supreme Commander being President).{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=218–222}}

Macmillan visited Greece on 11 December 1944. As the Germans had withdrawn, British troops under [[Ronald Scobie|General Scobie]] had deployed to Athens, but there were concerns that the pro-communist Greek resistance, [[National Liberation Front (Greece)|EAM]] and its military wing [[ELAS]], would take power (see [[Dekemvriana]]) or come into conflict with British troops. Macmillan rode in a tank and was under sniper fire at the British Embassy. Despite the hostility of large sections of British and American opinion, who were sympathetic to the guerrillas and hostile to what was seen as imperialist behaviour, he persuaded a reluctant Churchill, who visited Athens later in the month, to accept [[Archbishop Damaskinos]] as Regent on behalf of the exiled [[George II of Greece|King George II]]. A [[Varkiza agreement|truce]] was negotiated in January 1945, enabling a pro-British regime to remain in power, as Churchill had demanded in the [[Percentages agreement]] the previous autumn.{{sfn|Horne|1988|pp=230–240}} In 1947 the US would take over Britain's role as "protector" of Greece and Turkey, to keep the Soviets out of the Mediterranean, the so-called "[[Truman Doctrine]]".

Macmillan was also the minister advising [[General Keightley]] of [[V Corps (United Kingdom)|V Corps]], the senior [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] commander in Austria responsible for [[Operation Keelhaul]], which included the forced repatriation of up to 70,000 prisoners of war to the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Josip Broz Tito]]'s [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] in 1945. The deportations and Macmillan's involvement later became a source of controversy because of the harsh treatment meted out to [[Collaboration during World War II|Nazi collaborators]] and anti-partisans by the receiving countries, and because in the confusion V Corps went beyond the terms agreed at [[Yalta conference|Yalta]] and Allied Forces Headquarters directives by repatriating 4000 [[Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II|White Russian troops]] and 11,000 civilian family members.{{sfn|Horne|2008|pp=251–86}}<ref>Sir [[Curtis Keeble]], 'Macmillan and the Soviet Union', in Richard Aldous and Sabine Lee (eds), ''Harold Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life'' (London: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 199–200.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n17/ferdinand-mount/too-obviously-cleverer |title=Too Obviously Cleverer |author=Ferdinand Mount |date=8 September 2011 |journal=[[London Review of Books]] |volume=33 |issue=17 |access-date=15 January 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121193333/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n17/ferdinand-mount/too-obviously-cleverer |archive-date=21 January 2012 |author-link=Ferdinand Mount }}</ref>

===Air Secretary (1945)===
Macmillan toyed with an offer to succeed Duff Cooper as MP for the safe Conservative seat of [[Westminster St George's]].{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=243}} Criticised locally for his long absence, he suggested that Lady Dorothy stand for Stockton in 1945, as she had been nursing the seat for five years. She was apparently willing. However, it was thought better for him to be seen to defend his seat, and Lord Beaverbrook had already spoken to Churchill to arrange that Macmillan be given another seat in the event of defeat.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010|pp=234–35}}

Macmillan returned to England after the European war, feeling himself 'almost a stranger at home'.<ref>Macmillan, ''Tides of Fortune'', p. 29.</ref> He was [[Secretary of State for Air]] for two months in [[Churchill caretaker ministry|Churchill's caretaker government]], 'much of which was taken up in electioneering', there being 'nothing much to be done in the way of forward planning'.<ref>Harold Macmillan, ''Tides of Fortune'' (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 28–29.</ref>

===Opposition (1945–1951)===
Macmillan indeed lost Stockton in the landslide [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] victory of [[1945 United Kingdom general election|July 1945]], but returned to Parliament in the November 1945 by-election in [[Bromley (UK Parliament constituency)|Bromley]]. In his diary [[Harold Nicolson]] noted the feelings of the Tory backbenchers: "They feel that Winston is too old and Anthony (Eden) too weak. They want Harold Macmillan to lead them."<ref>Harold Nicolson: ''Diaries and Letters, 1945–62.'' (London, Phoenix) p. 32</ref>

He was a member of the British delegation to the Consultative Assembly of the [[Council of Europe]] from 1949 to 1951, and played a prominent role – as a key aide and ally of [[Winston Churchill]] – in pressing for greater European integration as a bulwark against Soviet totalitarianism and to prevent a recurrence of the horrors of Nazi rule.

Although Macmillan played an important role in drafting the "[[Industrial Charter]]" ("Crossbencher" in the ''[[Sunday Express]]'' called it the second edition of ''The Middle Way'') he now, as MP for a safe seat, adopted a somewhat more right-wing public persona, defending private enterprise and fiercely opposing the Labour government in the House of Commons.{{sfn|Campbell|2010|pp=255–256}}