Something Rather Special

From his crucial conference in the sun (see THE NATION), Harold Macmillan flew home last week to a winter of trouble in Britain. The economy was none too healthy. Unemployment was rising. Britain's negotiations for Common Market membership hung precariously in the balance. Pressing their advantage, Labor and Liberal leaders cried gleefully that the government's foreign and domestic policies were on the brink of collapse. In Macmillan's own Conservative Party, backbenchers were openly restive, and would become even more fractious during Parliament's Christmas recess as they went home to measure the uneasy mood of the country.

Two Nations? For all the uproar over Skybolt, the man in the pub was more worried about job security than the tenuous protection that nuclear weapons might buy. The Briton who had never had it so good in 1959 is bitterly aware today that the island is again in danger of being splintered into "two nations": the prosperous south and the chronically blighted north, where shipbuilding, mining and other ailing 19th century industries are concentrated. Britain's admission to the Common Market may in the long run ease its economic woes. But Macmillan's critics blame Britain's troubles in Brussels today on his three years of foot-dragging before deciding to enter Europe.

Probably no British government, faced with such momentous and obdurate problems, could have had an easy time of it. Macmillan has found it particularly difficult, the Economist suggested last week, because by instinct and intellect he is more enthused by "sepia illustrations of great moments in British history" than by the unique opportunity that has been offered his nation to help unite Europe and to serve as its bridge to the rest of the free world. Instead, Harold Macmillan for the past six years has chosen to emphasize Britain's "special relationship" with the U.S.

Tie with Italy? As a result, Macmillan has deepened France's ancient mistrust of perfidious Albion, while the Kennedy Administration's consultations with Whitehall have become ever more perfunctory on such life-or-death issues as Berlin and Cuba. The Administration's abrupt announcement that it planned to scuttle Skybolt left Britons shocked and disillusioned by what seemed to be a brutal rejection of their nation's claim to equal partnership with the U.S. The U.S., rued the Tory Spectator, kicked Britain "down the nuclear league to end up tying with, perhaps, Italy."

To most Britons last week, it seemed probable that a British Prime Minister and a U.S. President might never again be able to talk over their mutual problems with frankness and friendliness. On the contrary. John Kennedy was able to persuade Harold Macmillan that the issue at stake was not Anglo-U.S. amity but a costly, contrary contraption that would add no credibility to Britain's deterrent. The Prime Minister came away with Polaris, which is both a proved deterrent and concrete proof of a continuing, exclusive relationship with the U.S. In the 22 months before he has to call a general election, Macmillan may find it a rather special weapon.

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