Monday, Nov. 29, 1943
The Beaver's Foot
A strange pair in British public life have been Mephistophelean Lord Beaverbrook, 64, nominally Tory, and the editor of his deft, double-edged Evening Standard: Michael Foot, 30, cold, keen and Left. The Beaver has a weakness for tough guys, likes raising hell, hates softness in any form. Mike Foot hates old-line Tories. Last week the two deftly altered their two-year-old official relationship and deftly left their unofficial partnership untouched.
Foot was out as editor of the Standard. He had been disclosed as "Cassius," author of last month's Tory-scorching bestseller, The Trial of Mussolini, in which the defense summons Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Leslie Hore-Belisha, Sir Samuel Hoare, Viscount Simon and many another resounding name as character witnesses for the Duce. In 1940 Foot and two other Standard men, using the name of "Cato," wrote Guilty Men, an indictment of prewar appeasers, blunderers and incompetents, including several attacked again by Cassius. That time, Beaverbrook had carefully looked the other way.
This time, Cassius Foot drove to the hilt his thesis that "the Right preferred Fascism to reform; the Left did not drive home their advantage when they had it"; that expedient toleration of Fascists is as criminal as Fascism itself. This time the Beaver could not look the other way; his fellow Cabinet members were angry. He dropped Foot, ostensibly for violation of a contract provision against outside writing. In the good clubs there were grunts of satisfaction.
But they were short-lived. With no more deadlines to meet, Foot prepared to launch a one-man war against the Conservatives. His program: 1) to pry the Labor Ministers out of Churchill's coalition Cabinet ("Come out of the Government and fight for your socialist convictions--if you still have them. If you've lost them, get out"); 2) to rub out the shame of Munich ("Anybody who was associated with the Chamberlain Government should be hounded out of public life"); 3) to capture Leslie Hore-Belisha's seat in the House of Commons ("About a year ago Hore-Belisha went into a monastery and came out saying he wanted to go back again. I hope to assist him").
Politicians wondered uneasily how many young Britons would find his logic good. Their uneasiness rose when they learned that the circulation-wise Beaver had worked a neat piece of journalistic legerdemain.
This week the Standard announced a new writer: Michael Foot, whose signed contributions will also appear in Beaverbrook's Daily and Sunday Express. But henceforth, the Beaver assumes no editorial responsibility for Mike Foot--and Mike Foot none for the Beaver.
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