Man with a Four-Seat Margin

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April is indeed the crudest month, especially in Britain. Wind-driven gusts of rain, sleet and snow last week caused a stirring of the earth's dull roots from John o' Groats in the North Sea to Lizard Point on the English Channel. Memory and desire were mixed with the drifting London fog, the wet pavements iridescent with lights, the factory smoke shrouding the Midlands, and files of miners with blackened faces trudging home from the pits.

But in the Scilly Isles, off the Cornwall coast, all was serene in the cozy bungalow where plump, pipe-smoking Prime Minister Harold Wilson relaxed with his family, now and then paddling a boat in and out of rocky coves. Wilson had good reason for contentment. During his six-month stewardship of Britain he had weathered a series of crises that would have shipwrecked a lesser man and brought down many a stronger government. To the surprise of many, Wilson was still Prime Minister, though he had only four votes to spare -- the narrowest margin in this century.

This week he will test that margin by taking the most controversial step of his administration so far -- publication of plans to nationalize most of Britain's steel industry. Nothing in the Labor Party's platform has aroused so much fierce antagonism in Britain, for steel nationalization is about the last vestige of the old doctrinaire socialism that millions of Britons would like to forget.

Two of his own Labor M.P.s have warned Wilson they will not support him, and the ten Liberals in the House of Commons have threatened to vote against Wilson on the steel issue. These defections could leave Wilson with a majority of one, or provoke the national election that is widely rumored for June, or next October at the latest.

Peculiar Breeds. But Wilson is accustomed to life on the edge of the precipice. In retrospect, last week looked positively rosy. In the money marts of the world, the British pound was triumphantly steady, and even rose a bit. With a minimum of grumbling, Britain had accepted a tough austerity budget. Wilson's recent tour of Allied capitals produced surprising warmth and a fresh estimate of Britain's stature. And Wilson is holding the line in Britain's overseas defense system, stretching from Germany to Aden, and in Malaysia, where a beefed-up British expeditionary force of 50,000 men and one-third of the British Navy confront Indonesia's Sukarno.

The recent belt tightening caused remarkably little gloom in Britain. With unemployment down to a minuscule 1.6%, there is money jingling in almost everyone's pocket. Over last week's Bank Holiday weekend, 10,000,000 autos jammed the roads, and traffic snarls stretched as far as ten miles. Mods and Rockers, those peculiar breeds of British youth, made their seasonal migration to Brighton and points south, and fought a few Easter skirmishes. Other adolescents, together with older Ban-the-Bombers, set out on the annual march from Aldermaston to London's Trafalgar Square, where their beards and unkempt heads of hair frightened the pigeons. In the Cotswolds, hunting horns sounded over green hills as the fox fled before hounds and huntsmen. And in London, which now rivals Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world, players were five deep at the dice and roulette tables.

Charter Flights. In millions of British homes, families gathered around the telly to watch The Beverly Hillbillies, The Rogues and The Dick Van Dyke Show. As the family circle sat staring, there came a quiet hum from the new fridge in the kitchen and a clanking in the radiators that bespoke the new joy of central heating. All winter long, charter flights had taken off for ski resorts in Austria and Switzerland. Soon there would be the summer exodus; Spain alone last year played host to 1,600,000 British tourists.

Yet something more subtle than affluence was at work. Perhaps it was merely the fleeting contact with spring, but confidence had returned to the nation. The press no longer was running lugubrious articles that fed Britain's doubt and insecurity. The In salons in London no longer ridiculed every up beat emotion. Even the weirdo clothes and unsheared heads of the young seemed less a badge of revolt and more a symbol of accepted fashion. Britons were pleased to have captured world leadership -- if only in rock 'n' roll with such groups as the Beatles, the Animals and the Rolling Stones, or in that proud British export, the Royal Ballet, with Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, dancing to packed houses in the U.S.

Education is being shaken into new life. At Eton, a committee is hard at work re-evaluating the classical curriculum. Lord Franks, head of a special commission, is ruthlessly re-examining Oxford. At the pioneering Sevenoaks School in Kent and in 42 others, young students are learning the new mathematics.

Though hardly the author of this new mood, Harold Wilson has been fortunate in presiding over its arrival. The postwar seizure of national self-doubt was the result of Britain's losing an empire without gaining a new role to play in the world. The last years of Tory rule were blurred by such scandals as the Christine Keeler affair, by Harold Macmillan's increasingly infirm hand at the helm, and by the unseemly quarrel over his successor.

Wilson brought a transatlantic zeal to the election campaign. His Bible was Theodore H. White's The Making of the President, his bedside reading the speeches of John F. Kennedy, his handbook Larry O'Brien's campaign manual. As he crisscrossed the country, he studded each of his orations with at least one Kennedy idea or phrase.

Close Squeak. Labor's election manifesto read like the New Frontier, with its promise to get the nation moving again along "a new way of life that will stir our hearts, rekindle an authentic patriotic faith in our future, and enable our country to re-establish itself as a stable force in the world for progress, peace and justice." It was a carefully wrought blueprint for victory, but it very nearly didn't make it. Labor squeaked into power with only 44.1% of the popular vote, against 43.4% for the Conservatives and 11.2% for the Liberals. Though he was taking office with a bare majority of four seats in Parliament, Wilson boldly assured the nation that he had received a mandate for "many changes" and swore that he would "fulfill the mandate."

One reason for the closeness of the election was a nationwide uneasiness about Wilson himself. His personality seemed unfocused and his physical appearance uninspiring. There were complaints that he did not "look like a Prime Minister." Short, tubby and indifferent to fashion, he wears baggy suits and usually needs a haircut. He stuffs the bottom of his lackluster ties inside the top of his trousers and somehow manages to make even a new suit look aged. He plays golf in a wrinkled blue sports shirt and tan sandals. His slow, deliberate speech has a curious but nonclassifiable accent that is neither upper, middle, nor lower class--and definitely not Churchillian.

Uncomplicated Girl. Wilson comes of the dogged yeoman stock that has historically made England dangerous on the field of battle. The son of an industrial chemist who was also a Methodist, he early displayed the prodigious memory and computerized mind that have carried him to the top. Visiting London as an eight-year-old, young Harold was photographed on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street, and already looked as if he owned the place.

Graduating from Oxford, he became a don at New College and married a pretty, uncomplicated girl named Mary Baldwin, whose greatest ambition was to be a don's wife and live in a red brick and stone house, with a few cherry trees in the garden, on North Oxford's Banbury Road. Like many dons in World War II, Wilson was drafted into the civil service (as an economist), and he so enjoyed government that he captured his first seat in Parliament at 29, became a Cabinet minister at 31.

Though his talents were respected, Wilson was not. Behind his back he was called "Little Harold." The adjective that came most quickly to mind was "slippery." He became clearly identified with Labor's left in 1951 when he followed brash Aneurin Bevan out of Clement Attlee's Cabinet in protest against the plan to charge fees to patients of the free National Health Service. But three years later, when Bevan also quit Labor's national executive, Wilson happily took his place. In the 1960 debate over unilateral disarmament, Wilson aligned himself with the unilateralists against Shadow Prime Minister Hugh Gaitskell. Then, after Gaitskell's death in 1963, Wilson won party leadership by blandly promising to pursue Gaitskell's policies--even those he had opposed.

Actually, Wilson was never a Bevanite or a unilateralist. His favorite word is "pragmatic," and on it he has built a way of political life--which is spelled success. The seeming twists and turns of his career, in Wilson's view, are merely the winding paths by which one ascends to the summit of power.

Betting on Disaster. Within hours of his receiving Queen Elizabeth's approval as Prime Minister last October, Wilson was faced with a problem he inherited from the Tories: how best to defend the pound, which was under heavy attack from all sides--at home because imports vastly exceeded exports, abroad because hard-eyed Zurich bankers and financiers ("gnomes" to Wilson) were betting that the pound would be devalued and were selling it short.

As Wilson himself later noted, he could have instantly devalued the pound and thrown the blame on Tory mismanagement. He even had a precedent: Attlee's first Labor government had devalued the pound in 1949. But devaluation would amount to a declaration of insolvency as well as a withdrawal into the concept of a "Little England" of no more political importance in the world than Sweden or Belgium.

Unhesitatingly, Wilson took the tougher road. At a conference at 10 Downing Street the morning after the election, he discussed the options with new Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan and Minister of Economic Affairs George Brown. Devaluation was rejected. Instead, Labor produced a plan calling for a 15% surcharge on imports and higher taxes on gasoline and incomes. When these measures failed to stem the developing run on sterling, Wilson summoned his Cabinet and again went over the options, from raising the bank rate to borrowing heavily abroad. In the end, Wilson did both, and Lord Cromer, Governor of the Bank of England, was a shrewd adviser as U.S. Treasury Under Secretary Robert Roosa and others rounded up a life-saving fund of $3 billion from key banks of the West.

The pound was safe for the moment, but after Christmas came another crisis. In a by-election for the supposedly safe Labor seat of Smethwick, Wilson's close friend and new Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker lost to a Tory. But Wilson was deaf to appeals that he hold a snap national election, arguing that this would undermine all that had been done to defend the pound. In effect, it would mean running out on the U.S. and the other allies who had come to Britain's aid. Wilson prevailed, and the assurance gained from the decision carried over into Parliament.

Shouts & Boos. For spectators, the House of Commons is far more fun than the U.S. Congress. Face to face on benches across a narrow aisle, supporters of the government and the Opposition tear into each other with shouts, boos, rudeness and savage wit until it seems as if the honorable members are on the point of coming to blows. In the House, Harold Wilson has been a smash success. He delights in appearing each Tuesday and Thursday to bat down hostile questions from the Opposition. He was eminently savage in his welcome of Peter Griffiths, the new Tory M.P. from Smethwick, who had beaten Gordon Walker in a campaign marked by the ugly slogan: "If you want a nigger neighbor, vote Labor." "A parliamentary leper!" cried Wilson, bringing thunderous Tory boos, repeated interruptions, and a torrent of national criticism.

Wilson rode out the storm, and dealt blow after calculated blow at Opposition Leader Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Sir Alec, the gifted amateur in politics from an eccentric family of Scottish aristocrats, had entered the Tory Cabinet in 1955 as Commonwealth Affairs Secretary, later to become Harold Macmillan's Foreign Secretary. Emerging as Macmillan's chosen Prime Minister, he inherited the handicaps of the Tories' last dreary months in office. He was great over sherry with small groups, able in delivering a set speech, and in opposition has proved himself a clever--and ruthless--operator in holding control of the Conservative leadership. But having specialized in foreign affairs, he is no match for Harold Wilson in other areas. Time after time, Wilson barrages him with the hard facts of Britain's old-fashioned industrial structure. Often Wilson reminds Sir Alec of the hot breath of younger Tories vying with one another to succeed him--such men as Reginald Maudling, Ted Heath and Iain Macleod --by insisting sarcastically in the House: "I will give way to the so-called leader of the Opposition, not to the candidates."

When Sir Alec rose to speak on the first Tory censure motion against the Labor government, Wilson heard him out, then gave the House an example of his elephantine memory. Home's speech, said Wilson acidly, "was taken from a Tory Central Office pamphlet, which I have here. He missed a rather neat point on page 45, I thought." Wilson's gibe was so effective that it went right by Home, who protested that he had not quoted anything from page 45. In recent weeks, Wilson has reduced the pressure on the theory that Home is the easiest Tory leader for Labor to cope with.

The Consensus. Wilson has been equally deft in dealing with dissidents in his own party--and there are a lot of them, since the Labor label stretches all the way from right-wingers to virtual Communists. Fifty leftist Laborites proposed a series of motions criticizing U.S. actions in South Viet Nam. In reply, Wilson eulogized those honorable members who "go to sleep at night, their cheeks flushed with that virtue which affects us all when we have signed motions--I have signed many motions"--and then added that they should give heed to other people "who are staying up long into the night on the telephone trying to achieve the very objective which, I am sure, was the main purpose of those who signed the motion."

Wilson's critics say he runs a one-man band. This is true, up to a point. At Cabinet meetings any minister can bring up any question, and discussion ranges freely while Wilson sucks on his pipe and listens. But when the time comes for decision, there is never a vote. Wilson simply declares, "The consensus is . . ." and that is that. Said one awed participant: "Sometimes a quite clear majority of the Cabinet is against it. But nobody dares to argue with a Prime Minister."

Tension at First. Yet his Cabinet appointments have generally worked well. When Wilson named Callaghan as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then put George Brown in the new post of Minister for Economic Affairs, the immediate result was tension between the two. Callaghan's job, after all, required him to keep a cautious eye on the cash available in the Treasury, and Brown's ministry was necessarily dedicated to expansion. Between them, Callaghan and Brown worked out most of the details of the austerity budget, and Brown has succeeded--on paper at least--in getting a considerable number of trade unions and employers to agree in principle to hold the line on wages and prices.

Michael Stewart, a virtual unknown who was hurriedly thrust into the post of Foreign Secretary in place of Gordon Walker, has proved a happy surprise.

Last week he was in the midst of an energetic tour of three Eastern European countries--Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Quiet, curious-minded, and with a quick grasp of affairs, Stewart, 58, has obviously matured in office and is now regarded as a darkhorse possibility for future Prime Minister. In Defense, Denis Healey has aimed his expertise at the tactical and technological aspects of the military. Roy Jenkins, after 16 years as a backbencher, was given the Aviation Ministry, where his most controversial task has been to wipe out the costly TSR 2 jet bomber. At first, Jenkins' ax was also aimed at the Anglo-French Concorde supersonic airliner. Wilson has since changed his mind about the Concorde, and Jenkins is engaged in exploring other Anglo-French aviation schemes as well. Wilson insists that the 20,000 workers thrown out of jobs by the termination of TSR 2 will fill jobs in labor-short factories elsewhere in the Midlands.

Shrewd Device. Brilliant Anthony Crosland, 46, as Education Minister, has the task of working vast changes in the social shape of Britain. Crosland hopes to persuade the exclusive public schools to take a much higher proportion of scholarship students, is determined to fulfill Labor's goal to rid education of the so-called "eleven-plus" examination that in state-run schools forces children apart at the age of eleven--the top group streaming off to the academically superior "grammar schools," and the rest going on to conventional secondary schools. He will also implement Wilson's decision to open no new universities for the next ten years and instead to pour money and talent into expanding the existing ones.

Though filling his Cabinet largely with right-wingers, Wilson of course had to make room for the left. In part, it was a shrewd device that served to silence some potentially vocal critics. He put Leftist Dick Crossman in charge of Housing, well aware that he knew little about this complex subject and would be kept too busy doing his homework to have any time for intraparty politicking. The same theory influenced his handing the Ministry of Technology to burly Frank Cousins, a former Ban-the-Bomber and ex-general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers Union. No Cabinet post, but a respectful parliamentary secretaryship went to Jennie Lee, 60, widow of the late Nye Bevan.

Wilson, under pressure from his left wing and fearful of nuclear proliferation, was determined to head off the U.S.-sponsored multilateral force. It was on this urgent mission that he made his first trip to the U.S. as British leader. He half expected a rebuff from Lyndon Johnson; instead Johnson promptly agreed to postpone the whole idea, to Wilson's enormous relief.

The next foray abroad was to Bonn for talks with Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, a free-market economist with scant affection for socialists. Wilson was attentive, polite and respectful toward German dreams of reunification, a hard line toward Moscow, and the recovery of the lands lost to Poland. Wilson did much to soften the traditional anti-German image of the Labor Party, and Erhard was considerably charmed. Britain's new leader returned home with a German promise to buy more British goods to help offset the sterling drain that results from maintenance of the British army on the Rhine.

A month later, Wilson made the more formidable visit to Paris to sit beneath Charles de Gaulle's lofty eye. Wilson well knew that le grand Charles had made life miserable for his Tory predecessors, from frustrating Britain's entry into the Common Market to his contemptuous dismissal of London as a U.S. puppet. The new Prime Minister was pleased to discover he could hold up his end in a dialogue with De Gaulle. Since Wilson has no immediate interest in joining the Common Market, a big hurdle was passed. De Gaulle, in his oracular style, let it be known that he found Wilson "intelligent."

Next, Wilson flew the Atlantic again and delivered a cocky, confident speech to New York's Economic Club, and then went to Washington for a brief but harmonious meeting with President Johnson. Unlike other recent visitors, Wilson did not offer to tell Johnson what he was doing wrong in Southeast Asia. Instead, there was complete agreement that the U.S. would stand fast in Viet Nam as would Britain in Malaysia. A top U.S. official said frankly, "Wilson's standing has been enhanced here. He's in command of the situation at home. He's on the upcurve of his political fortunes."

Steel Ahead. It was evident last week that Harold Wilson was certainly an odd sort of socialist, one able to beguile a French autocrat, a German burgher and a millionaire Texan. Actually Wilson is more Methodist than Marxist, and even if he wanted to nationalize everything in sight, he would be hard put to find many sizable industries that the British government does not already have a hand in. It is a fact of British life that after 13 years of Conservative rule, one of every four houses in the country is owned by public authorities, 90% of British students receive either state-provided or state-aided education, and fully 23% (compared to 8% in the U.S.) of the workers and professional men are employed by either national or local government.

The plan to nationalize steel to be announced this week involves twelve huge firms that manufacture about 85% of the nation's production. Included would be such giants as Dorman, Long & Co., Stewarts & Lloyds, and the Steel Co. of Wales. This partial takeover is a departure from Labor's brief experiment in 1951, when it attempted to buy up all steel-producing firms, large and small. Even so, the cost of compensation is expected to nick the government some $5.6 billion.

Steel was returned to private hands by the Conservatives when they came back to power, and it will be no easy task to renationalize it. Harold Wilson is playing it cautiously by publishing this week's White Paper describing his plan before coming forward with an actual bill. There is good reason for this unusual procedure. By calling for a vote on the White Paper, which is likely to come within the next two weeks, he could shrug off defeat as not important enough to warrant resignation of his government--then trim the terms of his steel nationalization plans so as to win over the two or three marginal votes needed to carry his slim margin when the vote comes on the actual bill itself. Inevitably, the cry "slippery" rose again as Wilson pushed ahead with sly tactics.

Will the steel issue provoke the election everyone has been talking about? Many of Wilson's own colleagues have been urging him to go to the country for the greatly increased majority they are sure he could win. But the way things stand, official spokesmen for each side claim they want no vote right now. The Tories are in almost total disarray, convinced that they cannot win with Home but fearing to oust him because Wilson might call a snap election before they can build up a new leader. Polls show that Labor would probably win a hefty majority, but Wilson leaves the impression that he has his own pragmatic reasons for not going to the country. His theory: the British people are fed up with politics and want government to get on with its job. He is also pragmatically sure that the best way to ensure that his opposition remains weak and divided is to keep them in suspense about what he will do next. It is interesting that, for all Wilson's disclaimers, at least five of his aides believe he just might go to the country in June.

According to Wilson, British socialism is different from the Continental brand because it is rooted in distinctively British ideas and institutions. The old socialism, founded on the worker's hatred of his working conditions, long hours and low pay, seems no longer relevant to Wilson. As the battle against exploitation has diminished, Wilson sees a more appropriate role for socialism in the application of technology and modern management to industry in order to rid it of muddle, disorganization and drift.

As a Labor Prime Minister, Harold Wilson has some hard words for British businessmen--who often are indifferent to tax write-offs for new equipment, which, under Wilson's brand of socialism, are as lenient as anywhere in the world. Wilson has words for the loyal trade-union workingman as well, decrying the attitude that loses export orders through featherbedding.

Wider than Ever. All the political barometers suggest that Harold Wilson is likely to hold office for some time. He is, after all, a surprising as well as pragmatic socialist, who has sought that popular path--the middle of the road. In office, the Tories became considerably less conservative than had been their wont. In fact, on both sides extremism is in swift decline. The Ban-the-Bombers have all but faded from the political scene. So have the hidebound Tories and harrumphing Colonel Blimps.

As in the U.S., the middle-of-the-road position spreads wider than ever and is reflected in both parties. During the Conservatives' long reign, they began by denationalizing steel but left untouched the nationalization of transport, coal, communications, medicine and airlines. And, though Wilson now seeks to nationalize steel again, it is less in the name of socialism than of efficiency. What Wilson wants, and what wins him wide support, is to solve the overriding problem of bringing Britain up to date.

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