A Question of Character

British Prime Minister Harold Wil son has never been noted for excessive chivalry toward opponents--or subordinates. But rarely has Wilson stirred as much angry reaction among both Labor colleagues and Tory opponents as he did with his bitter attack upon the character and conduct of Colonel Leslie ("Sammy") Lohan, the civil servant in charge of governmental press relations on all questions touching national security.

The affair began four months ago, when Chapman Pincher, defense correspondent for the Daily Express, published an article claiming that thousands of cables sent out of England by private citizens were regularly being made available to the security authorities for scrutiny. No sooner had the story appeared than Wilson accused the Express of ignoring two "D Notices"--government memorandums requesting newspapers not to publish specific items of secret information in the interests of national security. Nonsense, replied Express Editor Derek Marks, there was no D Notice involved. Every paper on Fleet Street echoed his scorn.

Unanimous Censure. With Wilson pitted against the press, the argument was not about to die down. But in an effort to cool it, the Prime Minister appointed three privy councilors to a committee of inquiry. He was soon sorry. Two weeks ago, the committee filed its report. Wilson, it said, was wrong. Another man might have apologized and let the matter drop. The Prime Minister did neither. Having failed to indict the Express, he simply switched his attack to Sammy Lohan. He issued a White Paper accusing the longtime civil servant of not having tried hard enough to stop publication by the Express, and of failing to warn his superiors in time that Pincher's article was about to be published.

Reaction to the White Paper was swift and vehement. Lohan resigned and the press was once more unanimous in its censure of Wilson. "I cannot recall ever seeing such a wholehearted condemnation of a Prime Minister's action," said second-ranking Tory Reginald Maudling. "Mr. Wilson certainly asked for it. It is one of his more unlovable char acteristics that he is never prepared to admit he is wrong."

Parliamentary Footwork. Unmoved, Wilson went to the House of Commons and demanded that his White Paper be approved by a vote of confidence. Since he was under attack, he said, rather than follow the usual Prime Minister's procedure of opening the debate, he would end it. By that neat bit of parliamentary footwork, he assured himself the last word. When he took the floor, he repeated his accusations. Lohan and Pincher had been much too friendly, he said. Then he recalled that Lohan had been the subject of a security check back in 1964. There was no time left for questions, and Wilson won a strictly party-line vote of confidence.

In one of the angriest editorials it has printed in years, the Times of London asked: "If Colonel Lohan was cleared, why refer to the inquiry? If it found against him, then how did he remain in his post until 1967?" Against tactics like Wilson's, said the Times, "so pitiless, so adroit, so lacking in scruple, so strongly enhanced by the authority of a Prime Minister's office, no man's character is safe."

At week's end, Opposition Leader Ted Heath and former Tory Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home went to 10 Downing Street to study the security file on Sammy Lohan before they decide how best to press the case against Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

*Starring Bert Lahr (right), at Michigan's Ypsilanti Greek Theater last year.

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