Britain

For nearly 21 years after his resignation as Prime Minister in 1963, he abjured all titles, preferring to remain just plain "Mr." But on his 90th birthday Harold Macmillan finally gave in to the repeated entreaties of Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and three weeks later, on Feb. 29, 1984, he was introduced into the House of Lords. He chose the title Earl of Stockton, after the working-class district in northern England that he had once represented as a Conservative Member of Parliament. Last week the Great Commoner, as he liked to be known to the end, died after a brief illness, at the age of 92. His death symbolized the passing of an era in British politics in which dedication to duty by privileged and talented men was combined with a tradition of fellowship and even of a sense of fun.

The ceremony at which Macmillan accepted the peerage was tinged with sadness. Robed in resplendent red with ermine trim, he seemed to personify Britain's decline as a great power. He stood frail and trembling, an aging lion leaning on a walking stick concealed beneath his robes. When it came time for him to affix his signature to the act of his ennoblement, Macmillan fumbled and had to be guided. Then, straight and firm, he held the paper containing the oath close to his failing eyes and read his pledge in a clear, ringing voice: "I Harold, Earl of Stockton, do swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty . . . "

Macmillan came to power during a brief but crucial episode in British history. In 1956 Britain and France invaded Egypt in response to Cairo's nationalization of the Suez Canal. But the British soon withdrew, confronted by the Eisenhower Administration's objections to the operation and a rising tide of criticism at home. In so doing, they also had to face a fact that they had resisted until then: the sun had set on the British Empire. After Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned, ostensibly for health reasons, the Conservative Party chose Macmillan, a veteran politician, as his replacement.

Macmillan had first been elected to the House of Commons in 1924. During World War II, Winston Churchill dispatched him to North Africa as Minister- Resident at Dwight Eisenhower's Allied headquarters. In the 1950s he held a succession of Cabinet positions, including Minister of Defense, Foreign Secretary, and, just before going to 10 Downing Street, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Setting out to restore the "special relationship" between Britain and the U.S., Macmillan liked to remind everyone that his mother was an American. He established a close rapport with President Eisenhower and later with President John F. Kennedy, who called him frequently during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. "I was a sort of son to Ike," Macmillan explained, "and it was the other way round with Kennedy."

Macmillan gradually began reversing Churchill's famous adage, "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." Macmillan's policy of accelerating independence for Britain's colonies was embodied in what was perhaps his most influential speech. "The wind of change is blowing through this continent," he told a hostile South African parliament in 1960. "Whether we like it or not, this growth of ((African)) national consciousness is a political fact."

In 1959, Supermac, as the press had taken to calling him, rode a crest of British prosperity to a resounding victory at the polls. Over the next four years, however, inflation and unemployment rose, while the economy stagnated. ; In addition, Macmillan's government was rocked by scandal when it was revealed that Secretary of State for War John Profumo was involved with a young "party girl" who was also sharing her favors with a Soviet naval attache. "It was a storm in a teacup," Macmillan later remarked, "but in politics, we sail in paper boats." A prostate ailment forced Macmillan to resign as Prime Minister in 1963. He left Parliament a year later, explaining, "When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away."

Yet Macmillan remained active in retirement. While attending to the family business (the prestigious Macmillan Publishers Ltd.), he managed to produce six volumes of memoirs. He was awarded the Order of Merit, one of Britain's most coveted honors, in 1976. In an interview with the BBC in October 1983, Macmillan showed that he still possessed one of the sharpest wits in British politics. He suggested that Thatcher should not become too worried about inflation, not work too hard and not read the newspapers. He also advised her not to take herself too seriously.

But in his final years Macmillan concluded that Thatcherism was no laughing matter. From 1984 on, the Tory mandarin made several speeches critical of Thatcher's brand of conservatism. Her program of privatization was the political equivalent of selling off the family silver, Macmillan said, and her confrontational style was inappropriate at a time when Britain needed a "wartime spirit of national unity."

The former Prime Minister was saddened by a controversy that erupted in the last year of his life. At issue was whether Macmillan, while serving as a British representative in the Central Mediterranean region immediately after World War II, had ordered more Soviet and Yugoslav refugees returned to their countries, where they faced imprisonment or even execution, than had been called for in the Yalta agreement. While Macmillan never fully explained his role in the affair, he took full responsibility for his actions.

Macmillan was remarkable among his contemporaries for his great sense of camaraderie, acquired as a soldier during the slaughter on the Somme in World War I. He was fond of quoting a stanza written by British Poet Hilaire Belloc that neatly summed up his credo:

From quiet homes and first beginning,

Out to the undiscovered ends,

There's nothing worth the wear of winning,

But laughter and the love of friends.