Changing of the Guard

Calmly and confidently, Britain's new Prime Minister took the torch from the old Titan's hand and prepared to carry on in his place. Sir Anthony Eden, 57, had waited patiently for the summons that he knew must come; the change had long been accepted as inevitable; the transition was smooth and speedy. Yet last week, when it did come, the replacement of their great Prime Minister struck Britons with all the suddenness of the sun going down behind Ben Nevis.

One moment Sir Winston Churchill was there in all his glory--venerable as Queen Victoria, familiar as Big Ben. Next moment, or so it seemed, the dauntless old figure had vanished, and Britain had the feeling that John Bull himself was gone. At 4:25 p.m., in the quiet of an April afternoon, 80-year-old Sir Winston Spencer Churchill put on his black frock coat and drove off to see the Queen.

Summons for Anthony. Next day Elizabeth sent for the tall, handsome greyheaded figure who had waited in the Foreign Office as Sir Winston drove to the palace. Top hat gleaming, Sir Anthony Eden drove along the Mall as the Scots Guards wheeled and stomped in the blaze of color and trumpets that is the changing of the palace guard. Approaching the iron gates, his chauffeur blinked the Humber's lights in a recognition signal. The sentries crashed their rifles in salute.

Eden's talk with the Queen lasted half an hour. At the end she clenched her fists and held them out before him, the right on top of the left, to symbolize the holding of the Sovereign's sword. Sir Anthony knelt and kissed them, thereby accepting the office of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.

Passion for Politics. The House of Commons that afternoon hummed with anticipation. The benches were packed tight, but on the government front bench no one sat in the place that in times past has been filled by Walpole, Chatham and Pitt, Wellington, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone and Churchill. Then, in the middle of question time, Britain's 43rd Prime Minister quickly picked his way over the outstretched feet of his sprawling ministers and subsided into Churchill's seat. The House cheered.

"We all wish the [new Prime Minister] health and strength," said ex-Prime Minister Clement Attlee in the course of a tribute to Churchill. "We cannot, of course, wish him a long tenure of office . . . but as a Mr. Young said to Lord Melbourne when that statesman was hesitating to accept the premiership: 'Why, damn it all . . . if it only last three months, it will be worthwhile to have been Prime Minister of England.'''

Eden stepped up to the dispatch box, flushed but serene. His first thought was for his old master, and he moved the House, as he rarely does, when he spoke of "my Right Honorable friend's courage," his magnanimity, his humor, and his "passion for the political life." "I enjoyed very much the Melbourne reflections," Eden added. "[Mr. Attlee] will not, however, have forgotten that Melbourne, although always talking of leaving office, contrived to stay there for a very long time indeed."*

Emphasis on Youth. Eden took to his new job as if he intended to keep it indefinitely. He moved into 10 Downing Street and briskly set about his first big task: forming a new Tory Cabinet, with himself at its head. All 18 ministers of the Churchill Cabinet had submitted their resignations, as tradition requires, but Eden accepted only one: that of 70-year-old Viscount Swinton, Secretary for Commonwealth Relations. To Swinton, who received an earldom, Sir Anthony confessed that "a Prime Minister is always confronted with difficult decisions between the claims of experience and youth." Eden plumped for youth. Principal changes:

P: Foreign Secretary, replacing Eden--Harold Macmillan (see box).

P: Minister of Defense, replacing Macmillan--John Selwyn Lloyd, 50 (B.A., Cambridge), who made his name as British delegate to the U.N. General Assembly, where he frequently took on (and often triumphed over) Andrei Vishinsky.

P: Minister of Supply, replacing Selwyn Lloyd--bouncy young Reginald Maudling, 38, (B.A., Oxford), a bespectacled financial wizard who was one of Chancellor Rab Butler's policy-framing "backroom boys."

Less Majesty, More Order. As Eden took over, there were messages of congratulations from President Eisenhower, Pope Pius XII, and Russia's Vyacheslav Molotov. Only left-wingers carped. "If he does possess genius," wrote Aneurin Bevan of the new Prime Minister, "it is for the minute details of diplomatic intercourse . . . The broad strategy is beyond his scope."

Most Britons would be more inclined to share the Economist's view of the changeover: "One compensation for the loss of a certain majesty in our affairs may be the gain of more order in them." In place of Churchill's one-man rule, Eden, who leans towards committee rule, seems likely to make his biggest decisions in consultation with his two chief ministers: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rab Butler, and Foreign Secretary Macmillan. First big problem this triumvirate must face: when to hold a general election.

The present Parliament's term still has over a year to run, but with a bare majority of 20, and a new and untried Prime Minister, the Tories feel the need to renew their popular mandate. They also hope to win for these main reasons:

P: The government can still cash in on Britain's current prosperity.

P: The Treasury has a fine surplus, more than $1 billion, and come budget day next week, Chancellor Butler may be in a strong position to make vote-catching cuts in the income tax.

P: The Labor opposition's feud over Rebel Aneurin Bevan has damaged its election prospects.

P: Prospects of Big Four talks later this year give Eden a fine opportunity to appeal to the country for a chance to continue his "successes" at the London and Paris Conferences.

Tory Democracy. Reluctant to risk his premiership so soon after waiting for it so long, Eden was nonetheless reported sympathetic to a quick election, possibly May 26 or June 16. Before then, he hopes, the new Cabinet will dig itself in and prove its competence. There will be no dramatic changes in British policy, either at home or abroad. The big names of the Eden Cabinet, notably Macmillan and the tough-minded Marquess of Salisbury, who is staying on as Lord President of the Council, share a warm though hardheaded friendliness towards the U.S.

At home, the Eden government plans to keep the welfare state and maintain full employment. "Any economist who talks of pools of unemployment should be thrown in and made to swim in one," says Chancellor Butler flatly. But Eden and Butler both expect to pay more attention to "Tory democracy," meaning tax cuts to stimulate investment, slum clearance by private builders, better roads and railroads.

"We all know quite well," said the new Prime Minister, "that whenever [Sir Winston] returns to us from his holidays, he will still be the dominating figure among us." Yet the House sensed with Sir Anthony that Churchill's resignation marked the end of an epic span in British political history, and the beginning of a new political era.

*Seven years.

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