Labor Pains

From the corridor outside the committee room in the House of Commons, the sound of muffled shouts and strident interjections suggested a pitched battle. But it was only a meeting of 253 Laborite M.P.s, debating whether Hugh Gaitskell should be re-elected leader of Britain's Labor Party.

Gaitskell was indeed battling for his political life. At the Labor Party conference at Scarborough last month, Gait-skell's foes had rammed through a resolution endorsing unilateral nuclear disarmament for Britain. Defiantly, Gaitskell, a determined supporter of NATO, refused to accept the vote as official Labor policy or as binding on him, argued that only the party's elected representatives in Par-- liament could finally speak for the Labor Party. He insisted that the "Parliamentary Party," which is British shorthand for all Labor Members of Parliament, still backed him and his policy of maintaining the nuclear deterrent in alliance with the U.S. and NATO.

His challenger was Harold Wilson, chancellor in Gaitskell's "Shadow Cabinet." At 44, "Little Harold" (as he is known in political chatter to differentiate him from "Big Harold" Macmillan) is rated the brightest but most nakedly ambitious of Labor's younger generation. Though he opposes unilateral disarmament as vigorously as Gaitskell himself does (in fact, he helped write Gaitskell's pro-NATO defense plank). Little Harold saw a chance for political advancement in the unilateralist rebellion, offered himself as leader on a vague program of compromise. But when the moment came, the usually glib Wilson stumbled. "A bad case badly put," sighed one disapproving Laborite. When the votes were counted last week, Gaitskell had defeated Wilson 166 to 81. Relaxing, the M.P.s greeted the results with a full minute of applause.

The shattered party then adjourned its fight to Parliament, where Unilateralist Sydney Silverman warned Rab Butler, Conservative House leader, that Gaitskell "doesn't speak for his party in defense matters." Happily, Butler agreed that the Tories would take into account whatever "Hydra-headed arrangements may emerge." Their tempers already short from the intraparty fight, leftist Labor M.P.s exploded last week when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced that Britain had agreed to allow the U.S. to use the port of Holy Loch on Scotland's Firth of Clyde as a base for Polaris submarines. In describing the agreement, Macmillan stretched things a bit by promising that the submarines would never fire their Polaris missiles without "fullest possible consultations." The U.S. State Department kept politely mum, but unnamed U.S. officials leaked to reporters the fact that there was no guarantee of consultations if some emergency required instant reaction. Britain's Foreign Secretary, the Earl of Home, hastily explained that Macmillan had actually meant "consultations wherever possible," and Defense Minister Harold Watkinson added that, at least within territorial waters, "our control is absolute."

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