The Prime Minister Sues

In the U.S., a journalist may freely discuss the activities of a public official so long as he takes reasonable care to report the facts accurately and his intent is not malicious. In Britain, the libel laws are so strict, so narrowly drawn and so rigidly applied, that what American editors consider good sound reporting can be a clear invitation to a lawsuit.

Last week Prime Minister Harold Wilson filed suit against an American-owned newspaper that is distributed but not published in Britain--the International Herald Tribune, edited and printed in Paris. The offending column, written by Flora Lewis, appeared the same day as an unrelated wire service story reporting that Wilson had won an out-of-court settlement from The Move, a rock 'n' roll group. To promote a new record, the group had circulated a postcard showing Wilson nude on a bed with a woman labeled "Harold's very personal secretary." Wilson won an apology plus more than $30,000, which he donated to charity.

Deserved Contempt. The Lewis column over which Wilson sued did, in fact, take a lot of liberties. It appeared under a headline reading THE OTHER WOMAN IN THE LIFE OF HAROLD WILSON, with a picture of Wilson, Mrs. Wilson and his personal political secretary, Mrs. Marcia Williams. Miss Lewis wrote that "during the Profumo scandal, the Tories' Quintin Hogg nearly brought the House down when he tried to defend Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, saying he didn't understand the fuss about Profumo's private life, since there were 'adulterers on the Opposition front bench.' That was the closest anyone has come in public to making an extraprofessional link between Mrs. Williams and her boss, though the snide cracks have been going around again lately."

In the suit against the rock 'n' rollers, Wilson was represented by none other than Quintin Hogg, who announced that "the Prime Minister has for some years been aware that various false and malicious rumors have been spread concerning his personal character and integrity. He has always considered it right to treat them with the contempt they deserved." Now, said Hogg, Wilson wanted to "make plain his determination to establish the complete falsity of these rumors."

In reporting the Prime Minister's suit against the International Herald Tribune, British newspapers were compelled to be even more oblique. All the Daily Telegraph felt able to say, for example, was that the "Prime Minister's solicitors confirm that, when in New York on other matters," Wilson's counsel, Lord Goodman, "agreed to attend a meeting of lawyers to discuss the possibility of disposing by agreed settlement the serious legal complaint made by the Prime Minister against an international publication."

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