Sir Anthony Eden: The Man Who Waited

WHEN Sir Anthony Eden takes over as Prime Minister of Great Britain, he will be, at 57, one of the youngest of the world's political leaders, but by no means a youngster in the long roster of British Prime Ministers.* Anthony Eden has aged considerably since his gall bladder operations in 1953, but despite his silver-grey hair, tired eyes and furrowed forehead, he still wears a boyish air. Yet, when Dwight Eisenhower was an army major in the Philippines, Khrushchev an obscure bureaucrat, Nehru a revolutionary in jail and Mao Tse-tung an outlaw in the Shensi hills, the youthful Mr. Eden was parleying at the summit with Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.

Born to Rule. Thirty years an M.P., twelve a Cabinet minister, he is Britain's best-informed diplomat, its most seasoned negotiator. Yet his career has been a narrow one that lacks the human breadth of a Churchill's, a Truman's, or an Eisenhower's. Eden has seldom strayed beyond the polished confines of Westminster and Whitehall, and his public sense does not derive from an easy personal acquaintance with the common man. Far more, it is an inbred instinct, the product of Eden's membership in that unique class of Englishmen who are bred to rule.

The Edens come of Norman stock, and as far back as the 15th century one lusty Robert de Eden carved out a fiefdom close to the Scottish border. Charles II made Sir Robert Eden a baronet in 1672. The family, though seldom conspicuous, won acceptance in the gilded circle of the aristocracy through its large landholdings and its far-flung marriage alliances. Through his mother, Sybil Frances Grey, Sir Anthony is connected with the Earls of Westmoreland, and the Mowbrays, Dukes of Norfolk. His young second wife, Clarissa, is the niece of Sir Winston Churchill.

The Eden family seat for 400 years was Windlestone Hall, a porticoed ocher pile surrounded by lawns, lake and a line of wind-blown beeches, 254 miles north of London. Anthony Eden was born there in June 1897, the third son of irascible Sir William Eden, an eccentric country gentleman who detested children and barking dogs with equal enthusiasm. At Eton, Anthony played a straight bat and pulled a respectable oar; then, like so many of Britain's public-school boys of his day, he went off to fight in Flanders.

Lost Generation. Of the 28 members of Eden's Middle Fourth at Eton, nine were killed. With them died the flower of a generation, including two of Eden's brothers, Timothy and Nicholas.* Anthony, who joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps, at 19 became the youngest adjutant in the British army. In the mud of Ypres, he crawled out under the wire and brought back a wounded sergeant under a hail of German fire. He won Britain's Military Cross. Part of his subsequent appeal to the British electorate stems from Eden's status as one of "the lost generation"--those gallant young schoolboys whom fate and the nostalgic poetry of Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen transformed into tragic legend. Years later, in Berlin, Eden was to refight the grim Battle of the Somme on the back of a menu provided by an Austrian-born corporal named Hitler, who had served opposite Eden's outfit.

Sense of the House. Postwar Oxford in the early '20s found mustachioed Captain Eden a serious young man, diffident and withdrawn. "He was one of the quiet ones," a college servant recalls. Eden collected modern paintings, walked off with first class honors in Persian and Arabic. On one occasion during World War II, he startled a regiment of Turkish regulars by addressing them in their own vernacular.

From Oxford, Eden soon moved to the "safe" Tory seat of Warwick and Leamington. He won it handily and has held it ever since, making his campaign headquarters in famed old Warwick Castle. The dignity, dullness and mastery of the commonplace that Britons expect of their M.P.s came to him naturally; soon he was possessed of that mysterious but vital quality which M.P.s call "a sense of the House."

A Matter of Principle. Eden's good looks, quick mind and influential connections came to the attention of Stanley Baldwin. Promoted to Foreign Secretary at the age of 38 (the youngest man to hold the office for almost a century), Eden made the picture pages as the Homburg-hatted glamor boy. As Europe tilted towards war, his earnestness won him a title that was half-admiring, half-contemptuous: "This formidable young man who loves peace so terribly." Then one February day in 1938, Eden told Neville Chamberlain: "There has been too keen a desire on our part to make terms with others rather than that others should make terms with us . . . I do not believe . . . in appeasement."

Eden's resignation made him the hero of the hour (though others since have unkindly said he had almost to be pushed into resigning). But he did not follow through: he was too loyal and too well-mannered to challenge his chief publicly, as Chamberlain pushed on to the folly of Munich. Eden kept his objections to himself, while the Nazis and Fascists gloated over the political passing of "Lord Eyelashes." But Churchill at least understood and mourned the lost opportunity. "There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender . . . Now he was gone. I watched the daylight creep slowly in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death."

The Alter Ego. The vision came to pass, and Churchill, proven right, was the man to grapple with it. He sent for Anthony Eden, and during World War II there grew up a phenomenon unique in English political life: the Churchill-Eden partnership. Back at the Foreign Office, Eden was the P.M.'s friend, his faithful alter ego ("We thought alike even without consultation," wrote Churchill gratefully). He designated "dear Anthony" as his heir apparent, and together they weathered the Tories' postwar exile from the government bench. Eden's chief role was to act as mediator between the Old Tories and the impetuous young Turks who were coming to the fore. He was always a better party man than Churchill.

Diplomatic Miracle. Since the Tories returned to power in 1951, Eden's stature has grown steadily. He is not a man of power by instinct or by character, and for too long he has lived in the shade of the great Churchillian oak. Eden has had to conquer a painful shyness and a distaste for the rough and tumble of Tory politics. After a typical Eden speech, delivered with its customary earnestness. Winston Churchill once grumped: "My God, he used every cliche in the English language except 'God is love' and 'Gentlemen will please adjust their dress before leaving.' " But as an orator, Eden, though he casts no spells, conveys conviction.

He has the Englishman's dislike of moral passion in foreign affairs. The Foreign Office prides itself on its practicality and puts its faith in adjustments, not solutions. In the U.S., Eden's prestige hit a low point during last summer's Geneva conference. Three months later, John Foster Dulles gave him credit for "a diplomatic miracle," when by skillful flexibility and timing Eden put back together the Atlantic alliance after the death of EDC, and achieved the goal of West German rearmament through the Paris accords.

The Long Wait. Since then, Sir Anthony Eden has been waiting with impeccable good manners (and sometimes super-human patience) for Sir Winston Churchill to retire. The long wait has been a trial. Sometimes, in the midnight hours, Eden's phone would ring, and Churchill's voice would say: "I am very tired. I think you must get ready . . ." But in the morning the old man would change his mind again. Sometimes he got a puckish delight out of teasing Eden, and there have been times in recent months when Eden's respect for the "greatest living man," as he calls Sir Winston, has been severely taxed.

Sir Anthony is now ready, willing and able to take over the mantle of one whose fame he cannot hope to match but whose job, he is sure, he can fill. With the prize nearly within his grasp, Eden has visibly grown in assurance, authority and poise. The best years of his life may still be ahead.

*The young Pitt became George III's Prime Minister at 24. *Eden's elder son Simon, an R.A.F. navigator, was lost over Burma in World War II.

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