The Prime Backbencher

The curtain rang up on the final act of Winston Churchill's long and dramatic career last week. Even a statesman with his great flair for drama could have asked for no more effective tableau. There at stage center, its polished brass numerals gleaming in the lamplight of London's Downing Street, was the famed, ebon-black door marked "10." Choking the narrow street but held back to a respectful distance by alert bobbies were crowds of Londoners whose suspenseful interest in the drama was drawn taut by the lack of printed news caused by a newspaper strike (see PRESS). At 8:30 a spatter of rain caught the crowd's attention, for a moment, and just then, a bobby stepped up to the closed door. He knocked lightly to herald the approach of royalty, just turning the corner in a huge red-and-black Rolls. Instantly the historic door was flung open, and out of it, just behind his tiaraed wife, stepped Sir Winston Churchill, K.G.

Resplendent in silken knee breeches and the broad blue sash of the Garter, he bowed low, first to bestow a token kiss on the young sovereign's hand, and again before shaking hands with her husband, Prince Philip.

Then the scene shifted. The lights went up and the stage expanded to reveal the glittering, oak-paneled prime ministerial dining room inside. Portraits of Wellington, Nelson, Pitt and Fox stared down from the walls as the guests took their seats. Garbed in full uniform or official court dress, some 50 of them were ranged along the U-shaped table. There were the bemedaled Generals Montgomery and Alexander, who had led great armies under Winston Churchill's direction during World War II. There was quiet, modest Clem Attlee, his longtime colleague and longtime opponent. There, gracious and smiling, was the widow of Neville Chamberlain, the prewar Prime Minister whose errors Churchill redeemed but never condemned. There, still patient and distinguished with years and honors in his own right, was the Churchillian heir apparent, Sir Anthony Eden, and his 34-year-old wife, Churchill's niece Clarissa. There, along with the beautiful young Queen to whom he had given counsel almost from infancy, were dukes, marquesses, viscounts, friends high and low, each as attentive and respectful as Elizabeth herself.

With These Credentials. In raising his glass to the young Queen, 80-year-old Sir Winston asked for forgiveness due an old man. "Having served in office or in Parliament under four sovereigns," he said, "I felt, with these credentials, that in asking Your Majesty's gracious permission to propose this toast, I should not be leading to the creation of a precedent which would often cause inconvenience.

"Madam, I should like to express the deep and lively sense of gratitude which we and all your peoples feel to you and to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh for all the help and inspiration we receive in our daily lives and which spreads with ever-growing strength throughout the British realm and the Commonwealth and Empire.

"We thank God for the gift He has bestowed upon us and vow ourselves anew to the sacred causes of which Your Majesty is the young, gleaming champion. The Queen."

Elizabeth, whose very presence at Downing Street was something of a shattering of precedent, was not averse to shattering another. After Churchill's speech, she herself rose and in a clear voice announced that she was about to do what few sovereigns had ever done before. "I propose the health of my Prime Minister," she said.

Outside in the dim street, the crowd waiting through this dazzling dinner at Downing Street speculated whether there would be any dramatic announcement that night. Next morning several hundred were still waiting and guessing. All morning they waited and talked, as the great men of the land went in and out the black door. By late afternoon there were more than 2,000 gawpers standing in the street. "I wish they'd tell us something," groused a photographer."! haven't eaten since last night."

Off to the Palace. The door opened and an office worker popped out. Everyone laughed from sheer nervousness. At 4:25 the door opened once more and out stepped Winston Churchill, in striped pants, frock coat and topper. There was a sparse cheer or two, then suddenly the street rocked with three huge, earsplitting cheers of acclaim. A slight, sad smile crinkled the Churchillian features for a moment. Then, clamping firmly on his cigar, the Prime Minister climbed into his car and headed for Buckingham Palace.

An hour later, after Churchill and Elizabeth talked alone, a palace bulletin made it official that "the Right Honorable Sir Winston Churchill has tendered his resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept." "Good old Winnie!" shouted the crowd at Downing Street once again when Churchill returned. The old man smiled through tear-dimmed eyes, raised his fingers in the victory sign and went inside. Soon afterward the street was nearly empty once again. That evening Churchill came out of the house once more, climbed into his car and drove to his doctor's for a checkup.

No Time for Obits. From far and wide next day the tributes poured in. Great contemporaries, heads of state, ancient enemies, old colleagues, distant admirers, journalists, historians, soldiers, statesmen and plain men in the street took to their typewriters, their telegraph pads, their microphones, their notepaper or simply the local pub to heap praise on a career that has seldom been matched.

Germany's 79-year-old Konrad Adenauer at first refused to believe the news that Churchill had quit. "All of us in the free world need his advice and will always seek it," he said.

"We shall never accept the thought that we are to be denied your counsel," said President Eisenhower.

In the spate of encomium, Churchill was compared with everything, from an endless cavalry charge to Leonardo da Vinci. As everyone tried his best to rise to the occasion--tempted, no doubt, by a wish to be as eloquent as Winston Churchill himself would have been--the London Economist was at last moved to remark that "Sir Winston Churchill is not dead. He has merely retired from the office of Prime Minister . . . The time has fortunately not yet come to write his obituary."

Back Bench & Goldfish. Sir Winston, reluctant to retire but aware that he must, refused to steal any more thunder from Anthony Eden by appearing in the House of Commons on the day Eden took over. But the back-bench seat (actually on the front bench), which he firmly intends to hang onto, was standing ready and vacant for him. "The House has today lost one of the greatest frontbenchers in all its history," said Tory Walter Elliot, "but the backbenchers have gained the greatest backbencher of all times."

While such tributes were being sounded in a chamber still vibrant with his personality. Winston Churchill himself was busy entertaining the Downing Street staff at tea, snapping quips at parlormaids and secretaries alike, and preparing to go home to Kent.

When at last he was bundled, along with his poodle Rufus and his parakeet

Toby, into one of the two cars headed for Chartwell, tears stood once again in the old man's eyes. But by the time he reached his Kent home, the old Churchillian spirit was back to par. Some 30 villagers were on hand to meet him at the gate, and Churchill greeted them warmly. "Come on inside the grounds," he urged enthusiastically. "Come on, all of you, and have a look at my goldfish." The villagers swarmed in to take advantage of the invitation. "Yes," said Churchill, just before entering the house, "it's good to be home."

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