Under the managed transition of the British Empire to the Commonwealth of Nations, members of the British government, such as Harold Macmillan, liked to think of Britain's relationship with America as similar to that of a progenitor Greece to America's Rome.

Hugh Gaitskell died in January 1963, aged 56, after a sudden flare of Lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, just as the Labour Party had begun to unite and appeared to have a good chance of being elected to government, with the Macmillan government running into trouble.

Wilson's 1964 election campaign was aided by the Profumo Affair, a 1963 ministerial sex scandal that had mortally wounded the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan and was to taint his successor Sir Alec Douglas-Home, even though Home had not been involved in the scandal.

An entry attempt had been issued in July 1961 by the Macmillan government, and negotiated by Edward Heath as Lord Privy Seal, but was vetoed in 1963 by French President Charles de Gaulle.

Consequentially the paper opposed Macmillan ’ s government ’ s re-election in 1959, complaining: " The continued Conservative pretence that Suez was a good, a noble, a wise venture has been too much to stomach … the Government is taking its stand on a solid principle: ' Never admit a mistake.

He held his first government posts under Harold Macmillan as a Lord of the Treasury ( government whip ) between 1961 and 1962 and under Macmillan and then Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour between 1962 and 1964.

In the Second World War Macmillan at last attained office, serving in the wartime coalition government as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply from 1940 to 1942.

Macmillan attained real power and Cabinet rank upon being sent to North Africa in 1942 as British government representative to the Allies in the Mediterranean, reporting directly to Prime Minister Winston Churchill over the head of the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.

Macmillan returned to England after the European war and was Secretary of State for Air for two months in Churchill's caretaker government, ' much of which was taken up in electioneering ', there being ' nothing much to be done in the way of forward planning '.

Macmillan served as Foreign Secretary in April – December 1955 in the government of newly appointed prime minister Anthony Eden, who had taken over from the retiring Winston Churchill.

During the Suez Crisis, when Britain invaded Egypt in collusion with France and Israel, according to Labour leader Harold Wilson Macmillan was ' first in, first out ': first very supportive of the invasion, then a prime mover in Britain's humiliating withdrawal in the wake of the financial crisis caused by pressure from the U. S. government.

Macmillan also failed to heed a warning from the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that whatever the British government did should wait until after the US presidential election on 6 November, and failed to report Dulles ' remarks to Eden.

Macmillan populated his government with many former Etonians: he filled government posts with 35, 7 of whom sat in Cabinet.

Macmillan also saw the value of rapprochement with the EEC, to which his government sought belated entry.

The audacity and scale of the robbery was yet another controversy with which the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan had to cope.

The scandal, now known as the Profumo Affair, led to Profumo's resignation and withdrawal from politics, and it may have helped to topple the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.

Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair.

Mandy Rice-Davies ( born 21 October 1944 ), is a British former model and showgirl best known for her role in the Profumo affair and her association with Christine Keeler, which discredited the Conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963.

Macmillan, concerned that public confidence in the nuclear programme might be shaken and that technical information might be misused by opponents of defence co-operation in the US Congress, withheld all but the summary of a report into the Windscale fire prepared for the Atomic Energy Authority by Sir William Penney, director of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.

* Syphilis, Puritanism and Witch-hunts ( 1989, Macmillan Press, Ltd., London ) Includes an appendix on the lessons one might apply from this history to the AIDS epidemic.

In April 1935, Harold Latham of Macmillan, an editor who was looking for new fiction, read what she had written and saw that it could be a best-seller.

Keynes's relationship and later close friendship with Macmillan was to be fortuitous ; through Dan, Macmillan & Co first published his Economic Consequences of the Peace.

Macmillan then attended Summer Fields School, Oxford ( 1903 – 6 ), but his time at Eton College ( 1906 – 10 ) was blighted by recurrent illness, starting with a near-fatal attack of pneumonia in his first half ; he missed his final year after being invalided out, and had to be taught at home by private tutors ( 1910 – 11 ), notably Ronald Knox, who did much to instil his High Church Anglicanism.

As was common for contemporary former officers, he continued to be known as ' Captain Macmillan ' until the early 1930s.

Macmillan believed that one way to encourage such co-operation would be for the United Kingdom to speed up the development of its own hydrogen bomb, which was successfully tested on 8 November 1957.

Macmillan felt that if the costs of holding onto a particular territory outweighed the benefits then it should be dispensed with.

' Even when insulted to his face attending the show ,' a biographer notes, ' Macmillan felt it was better to be mocked than ignored.

Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke would be lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues.

Macmillan had already gone by then, having resigned in October 1963 to be succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home.

The Conservative Party had, however, been suffering a decline in popularity for some time before the Profumo Affair, which could be traced back to the failed application to join the European common market and the Night of the Long Knives in July 1962, which had seen Macmillan dismiss seven members of his cabinet in an attempt to restore the government's popularity.

Macmillan agreed with Heathcoat-Amory that the best successor at the Treasury would be the current Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd.

Macmillan responded that an accident of birth should not be allowed to deny him the services of " the best man for the job – the man I want at my side ".

Macmillan quickly came to the view that Home would be the best choice as his successor, and gave him valuable behind-the-scenes backing.

The injunction was obtained by Macmillan Bloedel Ltd .' s logging operations at the Kennedy Lake Bridge, near Clayoquot Sound, stating that no public interference was to be allowed in the areas that MacMillan Bloedel logging operation was working on.

" Macmillan added, " He would never tolerate anything that would be contrary to what he clearly understood the Bible to teach.

The existence of this provision soon proved to be of importance at the highest levels of British politics, following the resignation of Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister in October 1963.

A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet under three Prime Ministers ( Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher ), and is widely regarded to have been the " power behind the throne " in the creation of what came to be known as " Thatcherism ".

* Edward Seaga: Shaping History: Hard Road to Travel ”, Volume 2, Macmillan Publishers, ( to be published, 2010 ).

' Even so, Kennedy assured Macmillan ‘ that relations between the United States and the UK would be strengthened not weakened, if the UK moved towards membership .’

Margaret Thatcher chose not to include any representation of Her Majesty's Treasury on the advice of Harold Macmillan, that the security and defence of the armed forces and the war effort should not be compromised for financial reasons.

According to The New York Times, Macmillan and other major publishers " fear that massive discounting e-books by retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony could ultimately devalue what consumers are willing to pay for books.