JAMES HAROLD WILSON (UNITED KINGDOM)

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06790968
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: September 4, 2019
• Case Number: F-2018-02307
• Publication Date: September 1, 1965

Approved for Release: 2019/07/31 C06790968
UNITED KINGDOM
Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury
James Harold WILSON
Harold Wilson at 48 became the youngest British Prime Minister in
this century when the Labor Party won a narrow victory in the October
1964 election. Party leader only since February 1963, he successfully
united Labor's diverse elements within a few months, bringing it back in-
to power after 13 years in opposition. He Showed the same managerial
skill in his government appointments, placing "moderates" in key cabinet
posts, and assigning safe spots to "leftists." Labor's slim majority
in Parliament and the serious British economic situation have forced
Wilson to keep in abeyance much of his party's program to reform and
reshape basic national policies and institutions. His support of the
US action in Vietnam, and the essentially conservative measures he has
taken to deal with Britain's problems have cost him Labor support,
particularly from the left wing, and he now faces a more aggressive
Conservative leadership. Wilson appears confident that the Labor Party
can continue to govern, and predicts that the year ahead will see the
breakthrough to a just and powerful Socialist Britain.
A former economics don and statistician, Wilson has a brilliant
mind, organizational ability, debating skill and a cutting wit, and un-
usual political acumen. Since he entered Parliament in 1945, he has held
a series of important posts: President of the Board of Trade in the
Attlee Government (1947-51); Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (1955-61);
and Shadow Foreign Secretary (1961-63). While always a hero to the more
militant local Labor Parties, he was not personally popular with the
Labor MP's but was respected for his talents. The center and right wing
in particular accused him of overweening ambition, opportunism, deviousness,
and shifting political loyalties. Most damaging was his lack of support
for Gaitskell (then party leader) during the bitter intra-party fights
over nationalization and defense policies, plus Wilson's subsequent bid
for the leadership in 1960. He was elected party leader after Gaitskell's
death apparently because he was the only Labor MP with the necessary
qualities for a potential prime minister. Although he has "flirted" with
the left, Wilson is not a doctrinaire socialist. He is above all a
pragmatist, well aware of the realities of power. His commitment to close
Anglo-US relations is not based solely on sentiment. Wilson has made
many trips to the US (both in and out of Office), and Moscow, and in 1958
visited Peiping.
The son of an industrial chemist, Harold Wilson was born on 11 March
1916 in Yorkshire, won scholarships to secondary schools and to Jesus
College, Oxford, where he had a brilliant academic record. He taught
economics at his university until World War II when he was drafted into
the Civil Service. Raised as a Congregationalist, Wilson is a man of simple
tastes and habits, and takes little interest in ordinary social life,
music or the arts. Married in 1940, he has two sons.
September 1965
Approved for Release: 2019/07/31 C06790968