Harold Macmillan

United Kingdom state institutions Conservatism and Christian democracy United Kingdom United Kingdom 1894–1986 ○ Died

Conservative who ran the Allied Control Commission for Italy and, as prime minister after Suez, presided over African decolonisation

Seriously wounded as a Grenadier Guards officer in the First World War, he worked in his family's publishing firm, entered the Commons in 1924 and opposed appeasement. From late 1942 British Minister Resident in the Mediterranean, he helped negotiate the Italian armistice, sat on the Advisory Council for Italy and in 1944 became Chief Commissioner of the Allied Control Commission for Italy. In Athens in December 1944 he persuaded Churchill to accept a regent, and a truce kept a pro-British regime in power; in 1945 he was involved in the forced repatriation of Cossack collaborators and of prisoners handed to Tito's Yugoslavia. As Foreign Secretary and Chancellor he first pushed for the Suez invasion, then for withdrawal. Prime minister from 1957 to 1963, he presided over African decolonisation and pioneered the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

Also known as: Maurice Harold Macmillan · Supermac

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