Harold Macmillan, who is more frequently likened to an Edwardian squire, last week was compared instead to Stalin, Robespierre and the Mikado's Lord High Executioner. Britain's Prime Minister earned such comments by pushing ahead with a pitiless purge in which he axed 16 ministers in four days. Though shocked by the mass firings of Macmillan's trusted lieutenants, Britons gleefully echoed Liberal M.P. Jeremy Thorpe's gibe: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his friends for his life."
What Macmillan did not expect was a near mutinousbut...
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