BRITAIN: The Miracle Worker

If Ulster was the first trial by fire for the Tory government of Prime Minister Edward Heath, Britain ‘s economic crisis has now clearly become the second. A perennial cold-weather cycle of labor un rest, coupled with a diminished flow of oil from the Middle East, threatens Brit ons with their most difficult winter in years. It also threatens to destroy Heath ‘s anti-inflationary plans for ushering Brit ain into a new era of smooth expansion.

Last week Heath named William Whitelaw, Britain ‘s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since 1972, his new Secretary of Employment. It was a popular and promising choice. Whitelaw had been directly responsible for taking Ulster from the edge of civil war to an entirely new form of government in which Catholics as well as Protestants truly share power. A few days after the appointment, representatives from Britain, the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland sat down for their first, historic talks on a Council of Ireland. But the robust figure who made it possible was absent: Wil liam Whitelaw had a new war on his hands.

“Gentlemen, good morning. Can we agree on what day it is?” Thus, with a huge grin, did “Willie” Whitelaw often begin his morning conferences with Ulster’s disputatious politicians. Marveled John Hume, Minister of Commerce in Ulster’s new coalition, last week: “You went in angry to see him, and you always came out wondering why you never got the boot in.” Added Deputy Chief Executive Gerry Fitt, leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party: “He had an effective English slice of Irish charm.”

Understanding the Irish to the satisfaction of the Irish was no mean feat for a relatively unknown English politician who had spent virtually his entire career in the back corridors of parliamentary life. A former Scots Guards officer, Whitelaw was raised on his grandfather’s estate in Scotland, sent to Winchester and Cambridge, where he “got his blue” in golf. At 55, he has a reserve of charm as large as his hulking, 220-lb. frame and a rumpled warmth about him. His suits never hang quite right, and his booming voice sometimes takes on a pained edge, as if its owner were mortally wounded. The overall effect is immensely winning. Admits one member of Labor’s Shadow Cabinet: “He has the only unrehearsed face in the entire Tory government.”

Whitelaw once summed up his personal and political style by admitting: “I rather like to be liked.” When he first arrived in Ulster, he threw open the doors of his office in Stormont Castle to politicians and community delegations. “I know you expect me to fail,” he candidly told a small group of skeptical journalists. “All I can say is that I will do my best not to.” Once, when a delegation from the Protestant paramilitary Ulster Defense Association appeared, ominously clad in dark glasses and combat uniforms, Whitelaw casually offered them afternoon tea. He scandalized Protestants by flying members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to a secret meeting at a borrowed house in London’s fashionable Chelsea district. Observes the Alliance Party’s Bob Cooper: “Whitelaw had the ability to search through an argument with a microscope, find a tiny germ of agreement and enlarge on it.”

Although Whitelaw is clearly regarded now as a potential rival to Heath as Tory leader, the two men share a rare personal and political trust in each other. (It was Whitelaw who politely took Sir Alec Douglas-Home by the arm eight years ago and suggested that the time had come for him to resign as Conservative leader in favor of a younger man, who turned out to be Ted Heath.) But where Heath can be too clever for his own good, Whitelaw has learned how to use a natural and unassuming directness as a source of trust.

As usual, Whitelaw began his new job last week by saying little about it in public. But he quietly began setting up appointments with leading union officials. In style alone, Whitelaw’s frankness and disarming candor are a marked change from a government that, from Heath down, often comes off sounding like Pollyanna at the darkest moments.

Speaking in Parliament last week, Whitelaw said: “I have no illusions whatsoever about the difficulties in front of us.” Among those difficulties:

>A refusal to work overtime by Britain’s 270,000 coal miners, which has caused a 30% drop in production. The miners have rejected a pay raise of 16½%, the maximum allowed under the government’s Phase III wage and price control program.

>A work slowdown by train motormen, which has reduced some rush-hour services by 80% and put additional strains on gas-short motorists.

>A six-week-old job action by electrical engineers that has affected power supplies and forced voltage cuts.

¢ Limited job actions by 3 million other workers, including ambulance drivers, provincial journalists, London teachers and government clerks.

Whitelaw has told friends that he firmly intends to avoid “trench warfare” with the unions. He is expected to place emphasis on regular contact between the ministry and the unions, including conciliation and arbitration in wage disputes, rather than on crisis sessions at No. 10 Downing Street, which have so often ended disastrously. “If he can make Unionists smile and Catholics trust the British, then maybe he can do something for the miners,”-declared one union official. “Right now, it will take something in the nature of a miracle.” But then that seems to be Willie Whitelaw’s specialty.