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Second Choice. Macmillan's choice of stooped, spectacled Derick Heathcoat Amory as Thorneycroft's successor was well calculated to reassure the financial community if any man could. A shy, reticent Etonian who was wounded and captured while fighting with Britain's paratrooping Red Devils at Arnhem during World War II, Heathcoat Amory is a successful businessman who has helped make his family textile company one of Britain's most progressive. A staunch friend of the U.S. and an enthusiastic champion of the European free trade area, he has earned wide respect for his ability in administering the thorny ministries of Pensions and Agriculture, has been described as "everybody's second choice for every senior post in the government." Thorneycroft was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer to resign in protest against government policy since 1886, when Lord Randolph Churchill. Sir Winston's father, quit the Cabinet of Lord Salisbury.* Despite all Harold Macmillan's reassurances, so drastic a protest inevitably stirred fears that the government was, in fact, backing away from the stern fiscal policies that have halted the drain on Britain's gold and dollar reserves and stabilized the pound. The pound dipped briefly, then steadied at $2.81 as Heathcoat Amory reiterated his determination to defend sterling. "Nothing whatever will take precedence," he said. At week's end the Economist was commenting reassuringly: "This has been primarily a politicians' and administrators', not an economists' quarrel."
* Grandfather of the present Lord Salisbury, who last year as Tory leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council resigned in protest against Harold Macmillan's Cyprus policy.