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Since taking over the leadership, Wilson has worked deftly to defuse the old "theological" battles over Socialist dogma that have exploded at every previous conference for a decade. While scrupulously obeying his pledge to base his policies on Gaitskell's program, Wilson has maneuvered brilliantly to regroup the Labor Party on its responsible middle ground. Though he was elected with support from the neutralist, unilateralist left, he soon made it clear that he does not share its views and has isolated the extremists from the rest of the party. By giving right-wingers most of the choice jobs in his Shadow Cabinet, he won the grudging allegiance of the loyal Gaitskellites, who have yet to forgive Wilson completely for trying to depose their leader in 1960.
The Old-Boy Network. Even before the leadership election last February, Wilson confided to Laborite Richard H.S. Crossman that "Labor should be the party of science." He explained: "If I get the job, I believe the party will be able to liberate the frustrated energies of thousands of young scientists, technologists and specialists who feel there is no room at the top for them under the present antiscientific Old-Boy network in industry and Whitehall."
Most scientists voted Labor in 1945, but switched in 1959. "To win them back," said Wilson, "we have to make them feel we take them seriously."
In recent months, Wilson and Crossman have discussed his program with scores of scientists and educators in Britain, the U.S. and Russia (but not, apparently, with Novelist-Scientist C. P. Snow, who has graphically documented the follies of government-directed research in wartime). Finally, the night before his speech last week, Wilson retired at 11 o'clock to his $32-a-day hotel suite, spent seven hours dictating and editing, rose at 6 a.m., and was still working on it when he stood to deliver the speech at the morning session.
Guaranteed Bonhomie. Wilson's blueprint for scientific socialism, as he expounded it to the Labor Conference, accords with the Gaitskell philosophy—but, with a significant difference: if it had come from donnish Hugh Gaitskell, it would probably have been ripped to shreds. Says Gaitskellite Denis Healey: "The intellectual way Gaitskell advanced his ideas forced many to oppose them. When Wilson says the same thing, he does it in such a way that others do not feel compelled to disagree."
Laborites, even Wilson's potential foes, found some goodies to applaud in his program. He mollified the far left by urging greater trade with Russia and an East-West detente that would allow Britain to funnel defense spending into research. Old-fashioned chauvinists applauded his rosy vision of a Britain made great again, and Little Englanders cheered his declaration of independence from the U.S.
As a final guarantee of bonhomie throughout the conference, party officials dusted off an obscure by-law that permits them to prohibit debate on subjects that have been "fully and adequately explored" within the previous three years. Astonishingly, they used the rule to cut off any discussion of the thorny problems of defense and foreign policy.