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In 1959, Supermac, as the press had taken to calling him, rode a crest of British prosperity to a resounding victory at the polls. Over the next four years, however, inflation and unemployment rose, while the economy stagnated. ; In addition, Macmillan's government was rocked by scandal when it was revealed that Secretary of State for War John Profumo was involved with a young "party girl" who was also sharing her favors with a Soviet naval attache. "It was a storm in a teacup," Macmillan later remarked, "but in politics, we sail in paper boats." A prostate ailment forced Macmillan to resign as Prime Minister in 1963. He left Parliament a year later, explaining, "When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away."
Yet Macmillan remained active in retirement. While attending to the family business (the prestigious Macmillan Publishers Ltd.), he managed to produce six volumes of memoirs. He was awarded the Order of Merit, one of Britain's most coveted honors, in 1976. In an interview with the BBC in October 1983, Macmillan showed that he still possessed one of the sharpest wits in British politics. He suggested that Thatcher should not become too worried about inflation, not work too hard and not read the newspapers. He also advised her not to take herself too seriously.
But in his final years Macmillan concluded that Thatcherism was no laughing matter. From 1984 on, the Tory mandarin made several speeches critical of Thatcher's brand of conservatism. Her program of privatization was the political equivalent of selling off the family silver, Macmillan said, and her confrontational style was inappropriate at a time when Britain needed a "wartime spirit of national unity."
The former Prime Minister was saddened by a controversy that erupted in the last year of his life. At issue was whether Macmillan, while serving as a British representative in the Central Mediterranean region immediately after World War II, had ordered more Soviet and Yugoslav refugees returned to their countries, where they faced imprisonment or even execution, than had been called for in the Yalta agreement. While Macmillan never fully explained his role in the affair, he took full responsibility for his actions.
Macmillan was remarkable among his contemporaries for his great sense of camaraderie, acquired as a soldier during the slaughter on the Somme in World War I. He was fond of quoting a stanza written by British Poet Hilaire Belloc that neatly summed up his credo:
From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.