Word: britisher
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...would have been acceptable for the Prince of Wales to carry on a discreet affair with Mrs. Wallis Simpson, if he had wanted to; but for him as King Edward VIII to marry a divorced American woman was unthinkable. Class resentment and sexual envy were aroused in the British public by the disclosure that the Tory Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, had fraternized with Christine Keeler and assorted other shady characters. But when Profumo lied about the matter to the House of Commons, he destroyed his standing with the Establishment as well. Such flouting of tradition brought about...
...erupted again in Northern Ireland. In the worst outbreak of sectarian violence since Ulster was severed from the newly partitioned Irish Free State in 1921, bitterly divided Catholics and Protestants battled one another first with rocks, then with Molotov cocktails, and finally with savage gunfire. Despite the deployment of British troops, the first to be used against Irish rioters since the Black and Tans of half a century ago, armed clashes spread swiftly to at least ten cities and towns. At week's end, in a conflict that bordered on civil war, nine were dead and nearly 500 injured...
Halfway House. Appearing on television, Chichester-Clark denounced "sinister elements - anarchists and others" for starting the fighting. Two days later, voicing the deep Protestant suspicion that any British help would lead to a loss of majority control, he warned Parliament: "Those who cry so loudly for British intervention see it as a halfway house to the long-sought goal of an Irish Republic...
Nonetheless, it became clear that the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which numbers only 3,000 men, was incapable of restoring order. The hasty call-up of 11,000 police auxiliaries only worsened matters; Catholics consider them little more than armed Protestants. Finally Chichester-Clark had an urgent telephone conversation with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Breaking off a vacation at his Scilly Islands retreat, Wilson helicoptered to a Royal Navy base in Cornwall for a three-hour conference with Home Secretary James Callaghan, who holds responsibility for Ulster...
Though he was well aware that Irish politics proved the graveyard of many a 19th century British government, Wilson reluctantly moved 300 troops into Londonderry, followed by an airlift of 600 to Belfast. By week's end, with the "full consent" of the Ulster government, an additional 1,000 British reinforcements were put on alert to move into Northern Ireland. Ulster, for all intents and purposes, had turned itself over to the foreign peacekeepers...