Word: driberg
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...once unpopular Tory anti-inflationary measures began building a new economic stability, the Macmillan government had bounced back to the top of the opinion polls. Laborites sensed that they might be headed not for office but for a third straight electoral defeat. Opening the conference, Party Chairman Tom Driberg conceded: "Our principles and policies have not yet had the impact on public opinion in Britain that they must have if we are to win the election...
Maclean changed his name to Frazer probably because of his fear of the press; he is reported to have broken completely with Guy Burgess ever since Burgess gave an extended interview in Moscow last October to Tom Driberg, the British newsman and ex-Labor M.P. Both Burgess and Maclean share a continuing problem: alcoholism. Last summer, when Maclean went on an extended drinking bout that ended in delirium tremens, his wife nursed him back to health, but told friends she was fed up and was considering leaving him. Since then, Maclean has been on the wagon, and both...
...Beaverbrook hankered to succeed Winston Churchill in Britain's dark days of 1941 and 1942, says Driberg, and suffered such intense inner conflict between the "canker of ambition" and his genuine friendship for Churchill that, racked with psychosomatic asthma, he quit the Cabinet in the "supreme nervous crisis of his life...
Perhaps the most cutting passages that Beaverbrook allowed into the Express were those reminding readers of his support of Chamberlain's appeasement policy. As late as Aug. 14, 1939, Driberg noted, the Express predicted that "Hitler will keep the peace this year." Beaverbrook, recalling that Driberg then worked for him, was able to drop the footnote-"Mr. Driberg in the Daily Express, Aug. 26, 1939: 'My tip: no war this crisis...
...Beaverbrook reserved his most telling comeback for the section Driberg devoted to some of the old man's endearing qualities. One of the Beaver's newsmen urgently needed ?1,000, the biographer recounted. He asked Beaverbrook if he could borrow the sum and repay it out of salary. Next day the general manager summoned the journalist and told him that there was a strict office rule against such advances. "But," he added, "Lord Beaverbrook has instructed me to make you a free gift of ?1,000. Here is a check." Biographer Driberg praised this act of kindness...