Word: mountbatten
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...paper then quoted Lady Falkender, who as Marcia Williams was Wilson's private secretary, as calling Mountbatten a 'prime mover" in the plot...
...idea of the imperious King as a coup maker sounded farfetched, but there was no dispute that a meeting had taken place. King had appeared at Mountbatten's Belgravia flat accompanied by Cudlipp. Sir Solly Zuckerman, a friend of Mountbatten's, was also present when King suggested that Mountbatten head a new government after the fall of Wilson. Snapped Zuckerman: "This is treachery. I will have nothing to do with it." Then he stormed out of the room...
Retired and living in Dublin, King insisted last week that it was he who had been summoned by Mountbatten, who introduced the idea of countering the Wilson government and quizzed King about how it could be done. Said King: "I told him the time might come when he had a role to play." King last week denied, however, that a coup was ever discussed...
...Mountbatten, of course, is dead, killed by the I.R.A. in August 1979. Wilson labeled the allegation of Mountbatten's involvement in a plot "an unwarranted slur...
Indeed, in an exclusive interview with TIME'S Frank Melville in 1978, Mountbatten had given a version of the encounter that tallied with the account in Cudlipp's book. Said Mountbatten: "Cecil King came to see me, at his own request, and said would I take over the country, to which my retort was to kick him out. I asked Mr. King to leave, and he left with Cudlipp 20 seconds after Zuckerman...