Word: whitelaw
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Last week Heath named William Whitelaw, Britain 's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since 1972, his new Secretary of Employment. It was a popular and promising choice. Whitelaw had been directly responsible for taking Ulster from the edge of civil war to an entirely new form of government in which Catholics as well as Protestants truly share power. A few days after the appointment, representatives from Britain, the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland sat down for their first, historic talks on a Council of Ireland. But the robust figure who made it possible was absent: Wil liam Whitelaw...
...Gentlemen, good morning. Can we agree on what day it is?" Thus, with a huge grin, did "Willie" Whitelaw often begin his morning conferences with Ulster's disputatious politicians. Marveled John Hume, Minister of Commerce in Ulster's new coalition, last week: "You went in angry to see him, and you always came out wondering why you never got the boot in." Added Deputy Chief Executive Gerry Fitt, leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party: "He had an effective English slice of Irish charm...
Understanding the Irish to the satisfaction of the Irish was no mean feat for a relatively unknown English politician who had spent virtually his entire career in the back corridors of parliamentary life. A former Scots Guards officer, Whitelaw was raised on his grandfather's estate in Scotland, sent to Winchester and Cambridge, where he "got his blue" in golf. At 55, he has a reserve of charm as large as his hulking, 220-lb. frame and a rumpled warmth about him. His suits never hang quite right, and his booming voice sometimes takes on a pained edge...
Novel Sight. In the end, the dilemma was resolved by an ingenious arithmetical solution. Instead of the twelve-member executive council that Whitelaw had originally envisioned, he and the party leaders settled for an eleven-member coalition Cabinet. It will be headed by Protestant Faulkner as Chief Executive, and include five other Unionists, who will be responsible for finance, commerce, the environment, agriculture and information. The S.D.L.P. emerged with their leader, Gerry Fitt, as Deputy Chief Executive, and three other key portfolios. The eleventh Cabinet member will be Alliance Leader Oliver Napier...
...order to make the 6-4-1 Cabinet split in the Unionists' favor more palatable to the S.D.L.P., Whitelaw and the political leaders agreed to add four non-voting members, in effect junior ministers. Two of these additional posts went to the S.D.L.P., and one each to the Unionists and Alliance. The result was a 15-member administration in which the majority Unionists would be outnumbered by a coalition of the S.D.L.P and Alliance members. Thus, both sides could in effect say that they...