Earl of Stockton Harold MacMillan

Educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford. In 1924 he was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative; he served until 1929 and again from 1931 to 1963. During World War II he held several posts in the cabinet of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, including minister of supply (1940-1942) and undersecretary of state for the colonies (1942). He subsequently served as minister of housing (1951-1954), minister of defense (1954-1955), foreign minister (1955), and chancellor of the Exchequer (1955-1957). When Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned in January 1957, Macmillan succeeded him. A believer in East-West negotiations, he visited Soviet Prime Minister Nikita S. Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959; in the same year he led the Conservatives to an impressive victory at the polls. Macmillan failed in his attempts to have Britain admitted to the European Economic Community (now European Union), and in 1963 his government was weakened by a scandal concerning the personal life of War Secretary John Profumo. He resigned in October of that year. Macmillan was granted a hereditary earldom in 1984.