How much was conscious betrayal, and how much a genuine misunderstanding? How far were Gaitskell and Jay merely impatient with Wilson for his lack of eagerness, once their own minds were made up? Only three men knew what actually happened and none, of course, could be objective. Still, there are fragments: sufficient to show that Wilson tried to gain credit for joining the ‘pro’ lobby earlier than he actually did; and that he remained the only one of the three ministers who favoured postponement of devaluation until after the Washington talks (which was also Cripps’s line). There is also evidence of mounting criticism of Wilson among pro-devaluationists, and of suspicion of his motives. But there is no corroboration from contemporary accounts of Jay’s accusation that Wilson changed his mind three times. On the contrary, Wilson appears – on the evidence of the diary accounts of Dalton, Gaitskell and Hall in particular – to have maintained a reasonably steady position.
That the two Wykehamist ministers were angry with Wilson before the 29 July decision to devalue had been taken is clear from Dalton’s record, written at the end of the month. ‘Gaitskell and Jay both express distrust of Wilson,’ the ex-Chancellor noted. ‘They don’t know what he’s up to. They think he is currying favour with Bridges and Treasury officials.’35 Dalton’s diary does not say how, but Robert Hall’s contains a clue: according to Hall, Wilson was not only claiming to be an ardent pro-devaluationist within forty-eight hours of Cripps’s departure, he was also boasting that he had been preaching the gospel of devaluation much earlier than the other economist ministers who were now, in effect, following his lead. On 21 July (after the initial meeting at which the three ministers had agreed, but before the meeting with the Prime Minister and Morrison, at which the double-cross allegedly occurred), Hall recorded that Wilson told him at a Royal Garden Party ‘very cordially that he was arranging a talk between himself, Gaitskell, Jay, Bridges, Wilson Smith, Cairncross and me. This was because Jay and Gaitskell had now come round … to a view he had long held.’ Hall was encouraged, and convinced, though he also noted that he had not spoken to the President of the Board of Trade for a year, I feel sure that he has known for a long time what was needed but would not take a line until he felt fairly sure he would not be alone,’ Hall recorded. ‘No doubt Cairncross has helped a lot.’ Eight days later, Hall’s opinion of Wilson seemed to have altered. His diary entry for 29 July does not mention the President in the context of devaluation – though this was the dominant concern of all economists. But it now described Wilson as rude, very conceited and ‘a great temporizer’.36
That Wilson was varnishing the truth in his Garden Party talk with Hall appears to be confirmed by the account in Gaitskell’s diary, which does not, however, provide evidence of a volte face on the issue itself. According to Gaitskell, the Wykehamists also saw Wilson on 21 July (the day of the Garden Party) and explained their views to him. Wilson’s response was one of cautious agreement: ‘He had made it plain that he agreed in the main, though he was not so sure on timing. He favoured devaluation fairly soon but not before the Washington talks.’ As early as I July, Attlee and Morrison had apparently spoken in favour of devaluation at a meeting of the Economic Policy Committee. ‘Harold Wilson now says he also favoured it then’, Gaitskell noted, ‘but if so he certainly did not say so.’ If Hall reported the gist of his conversation with Wilson to Jay and Gaitskell, the Wykehamists would have been understandably annoyed that he was trying, misleadingly, to steal their thunder. But they would not have felt that he had gone back on their earlier agreement. On the contrary, by nailing his colours to the pro-devaluation mast, he was making it hard to do so.
‘Fairly soon but not before the Washington talks’, remained Wilson’s position. Gaitskell records that at a meeting of the three ministers with the Treasury (represented by Bridges, Wilson Smith and Hall) the following Monday, Z5 July, ‘it became clear that all were agreed that it must be done before the end of September, at latest. The Treasury favoured during the Washington talks and Harold supported them. Douglas wanted action at once and I was on the fence between – the great difficulty of early action being Stafford’s absence.’37 This was on the day that, according to Jay, the great betrayal occurred.38 Yet Gaitskell’s account of a meeting with Attlee later the same day reveals no substantial change in Wilson’s attitude. On the contrary, it confirms his consistency, though it also suggests an important, and perhaps hardening, difference between Wilson and Jay:
That evening HW, DJ and self saw the PM and explained our views. He accepted the fact that we have to devalue but saw great difficulty about doing it during August. The line-up was much as in the morning. HW at one extreme, DJ at the other and myself in the middle.39
If we go back to Hall’s note of his conversation on 21 July, when Wilson was claiming to be the leading proponent of devaluation, we can see some shift of emphasis, which may account for Hall’s description of Wilson four days later as ‘a great temporizer’: at the meeting on the 29th, Wilson no longer seemed the most ardent pro-devaluationist of the three, as he had been keen to present himself eight days earlier. That Wilson supported the Treasury view on timing may help account for the complaint to Dalton of ‘currying favour with the Treasury’. But there is no hint in Gaitskell’s account that the Minister of Fuel and Power felt irritation with Wilson over his stance, or that Wilson had broken an agreement. The various diary accounts confirm Wilson’s own version, in his memoirs. ‘As the pound came under increasingly heavy attack’, Wilson recalls, ‘the argument began to change from whether we should devalue to when we would have to do so.’40
Gaitskell’s diary entry (which was not written up until early in August) does reveal that a couple of days later, Wilson was expressing his own suspicions of Jay. ‘On Wednesday [27 July] Harold complained to me that “there was too much talking”’, wrote Gaitskell, ‘and hinted that Douglas had been indiscreet.’ Gaitskell guessed that this might have been because Wilson had learnt of a dinner on 21 July – a key date – at which Gaitskell and Jay had succeeded in convincing Strachey and Bevan of the merits of devaluation, and of the need for a deputation to Morrison on the 25th on the subject: in short, that the Wykehamists were making the running as pro-devaluation crusaders. It is possible that Jay had himself been complaining about Wilson’s attitude, and this had got back to Wilson. But this did not affect the main issue, and Gaitskell recorded that on the Thursday evening (28 July), the three economist ministers met Attlee and Morrison and discussed the key matter of timing. On this occasion, Wilson seemed to lose the argument. ‘We really pretty well reached agreement on the basis that it should be done before Washington but after Stafford was back here,’ Gaitskell noted: this was to enable Cripps to put it across to the British people, and make it appear a voluntary act of policy. ‘On this line-up I should say that [Morrison] and Douglas would have preferred it at once; Harold not till Washington and the PM and I in between – where we in fact settled.’41 After the meeting, however, the Treasury exerted pressure for delay until the Washington talks had begun, and so Wilson’s view prevailed.
In summary, Gaitskell does not seem to have observed any backtracking on Wilson’s part during the days preceding the 29 July Cabinet decision worth recording