THE MEMOIRS OF THE EARL OF KILMUIR

Weidenfeld And Nicolson 1964

David Maxwell Fyfe has occupied an important and influential position in British public life for over twenty years (at 1964). A Member of Parliament from 1935 to 1954, he was Solicitor-General and subsequently Attorney-General in Sir Winston Churchill’s wartime Government, and his relentlessly brilliant cross-examination of Goering at the Nuremburg trials of the Nazi War Criminals, where he was the British deputy chief prosecutor, brought the name of David Maxwell-Fyfe, already known and admired in British legal circles, to the attention of the world. He subsequently rose to a position of considerable influence on the inner councils of the Conservative Party between 1945 and 1951, being a member of the ‘shadow cabinet’ and the chairman of the Maxwell Fyfe Committee which recommended drastic changes in the organisation of the party. From 1951 to 1954 he was Home Secretary and subsequently Lord Chancellor from 1954 to 1962.

In the course of his long and distinguished legal and political career Lord Kilmuir has argued in the law courts with the most formidable counsels of the day, has debated in Commons and Lords with men of the stature of Atlee, Bevan and Morrison, and has sat in the Cabinet with Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Butler. In his autobiography he vividly relates his part in the major political controversies of the past twenty five years (to date of publication).

The dust jacket is worn at the extremes and has a couple of chips and a tear and fold to the top rear. There is a little slackness to the boards and slight light tinting mainly to the closed page edges. A revealing look at post-war British political life.