Word: beaverbrook
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...King George V protested and balked when Lloyd George nominated Beaverbrook for his peerage in 1916. In accepting it, Beaverbrook naively blundered away the main chance for a political career, which lies in the House of Commons...
...After the outbreak of World War II (in which Driberg applauds the Beaver's work as Minister of Aircraft Production), Beaverbrook urged the British public to "revolt" against proposed food rationing and scorned the need for a larger army...
...Beaverbrook hankered to succeed Winston Churchill in Britain's dark days of 1941 and 1942, says Driberg, and suffered such intense inner conflict between the "canker of ambition" and his genuine friendship for Churchill that, racked with psychosomatic asthma, he quit the Cabinet in the "supreme nervous crisis of his life...
Perhaps the most cutting passages that Beaverbrook allowed into the Express were those reminding readers of his support of Chamberlain's appeasement policy. As late as Aug. 14, 1939, Driberg noted, the Express predicted that "Hitler will keep the peace this year." Beaverbrook, recalling that Driberg then worked for him, was able to drop the footnote-"Mr. Driberg in the Daily Express, Aug. 26, 1939: 'My tip: no war this crisis...
...Beaverbrook reserved his most telling comeback for the section Driberg devoted to some of the old man's endearing qualities. One of the Beaver's newsmen urgently needed ?1,000, the biographer recounted. He asked Beaverbrook if he could borrow the sum and repay it out of salary. Next day the general manager summoned the journalist and told him that there was a strict office rule against such advances. "But," he added, "Lord Beaverbrook has instructed me to make you a free gift of ?1,000. Here is a check." Biographer Driberg praised this act of kindness...