알렉 더글라스-흄, 전국보수연합연맹과 1963년 보수당 당수 선출 과정 = Alec Douglas-Home, the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations and the 1963 Conservative Leadership Crisis

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Alec Douglas-Home`s role as President of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations in 1963 is a fact that is barely mentioned in all of his few biographies. It is given the spotlight only once when, in his duty as President, he read out the resignation letter written by Harold Macmillan to the Conservative Party Conference delegates in Blackpool that year which had placed Home under the conference spotlight and had supposedly robbed Rab Butler of his chance to lead the Tory Party. It does seem to have been good fortune that Home happened to be in that office at that time for him to have been able to undertake such a fate-changing task: indeed Richard Thorpe, Home`s official biographer, calls this event a `coincidence which contributed to the eventual outcome`. But the Presidency of the National Union was so much more to Home than just providing a platform for himself to read the speech of his political life. It was Home`s first official role within the party machinery, and as such provided the legitimacy and the opportunity for the hereditary peer to formally and actively connect with the Conservative grassroots. It might not have been the best known or the most feared organization within the Conservative Party, but as the grouping that claimed to represent the whole Party membership the National Union was a symbol of democracy for the Tories. Anyone who had intentions of leading the Conservative Party would certainly have found that being able to claim experience of being directly involved in National Union affairs was to their benefit: indeed, it cannot be said that the occupation of the Presidency of the National Union by various Tory heavyweights and leadership contenders of the era such as Rab Butler, Quintin Hailsham and Henry Brooke was merely a coincidence. This essay will argue that the influence of the National Union during the 1960s was not so much in policy-making as it was in public relations, but that the influence itself made the Presidency of the National Union a much more politically significant office than is often thought. The essay will then examine the relationship between the National Union and Alec Douglas-Home during the period leading up to the Conservative leadership crisis of October 1963, and will argue that the Presidency was instrumental in providing Home with the familiarity, democratic legitimacy and the opportunity he needed to realize his ultimate political objective of succeeding Harold Macmillan into Downing Street, as well as providing Home with an efficient countermeasure against Rab Butler and his own great political weapon, the Advisory Committee on Policy.