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Talking with the leaders of both the major parties, one is struck by the breadth of the Tories' knowledge of the Labor leaders' personalities, views on national issues, and aspirations. "Know your enemy" is an axiom as wise in politics as in war.

Yet I doubt that all the political intelligence and administrative ability in the Tory ranks would have sufficed without Woolton.

Frederick William Marquis, the first Viscount Woolton, is not, as one might suppose from his imposing name and title, the son of a hundred earls. He is very much a self-made man who fought his way to success in commerce and finance. He is a Jim Farley, rather than a Mark Hanna.

When Woolton took over the chairmanship of the Party Organization, the party was defeated and discredited. He left it after the triumph of May 1955 with Conservative fortunes at their post-war zenith. I have mentioned Woolton's reorganization of the Central and Area offices, but his influence on the party went beyond this. In the years when the Socialists ruled in Whitehall, Woolton transferred to the beaten Conservatives some of his own warmth and vigor. He is an urbane, friendly man; the young Conservatives then emerging from the middle class felt that they were directed not by an aristocratic genius but by a fatherly, knowledgeable elder. Indeed, his nickname was "Uncle Fred." The revived party began to talk like a democratic party and even, occasionally, to act like one. Under Woolton the Central Office in London changed from a remote, austere group controlling the party into a Universal Aunt or Uncle, ready to help constituency parties solve their problems. Yet the leader of the party and the chairman of the Party Organization continued to direct and control.