生病—住医院—辞职,这好像已经成为当代大英帝国首相最终不可免的命运了。七年前,前任首相艾登爵士因苏伊士运河冒险之役,就是这样身败名裂而下场的。现在,他的继承人麦克米伦首相也以同样方式宣布辞职了。早在今年初布鲁塞尔谈判破裂之后,西方报刊即纷纷预测麦克米伦不久即将下台,它们描绘麦克米伦面容憔悴,身衰力竭,同当年艾登下台时的形象相差不多。历史是无情的,七年前悲剧式的结局今天又重演了。读过《艾登回忆录》的人,别的印象也许已经淡薄了,可是他那对英国的“亲密伙伴”美国所倾泄出来的满肚子愤懑之情,却是使人很难遗忘的。像艾登爵士那样矢忠维护“英美联盟”的人,遭 Sick - living in a hospital - resigning, this seems to have become the ultimate inevitable fate of the contemporary British Empire. Seven years ago, Sir John Eden, the former Prime Minister, took the battle over the Suez Canal adventurous. Now that his heirger, Prime Minister Macmillan, has resigned in the same manner. As early as the beginning of this year, after the breakdown of the Brussels negotiations, Western newspapers predicted that Macmillan would soon step down. They portrayed Macmillan as gaunt and physically weak as the image of the then Aydin step-down. History is ruthless, and the tragic ending seven years ago repeated itself again. Others who read Aydin’s Memoirs may have lost some of their memories, but his resentful anger at Britain, the “intimate partner” of the United States, is hard to forget. Like Sir Eisenhower, who loyalists defend the “Anglo-American alliance”, was