Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath Dies at Age 89

He did merchant banking after the war, using the financial backing of fellow bank Conservatives to win a seat in the House of Commons in 1950. He represented the suburban southeast district of what is now Old Bexley and Sidcup.

With his first floor speech, calling for support of an early form of the E.U., he established himself as a vital voice on economic affairs.

As chief whip, he was a close confidant of Prime Minister Anthony Eden, under whose leadership his country collaborated with the French and Israelis to recapture the Suez Canal from the Egyptians. In his 1998 autobiography, Mr. Heath said he "did my utmost to change Eden's mind" because he feared when the news became known, it would create great public dissent.

The plan failed, largely because the United States declined to support the venture after it began. It led to Eden's resignation.

Mr. Heath said the queen's private secretary consulted him about a successor, and he recommended Harold Macmillan, then chancellor of the exchequer. In the new Macmillan government, Mr. Heath became minister of labor and then Lord Privy Seal, where he was a roving expert on political matters.

Mainly he championed Foreign Office matters in the House of Commons and lobbied for his country's entry into the European Economic Community, whose members included France, Italy and West Germany.

England already was the leading member of the European Free Trade Association, a group of nations that included Austria, Denmark and Portugal. Many in England felt the country, which still had significant colonial holdings and a prospering economy, had little to gain by joining the EEC.

With Macmillan's support, Mr. Heath carried his message abroad. "Europe must unite or perish," he told a group of European foreign ministers in 1961. "We are convinced that our destiny is intimately linked with yours."

French President Charles de Gaulle, fearing English domination most especially in language, vetoed further consideration in 1963 and 1967. At one pivotal meeting, the French foreign minister refused to shake hands with Mr. Heath. It took years of quiet negotiation, and de Gaulle's death, before Mr. Heath was successful.

Meanwhile, Macmillan resigned in 1963, following rising unemployment and fallout from the sex-and-spy scandal involving the secretary of state for war, John Profumo.

With Harold Wilson's election to prime minister, Mr. Heath became Tory leader. He succeeded the courtly, Eton-educated Alec Douglas-Home -- depicted by Wilson as a "scion of the effete establishment."

Mr. Heath made economic affairs the centerpiece of his campaign to succeed Wilson. At the time, England was suffering from the highest rate of inflation of any Western European country and the heaviest unemployment since the Great Depression. Mr. Heath saw the nationalized coal mines as uncompetitive compared with other European counterparts.

Once prime minister, he demanded that coal miners work overtime and weekends if they wanted raises. Instead, they went on strike, prompting coal shortages. Mr. Heath declared a state of emergency that limited electricity use to three days a week. It weakened national morale, even if exemptions were made for such "essential" industries as pubs, movie theaters and bingo parlors.

He called for a general election in February 1974 and rallied under the slogan "Who governs Britain?" -- meaning he or the striking coal miners. The strategy backfired when Wilson won the general election and settled the strike and made other concessions. Mr. Heath lost again that October in another general election Wilson was forced to call after a coalition of parties began defeating his proposals.

With a workable majority, Wilson promised a referendum -- England's first -- on entry into the European Common Market. It passed by a 2 to 1 margin, and Mr. Heath had his victory on the E.U., even if it happened under his successor.

Thereafter, he was something of a pariah in his own party, a two-time electoral loser who had failed to solve the economic crisis. The party turned to Thatcher for a new, rightward direction.

Knighted in 1992, he said he had no interest in assuming a seat in the House of Lords, as is customarily offered to former prime ministers. Instead, he spent more time on interests in sailing and music.

Once, after conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, he told The Washington Post, "One reason why it's better to wield a conductor's baton than lead a political party is that a symphony has fewer members."

Mr. Heath, who never married, leaves no immediate survivors.