Downing Street deputy press secretary Janet Hewlett-Davies is said to have had a secret affair with Harold Wilson in the 1970s, sparking controversy of the President of the United States.
In 1974, Richard Nixon mistook her for Marcia Williams when he saw her at 10 Downing Street during a state visit to the UK, just before he The resignation came months before the Watergate scandal.
According to The Times, Joe Haines, then the prime minister’s press secretary, claimed that Mr Wilson (prime minister from 1964-70 and 1974-76) admit it to him in private He cheated on his wife Mary with Ms Hewlett-Davies.
During his tenure and subsequent terms, Mr Wilson was the subject of rumors of an affair with his high-profile political secretary, Marcia Williams, who later became Baroness Falconde. He always denied it and successfully sued once.
In fact, while Mr Wilson was prime minister, Ms Williams had two sons with veteran political journalist Walter Terry, who worked for the Daily Mail and later the Sun political editor.
Harold Wilson served as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. Image source: PA
A recent biography of Mr Wilson by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Labor MP and shadow chancellor, reveals Mr Nixon’s ludicrous errors in a chapter about Wilson’s return to Downing Street for a second term as prime minister of what happened.
In an article about Mr Wilson’s bitter battle with several national newspapers over the allegations against him and Ms Williams, Mr Thomas-Symonds wrote: “Those were heady days, although there were some Mild relief.
“Nixon, who was on a state visit to England on April 7, saw Haines’ deputy Janet Hewlett-Davis in the No. 10 car and thought she was Marcia Williams. ‘This is That guy we’ve been reading about?'”
Ms Hewlett-Davies is so low-key compared to the larger-than-life figures of Mr Haines and Baroness Falkender that the Nixon gaffe is the only mention of her in Mr Thomas-Symonds’ biography of Wilson .
She is not even mentioned in historian Philip Ziegler’s early biography.
Mr Haynes breaks silence after 50 years era His deputy, Ms. Hewlett-Davies, admitted to her boss that she had an affair with Mr. Wilson before he resigned in 1976.
Mr Haynes, now 96, told the newspaper: “It is astonishing that no one other than me knew about Janet’s affair with Wilson and she did not seek any benefit from it.
“This was certainly a love union for her, and the joy Wilson showed me showed it was the same for him.”
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In comments to The Times, Haines also said the incident had greatly boosted Wilson’s morale in the two years before he resigned as prime minister due to ill health in 1976.
According to The Times, the only person said to have known about their romance at the time was Bernard Donoughue, now a senior Labor colleague who was then head of policy research at No. 10 Downing Street.
He told The Times that Mr Wilson told him his friendship with Ms Hewlett-Davies “made him happier than ever”.
One aide claimed that the incident “boosted” Harold Wilson’s morale. Image: PA
Like Mr Wilson, Ms Hewlett-Davies was married at the time of the relationship and was 22 years his junior.
She died last year aged 85 after working in Whitehall communications and later as communications director for controversial media tycoon Robert Maxwell, then the director of the Labor-supporting Mirror newspaper The owner of the group.
During his tenure at Tenth House, Haines was a cantankerous Downing Street press secretary whose relationship with political reporters became so sour that he at one point suspended his daily briefings.
On the walls of the Press Gallery in the House of Commons hang caricatures of lobbying journalists who were locked out of Downing Street at the time, including Ms Williams’ lover Mr Terry.
Mr Haines, who went on to become a columnist for the Daily Mirror and an executive under Maxwell, was never short of insights into politics and political journalism.
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Mr Donoghue, 89, regularly attends meetings of the House of Lords and Parliamentary Labor Party on Monday evenings.
Cheerful and friendly, he was one of the sources of the BBC comedy Yes Minister, along with Baroness Folkender.
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