Labour government, 1974–1979
In March 1976, having just turned sixty years old, Wilson resigned as Prime Minister, ending his leadership of the Labour Party after thirteen years, and a total of nearly eight years as Prime Minister. He was replaced by James Callaghan, who had held senior government positions during both of Wilson's ministries, and had served as a Shadow Cabinet member in the early-1960s.
Special Relationship
Douglas' Conservative Party lost the 1964 general election, thus he lost his position as Prime Minister. He had only served as Prime Minister for 363 days, the U.K.'s second shortest premiership of the twentieth century. Despite its unusual brevity (and due to the assassination of Kennedy), Douglas-Home's tenure had overlapped with two US presidencies.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson recast the alliance as a "close relationship", but neither he nor President Lyndon B. Johnson had any direct experience of foreign policy, and Wilson's attempt to mediate in Vietnam, where the United Kingdom was co-chairman with the Soviet Union of the Geneva Conference, was unwelcome to the president. "I won't tell you how to run Malaysia and you don't tell us how to run Vietnam," Johnson snapped in 1965. However, relations were sustained by U.S. recognition that Wilson was being criticised at home by his neutralist Labour left for not condemning American involvement in the war.