ABSTRACT
This chapter will provide a guide through the labyrinthine policy processes that led to the publication of Leslie Martin and Colin Buchanan’s report Whitehall: A Plan for the National and Government Centre. It will focus in particular on the path that led to Martin being appointed to the powerful post of planning consultant for the Whitehall area, a trail that began with the surprising determination of the Conservative governments of Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home to obliterate the Gilbert Scott-designed Foreign Oce.1 However, despite the passion that the Martin plan provoked in some quarters, there is surprisingly little literature that focuses on the political aspect of the scheme.2 Some of what follows is drawn from that literature, with a number of signicant gaps lled by a variety of primary sources: much from the National Archives at Kew and from private papers of key players in the policy process, such as Charles Pannell, plus debates in the Houses of Commons and Lords. The latter indicate that party aliation was not a strong indicator of support, or otherwise, for Martin’s subsequent scheme – though experience of working in the Foreign Oce building certainly was.
