Blame two London bombings and two lost shipments for the delays attendant on publication of this biography of England's ambassador to Washington, the one survivor of the appeasers in the British government today (viewing the Washington appointment as virtually a cabinet post). The biographer seeks through a meticulous survey of his life, clues to the quality of the man and his statesmanship. There is much that is important here --his contribution to the present -- and future -- status of India, his sporadic contribution to the Near East and Far East questions, the record of his part in Edward VIII's abdication; and chiefly, his own record as appeaser, his slow retreat to his conviction that Hitlerism must be destroyed after the rape of Czechoslovakia, until he dominated the cabinet crisis when Poland was threatened. A somewhat pompous and wordy style keeps the book from being a live biography; and an anxiety to give Viscount Halifax every chance today has resulted in a blurring of opinion of his earlier blindness, his tendency -- in the present crisis --to be wise after the event.