 Within six years of first entering the House of Commons in 1931 , Douglas @-@ Home ( then called by the courtesy title Lord Dunglass ) became parliamentary aide to Neville Chamberlain , witnessing at first hand Chamberlain 's efforts as Prime Minister to preserve peace through appeasement in the two years before the outbreak of the Second World War . In 1940 Dunglass was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis and was immobilised for two years . By the later stages of the war he had recovered enough to resume his political career , but lost his seat in the general election of 1945 . He regained it in 1950 , but the following year he left the Commons when , on the death of his father , he inherited the earldom of Home and thereby became a member of the House of Lords . Under the premierships of Winston Churchill , Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan he was appointed to a series of increasingly senior posts , including Leader of the House of Lords and Foreign Secretary . In the latter post , which he held from 1960 to 1963 , he supported United States resolve in the Cuban Missile Crisis and was the United Kingdom 's signatory of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August 1963 . 
