biography
| name: |
Beel, Louis (Jozef Maria)
|
pronunciation:
[bayl]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1902–77)
|
| biography:
| Dutch Catholic politician, prime minister (1946–8, 1958–9), and lawyer, born in Roermond, SE Netherlands. Deputy town clerk of Eindhoven (1934–42), he resigned in protest against the appointment of an NSB (National Socialist Movement) burgomaster. He was a member of the Rooms-Katholieke Staatspartij, which became the Katholieke Volkspartij (KVP), of which he was leader. In 1945 he became minister of internal affairs in the cabinet which was still based in London, and again in 1951–6. Twice prime minister, in 1948 he was responsible for the first police action in the Dutch East Indies, and in 1949 was High Commissioner of the Crown in Indonesia, resigning over government policy. In 1949–52 he was special professor of administrative law at Nijmegen. He was a trusted adviser of the queen and in 1956 a member of the ‘committee of three’ who investigated and made proposals for solving the problem of Greet Hofmans' influence on her. In 1962 he was appointed to the Council of State and was vice-president until 1973, the first Catholic to do so since the establishment of the Kingdom. |
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