J. Stonehouse; Laborite Once Faked Death

John Stonehouse, a former British Labor Cabinet minister who faked his own drowning in one of Britain’s more bizarre scandals, died Thursday after suffering a heart attack, hospital officials said. He was 62.

Sheila Stonehouse said her husband had collapsed at their home near Southampton, 70 miles southwest of London, and attempts by ambulance attendants to revive him failed. He was declared dead at Southampton General Hospital, said spokesman Andrew Clapper.

Stonehouse disappeared on a beach in Miami, Fla., in November, 1974, leaving behind a pile of clothes, a wife, tangled business affairs and suspicions that he was an East Bloc spy who had defected. Then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson was forced to report that the allegations proved to be groundless.

Found 2 Months Later

Stonehouse was discovered two months later living under an alias in Australia with his secretary, two false passports and large sums of money transferred before his purported death.

Extradited to Britain, he was tried on 21 charges of theft, fraud and deception involving more than $382,500.

Stonehouse was trying to evade an insurance fraud scandal that eventually led to a seven-year prison sentence in Britain. He was released in 1979 after serving nearly half the term.

“I felt I was already drowning in a turbulent sea of debts,” he said in explanation of the charade.

3 Heart Attacks

While in prison, Stonehouse suffered three heart attacks and underwent open heart surgery. He also was divorced from his first wife, Barbara. In 1981, he married his secretary, Sheila Buckley.

He then began a new career as a writer of thriller novels.

“My ambition, my ideas, my appetite for power, they’ve gone,” he said at the time. “Burned out. Now I have tranquility and peace--rather like living two lives.”