In Michaelmas 1923, as Secretary, he persuaded the Cambridge Union to affiliate to the National Union of Students, of which he became a Vice-President. Psychiatric illness was then still little understood. In November 1923 his college put him in the care of a doctor and in December 1923 his uncle Cyril sent him to a specialist in Bristol, after which he made a recovery from his breakdown. On 11 March 1924, after taking office as President of the Cambridge Union, he entertained the Leader of the Opposition, Stanley Baldwin, at the Change of Officers Debate to oppose the motion that "This House has the Highest Regard for Rhetoric". The following morning, Rab had to escort Baldwin back to the railway station, where, according to one version of the story, Baldwin bought him a copy of "Something Fresh" by P. G. Wodehouse with an admonition not to take life too seriously. At the end of his third year (1924), he received a Second in German. He graduated as a BA in 1924.