—Portrait of the Week— MAJOR (MERMAN STEPANOVICH TITOV landed unscathed
after a space flight of twenty-five hours during which he orbited the earth seventeen times, ate three-course meals, exchanged cordial greetings with Party Chairman Comrade Khrush- ekes', and slept peacefully for seven and a half hours. The flight covered 435,000 miles, or nearly the distance ,There and back to the moon, which Major Titov described as looking just the same as from the earth.
MR. KHRUSHCHEV said that in answer to American 'war threats' Russia might move more divisions to her western frontier and call up part of her reserves, but in the same speech he deplored `war Psychosis' and advocated 'reason, not thermo- nuclear weapons,' and both sides declared their willingness to get together and talk about Berlin. Two American citizens from Arizona, Leon Beardman and his son Cody, seized a Boeing 707 at gunpoint as it landed at El Paso airport, Texas, and attempted to take it on to Havana, but were foiled when FBI men and local police riddled the undercarriage with sub-machine-gun fire. As this incident came only a few days after a gunman had successfully diverted an American plane to Cuba, the President announced that civil aircrews would he armed and asked Congress to make air piracy Punishable by life imprisonment. Mrs. Beardman said she was surprised by her husband's•behaviour, since he had 'never mentioned Cuba, never expressed interest in aircraft, and had no guns about the house.' The Metropolitan Opera House in New York cancelled the 1961-62 season because of an unresolved dispute over the Orchestra's salaries.
THE SITUATION IN BIZERTA still awaited settlement. President Bourguiba was invited to Moscow, and it was announced that Mr. Khrushchev would visit Tunisia as part of a grand tour of Africa, Probably in the' autumn. In Algeria the ultras cut into the network of Radio Algiers and, broadcast a twenty-minute attack on President de Gaulle's Algerian policy. Sir Roy Welensky returned from an abortive tour of Nyasaland; and in spite of dark talk about intimidation apparently decided not-to press for the postponement of next week's elections, which seemed likely to take Nyasaland out of the Federation. In Northern Rhodesia there were outbreaks of violence in protest against the new constitution.
MR. MACMILLAN, speaking of the Common Market on television, said: 'I believe that if we can get these arrangements with Europe, Britain will be a better and stronger member of the Common- wealth' Death's on the roads over August Bank Holiday were fewer than last year, according to Provisional figures—a state of affairs attributed both to better road manners and the weather. The rain also dampened a rally in com- memoration of the sixteenth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima; it was held in Trafalgar ,Square, after police had moved it on from Hyde Park because Bertrand Russell had tried to use a loudspeaker in contravention of a bye-law. Pastor Martin Niem011er was seriously injured In a car crash in Denmark. Dr. Frank Buchman, founder of Moral Re-Armament, died in the Black Forest. Sir Albert Richardson announced he had found a painting by Gainsborough in a Junk shop; when asked what he would like to happen to his collection after his death, he replied `I should like to put a match to the lot 2eFause of the rotten, rotten age we live in.' But iBritain beat Hungary at athletics and the Queen 4PPointed Lieut.-Col. Rodney Onslow Dennys to the office of Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms. Made vacant by the promotion of Walter John George Verco to the office of Chester Herald.
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