CONFUSION UPON CONFUSION in Vietnam: the Communists mortared Saigon airport,
killing some people and wrecking many planes. Meanwhile the military government had ex-, pressed willingness to make way for a civilian administration set up by a general election, the Buddhists continued to undermine the crum- bling regime, and the US forces were handi- capped by a bomb shortage. In Ireland, the civil disturbances of fifty years ago were cele- brated with a show of law-abiding restraint. America told France she would be unable to move forces out of that country by General de Gaulle's deadline one year hence, and dis- closed that recovering the hydrogen bombs lost in the sea off Spain cost the US some £23 million. But the most impressive financial news, also from America, was that Mr Howard Hughes can expect to collect £188 million when he sells his shares in Trans- World Airlines next month: no comfort at all to the British taxpayers who, learning on Wednesday that the Budget is to be on May 3, braced themselves to hear what a large chorus of economists and others predicted would be a painful experience.
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