Portrait of the Week
Jr has been a week of almost unrelieved talk. Mr. Khrush- chev started it off with a lengthy tirade to the Supreme Soviet on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Revolution; it was mostly about the glories of Socialist achievement (with special reference to the sput- niks) and the purity of Soviet aims. He was closely followed by Mao Tse-tung, also in Moscow for the celebrations, Mao talked about the difficul- ties of fighting revisionism in China, and Mr.
Gomulka, who reminded Russia that the Poles had a long history of enslavement behind them and are understandably sensitive. President Eisenhower was next in the field with a much-publicised pep- talk designed to boost American morale in the face of the prospect of Russian space victory. He said that America was well ahead in nuclear develop- ment, had already solved the problem of getting a missile back from outer space, that the free - world was stronger militarily than the Communist and that he was appointing a special assistant to oversee the American technological programme.
Mr. Macmillan, not to be outdone, used the occasion of the Lord Mayor's banquet to say that we can no longer think in terms of a completely independent policy in economic or foreign affairs. He added that this idea was not new. Other mis- cellaneous talkers have been M. Spaak, who says that 'behind the smoke screen' nothing has altered in Russian policy, and Mr. Bevan, whose lecture tour in America has been well received by his im- mediate audiences but coldly by everyone else.
The Anierican Administration has had other worries than Mr. Bevan to contend with. The elections for Governorships and state legislatures have gone badly for the Republicans and there seems to be a feeling that the President's popu- larity is not what it was in the country at large.
His medical advisers have pronounced him very fit, however, and his preparations for visiting the meeting of the NATO Council next month pro- ceed. They have included an invitation to Mr. Adlai Stevenson to advise him on the American proposals to be made at the meeting. The Mclellan Committee of the Senate has begun to look into the garbage-collection racket, and promises to turn up some pretty smelly items.
The sputniks continue to circle us—silently since the batteries ran out in the second one, thus con- demning the space-dog to .death. There are re- ports that it was automatically given poison at the end to avoid suffering but the animal societies have not derived much consolation from that. M. Gaillard, the new French Prime Minister, has launched an austerity regime; terrorists have slaughtered a French oil-prospecting party in the Algerian desert. Unexpected friction has appeared between the Greek Government and Eoka, which made an ill-advised reference in one of its pam- phlets to an approaching Turco-Greek war. Con- st itu t io Mil reforms have been proposed for Kenya, offering six more scats in the Legislative Council for Africans. Another nuclear test has been com- pleted b■ the British in the Pacific.
At home the Commons have been debating economic and industrial affairs. The workers in the Health Service have banned overtime as a protest against the Government veto on their three per cent. pay award by the Whitley Coun- cil. Fifteen people were killed in the crash of a Britannia air-liner on a test flight; the unpleasant taste of this was not altogether removed by the ordering of seven more of the aircraft for the RAF. The President and the General Secretary of the NUR both lost their lives in a car crash in Russia. The report on the accident at the plot°. ' nium factory at Windscale has been published and discloses that it was due to faults of judgment an8 weaknesses of organisation. Committees have been appointed to see that,the lessons are not los Pensions are to go up early in the New Year. Sit Ivone Kirkpatrick is the new Chairman of Olt ITA. The BBC has said that it is 'not its polieY to broadcast impersonations of Sir Wimtog Churchill's voice.' Some telephone calls are tc he much cheaper in the New Year. The TUC hie criticised Government economic policy.
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