Portrait of the Week
THE SEVENTEEN-POWER DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE opened in Geneva, after informal talks between Lord Home (the British Foreign Secretary), Mr. Dean Rusk and Mr. Gromyko. The Soviet Union had previously declared. its readiness, in a letter to the United Nations, to withhold nuclear weapons from other countries if the Western powers would do the same. Soviet planes continued to drop tin- foil in the Berlin air corridors, to confuse Western radar. .,East German frontier guards opened fire on a British, military-mission car, wounding an RAF corporal, who was subjected—British Rhine Army alleged—to 'inhuman interrogation' by Soviet authorities. Dr. Kroll, the West German am- bassador in .Moscow, was recalled to. Bonn 'in the course of a planned reshuffle'—he had been Widely accused in the German press of advocating a 'settlement at all costs' with Moscow. The Yacht- ing Federation of the USSR stated that it would issue a challenge for the America's Cup, which is 'for friendly competition between foreign countries,' and an agreement was signed in Mos- cow to make the first Soviet-American filth, with an American producer, a Russian director and with two American and two Russian leading Players.
I IIE GOVERNMENT TOOK A PASTING, and the Liberals took heart, from a series of by-elections. A Private Member's Bill to humanise the law relating to homosexuality was talked out by the House of Commons, and in the House of Lords the Arch- bishop of Canterbury described the Immigration Bill as 'lamentable.' Bank rate came down from 6 to 51 per cent., and ICI gave up their take-over bid for Courtaulds.
NEGOTIATIONS FOR A CEASE-FIRE and self-determin- ation in Algeria neared their end. A French general who had been condemned to death by the OAS was appointed commander-in-chief of the local force to be set up to maintain order until independence, and the OAS completed their plans For widespread provocation and violence. Dr. Castro imposed food rationing in Cuba, and in Monaco there. was resistance to French pressure for the imposition of income tax, which would affect such distinguished residents as Mr. Aristotle Onassis, ex-King Farouk and the Maharanee of Baroda, to say nothing of the 15,000 French firms registered in Monaco to avoid French taxation.
I HE MINISTER OF HEALTH ACCEPTED that the report
by the Royal College of Physicians demonstrated 'authoritatively and crushingly' the connection be- tween cigarette-smoking and lung cancer, and it was revealed that the Government proposed to counter the million pounds a month spent on tobacco advertising by suggesting that teachers might possibly consider not smoking in front of *Sir pupils. Tobacco shares went down, and the shares of Mackintosh's, who make toffee, and Bassett's, who make liquorice allsorts, went up. A howl of esthetic and patriotic protest greeted the announcement by the Royal Academy of Arts that.it proposed to sell at auction a national art treasure, drawn by an Italian, that hadn't been on public view for two years. A Sandringham Spokesman scotched disquieting rumours by say- ing that the Queen was 'emphatic' about keeping UP her pigeon-racing. The soap-making firm of Lever Brothers decided to put more detergent in its packets, paying for this concession by adver- tising less, and not giving away coupons: the chairman of the company said that this was not a stunt, but a considered coinnmrcial risk, to try to sell more by giving better value.
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