Spectator's Notebook
MR WILSON has done well to start talks at the official level with the Smith regime, as Mr Selwyn Lloyd urged on his return from Rhodesia before the election, and as the SPECTATOR has consistently advocated. No doubt the British government feels emboldened to take this step by the failure of Mr Smith's attempt to open up Beira, but if Mr Wilson is really serious about achieving something with the talks he would do well to keep his mouth shut and stop proclaiming what a victory it all is for him. So far from rubbing Smith's nose in the dust, his only hope is to give the Rhodesian premier a way out without loss of face. Even then the talks might well break down. But at least a vital precedent will have been created: no longer can Wilson maintain that a necessary preliminary to talks with Rhodesia is for Smith to renounce independence. If I have Any feeling of confidence at all about the resump- tion of talks it is, perhaps, because the catalyst has been that jovial iconoclast Mr Oliver Wright. A man who is capable of serving both Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Mr Wilson with equal and genuine devotion might even succeed in bringing together Wilson and Smith.
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