HE West faces a grave situation. It would be T absurd to think that the showdown on Cuba is only a Soviet-American affair. Rather it is the testing-ground of the determination...

and men gang aft agley': as America and Russia played cl iff- top politics, both sides began treading danger- o usly near the brink, and a slip by either could mean disaster. On...

Fr HE revolution in the Yemen has had th e incidental result of causing the British Goy . ' ernment to have serious second thoughts about the proposed Federation of South-West...

S IR ROBERT SHONE's sketch plan of what the economy would look like in 1966, if it grew a: the rate of 4 per cent. a year, was a useful planner's exercise and indeed an...

IN spite of the basic differences, it has been widely suggested that the Russians might start a Berlin blockade in retaliation for the Cuban quarantine. There arc no signs, as...

From GRACE SCOTT LUSAKA 1-T - 1HE Territorial General Election in Northern I Rhodesia on October 30 is quite the most im- portant one so far in the history of the territory...

By JOHN COLE T HE neat antithesis at Ford's Dagenham plant between the peace treaty signed by the C ompany and the unions and the new bout of industrial anarchy which followed...

From SARAH GAINHAM BONN T HE trial of a Ukrainian, Bogdan Stashinsky, on two charges of murdering political enemies of the Soviet Union in Federal Germany at the orders of the...

NEW YORK J ACK LEVINE, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a surprising figure because his appearance reminds us that J. Edgar Hoover has until now been...

Harder-headed Tory strategists believe that electorally the country is now back to the pre- Orpington situation. The Opposition's 5 per cent. lead, according to the polls, seems...

Mr. A. J. P. Taylor is a man of many parts, respected in some quarters for his scholarship just as much as he is marvelled at in others for his journalism, which is every bit as...

Together with Encounter and Socialist Com- mentary, my favourite monthly reading is Royinform, the bulletin of the Royal Stuart Society. Without it I should have quite forgotten...

T HE pollsters have been recording a large swing in favour of Britain's going into the European Economic Community. No surprise here: this is the expected result of the sharp...

By the standards of today's puritanism Laurence Sterne was a dirty old man. You must recall that chapter-ending in A Sentimenta l Journey when the file de chambre shows the...

By STEPHEN FAY A last something is happening to the British transport system. But what? Beyond the fact that change is taking place, very little is known. A series of vague...

By NORMAN LEVINE ' LIKE the lower town, the place across the tracks, the poorer streets not far from the r iver. They represent failure, and for me failure here has a strong...

the 'enormous council flats' surrounding your correspondent Mrs. Hime of Roehampton, I would like to bring two points to her notice. Firstly, the 'cars and children's pocket...

SIR, —So distressed is Mrs. Hime by Bryan Magee's observations concerning Conservative redis- tribution of wealth that she has failed to grasp his main premise, that despite a...

Affluence or Fraudulence? Terence Webb, Joan Mallison Castro's Cuba Alfred Sherman Bondage Ian Fleming The Old Vic and National Theatre Andrew Knight, John Lambert, Paul...

regime at the Ohl Vic that the opportunity to comment on it given by Mr. Gas- coigne's article is irresistible. I worked there for four years as Director of its ugly...

mentioned in three separate departments of your issue of October 12, and since Bond is at present away in Magnetogorsk, I hope you will allow me to comment on his behalf....

is the connection between 'the se „,, t2 s costumes and forestage designed by Richard Ner: all particularly appropriate to this Norwegian taL e ,; and 'the timeless beauty of,...

SIR,—S0 Mary Mackintosh considers my description of Cuban economic chaos a 'shabby distortion of fact,' and would have us blame it all on Uncle Sam. It is really remarkable bow...

SIR,—Though recognisably sincere, Lisa Hughes's letter upbraiding Bamber Gascoigne was, on the face of it, one from an enthusiast whose opinions and judgments on the theatre are...

'Bet You AnYth i l i 'r must have given unmitigated pleasure to all y ou r readers who, like myself, belong to the ins til : a :Ty, industry. It is rare indeed that a critic so...

a meaning in my article in your issue of Octobe' United States possesses) were additional reas ons „ respect the constitution of the day and not, as PRESIDENT AND PARTIES...

heard two critics each reviewing a new bo ok which I found the following morning that he and she had also reviewed for the Observer and the ' unc faV Times respectively. The...

SIR,_ With reference to Mr. John Davenport's sym- Pathetic review of my recent book, I should like to Point out that he misquotes its epigraph. b e ?ilerny's enemy is my friend'...

By JAMES BREEN THIS year's London Film Festival is even more roaringly successful than last : the National Film Theatre simply can't accommodate the huge demand for tickets and...

of this world. They are forever preaching their doctrine of rugged individualism, cut-throat com- petiti on (you get what you pay for and if you don't li ke the conditions don't...

Local Difficulties BY DAVID CAIRNS ONE of the charms of the British is their unwillingness to admit that decisions which they dislike have in fact been taken. We love to...

we published s review by Alan Brien of a play entitled Girl on the Highway in which comments wer e made concerning the conduct of Mr. Peter Cotes, the producer, who was...

The Grand Canyon By CLIVE BARNES According to the critical canons laid down before the war (I am not sure which war) The Two Pigeons might be thought pretty tawdry stuff. It...

Delightful Bawdy y MALCOLM RUTHERFORD Eastward Ho. (Mermaid.) AN early composer's note to Eastward Ho records that the music may be played on any instruments that happen to be...

Rep. to the Millions By CLIFFORD HANLEY IT began to look on Sunday evening as if the BBC has de- cided to have a fresh try at capturing weekend drama viewers. In recent...

The Frail and the Frigid By IAN CAMERON IN the obstacle race of film- making, best-sellers are an invaluable aid in completing the course. In almost every other way, the...

The Music of Politics BY HENRY FAIRLIE T BEGAN to read Professor Oakeshott's collec- I tion of essays* in Yugoslavia; I completed it at the Conservative Party conference at...

Battles of the '45. By Katherine Tomasson and Francis Buist. (Batsford, 25s.) As a confirmed anti-Jacobite and an unrepen- tant Englishman, I have never been able to share in...

A Bachelor's Children. By Hal Porter. (Angus and Robertson, 18s.) PARTY politics in Australia are as rewarding a field for the novelist-exposer as anywhere else. And the...

Renaissance Painting. Introduction by Franco Russoli. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 12s. 6d.) THESE two paperbacks are 'he first in an ambitious series of twelve. They are slightly...

NORMAN MAILER'S critical overdraft is becoming enormous. In the end, like Joe Louis, he may be able to do no better than settle the tax on it. Last time out, in Advertisements...

Starting Grid to Chequered Flag. By Paul Frere. (Batsford Paperbacks, 5s) AFTER the deaths in 1958, within a few weeks of each other, of Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Archie...

Pomes Paperback BY JULIAN SYMONS E MPSONIFYERS recalibrate, and from the sacred wood advance! Sorley, Drinkwater, Gurney, rise again. Your verstificates have been restored, you...

A ROUND DOZEN of bumper classical fiction: all for the price of a bad dinner in Greek Street and taking up no more room than a baccarat shoe. Don't be put off by that smear...

The Open Society and its Enemies. By K. R. Popper. (Routledge Paperbacks, two vols., 10s. each.) On Power : Its Nature and the History of its Growth. By Bertrand de Jouvenel....

MANY American paperbacks now available in Britain are relatively cheap reprints of well- known books issued by university presses and similar houses which specialise in...

SINCE the paperbacked cataract is one of the principal features in the landscape of so-called mass-culture, it seems rather ironical that T. S. Eliot's depressing...

Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. Alan Bullock. (Penguin Books, 8s. 6d.) TREVOR-ROPER, in an introductory comment on Hitler's Table-talk, remarked : 'Sir Lewis Namier endorses the...

THIS year's grand event in paperbacks—in the field of translation, at least—has been the Four Square Classics, which were launched in April under the adventurous editorship of...

STEPHEN PorrER's humour belongs to a gentler world than ours : present-day trend-setter s, pseud as they come, with their stripes and checks, make oneupmanship seem child's play...

As the country grows richer the most surprising social change is the growing strength of the f a mily. Freed from the constraints of proximity unposed by poverty (and possibly...

Ir would be a Herculean (don't let's say Augean) task to write of all the paperback fiction that has poured out in the past few months. In the pile before me, I find with relief...

By CUSTOS MHE international crisis hit the Stock Ex- I change badly, for the gilt-edged market was due for a correction after its recent boom and equity shares had failed to...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT A GOOD laugh can often be raised from the financial i news, but perhaps now it is becoming too serious to joke about. Here, on the one hand, we are advised...

S HAREHOLDERS in Hallmark Securities will be well pleased with their chairman Mr. Stanley Bloch's full report for the year to April 30, 1962. Group profits increased from...

Big Bad Bramleys By ELIZABETH DAVID FROM where I am sitting it looks very much as if this were another apple- glut autumn, like that of 1960. No question here of 'at the lop...

By LESLIE ADRIAN So it is hardly surprising that the travel trade is a little half-hearted in its welcome for the Private Member's Bill proposing the compul- sory registration...