Assassinations and attempts at assassination appear to be an established part of the American way of life. The bullet that cut Senator Robert Kennedy down, like his brother, in...

t As the aftermath of the French revolution of May 1968 unfolds, the parallels with 1848 continue to assert themselves. Within two months of the 1848 French revolution general...

Senator Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy hung be- tween life and death, wounded by three bullets, one of which lodged in his brain. A Palestinian Arab had drawn a revolver on him...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH These ten days of holiday enabling Members of Parliament to celebrate Pentecost according to their various inclinations can have been no fun...

FRANCE MARC ULLMANN Paris—Two forces have prevented France from falling apart during her hour of crisis. The first is a President of the Republic who chose not to abdicate....

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The pen is mightier than the sword, • Less mighty than the pendulum; Big Ben's unresting strokes record Space-time as a continuum. To little Benn past...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON New York—In the days that preceded the California primary Senator Kennedy's posture already seemed valedictory. Oregon had damaged a trust in his star...

BIAFRA SIR LOUIS MBANEFO Sir Louis Mbanefo was head of the Biafran delegation to the Kampala peace talks with Nigeria. From 1959 until Biafra declared itself independent last...

PARLIAMENT ANGUS MAUDE, MP When the delaying power of the House of Lords was reduced to two years in 1911, the Parliament Act also reduced the maximum interval between general...

Disraeli addressed on Monday an audience of agricul- turists gathered at Halton to hear him, and see an industrial exhibition fostered by the Rothschild family,'who possess very...

J. W. M. THOMPSON In the midst of all the hot air and suspect politics which have been the 'worst excesses' of the 1968 French revolution so far there is one idea, or impulse,...

PERSONAL COLUMN NANCY MITFORD Nancy Milford lives about a mile from Ver- sailles. The first part of her revolution diary appeared last week. 27 May Today I gave the whole...

STUDENTS TREVOR GROVE For the last ten days Hornsey College of At , . has been subsisting upon a rare, intoxicating diet compound of sleeplessness, self-government and Nescafe....

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY Some of my best friends are Sovietologists but I dislike them just the same. There is nothing personal in this. What I hate about them is their habit,...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Princeton, N.1-1 am writing this at a moment when I have no news, except that the Old Lion has turned on his triumphant enemies from Col-...

DAVID KNOWLES The appearance of J. J. Scarisbrick's Henry VIII (Eyre and Spottiswoode 75s) has been eagerly awaited. Henry is, of all English sovereigns before Victoria, the...

ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME The year 1968 is one when few cricket bags have been opened and when few cricketers have had the chance To make the loveliest score of all, A century to a...

Private answer AUBERON WAUGH The Public Image Muriel Spark (Macmillan 25s) Cocksure Mordecai Richler (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 25s) Heartsnatcher Boris Vian (Rapp and Whiting...

SIMON RAVEN Ravages Violette Leduc translated by Derek Coltman (Arthur Barker 30s) Violette Leduc's Ravages gets off to a pas- sionate start in the school lavatory, where the...

GEORGE ROWELL Ellen Terry Roger Manvell (Heinemann 45s) Rachel and the New World Leon Beauvallet translated and edited by Colin Clair (Abelard- Schuman 25s) The greatest...

JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE The New American Commonwealth Louis Heren (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 50s) The trade of a modern resident foreign corres- pondent is a delicate one. Ideally he...

DONALD McLACHLAN Patricia Cockburn—rose-grower and horse- breeder, in her youth a daring traveller and on occasion editor of The Week—may one day, as a devoted wife, regret...

AYLMER TRYON The Imperial Collection of Audubon Animals John James Audubon and John Bachman (Country Life 105s) Many books have been written on the life of John James Audubon,...

JOHN JULIUS NORWICH The Greek Adventure Pierre L6vegue translated by Miriam Kochan (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 63s) Don't, first of all, be misled by the title. Ancient Greece...

A Nest of Tigers John Lehmann (Macmillan 50s). The Sitwells' particular blend of enfant- terrible exhibitioniSm and aristocratic pride, belligerence - and scorn is difficult to...

ANTHONY LIVESEY The question of patronage of the arts will again be brought to the public's attention on 25 July at the Midsummer Banquet at the Mansion House. That evening the...

Twice bold HILARY SPUI?LING The Cocktail Party (Chichester Festival Theatre) Ingmar Bergman's Hedda Gabler starts pre- cisely as one might have feared : Hedda, sliding on with...

BALLET CLEMENT CRISP As a means of putting across a message or as a weapon in any ideological conflict, dancing is about as effective as gros-point embroidery. It is one of...

ART BRYAN ROBERTSON It's agreeable this week to move away from all those promising young tyros towards some dis- tinguished, and still disconcerting, older painters: Ivon...

At the slicks PENELOPE IIOUSTON Yours, Mine and Ours (London Pavilion, 'Ll') How to Save a Marriage . . . and Ruin Your Life (New Victoria and Kensington Odeon, 'X') Luv...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES Rumbles of a bankers' revolt: how seriously should they be taken? Perhaps as seriously as rumbles of a Sorbonne revolt a month back? That the City's bankers...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Just as any normal parent is amazed when no one stops to adniiire the size and complexion of his newly born child, so I was somewhat taken aback when the...

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT W. D. DWYER W. D. Dwyer is managing director of Burroughs Machines. Stimulated by intense competition and the growing complexity of today's economy, man-...

FINANCE — USA WILLIAM JANEWAY From America through France to Czechoslo- vakia, the first half of 1968 has put the politics back into Political Economy with a vengeance....

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL It is time to look at Pillar Holdings. The group specialises in processing aluminium, which means that it has within its grasp a superior growth rate as...

CUSTOS The Stock Market, which takes its encourage- ment where it can find it, cheered up after the weekend on the better news from France and on the Financial Times's monthly...

LETTERS From: Richard Wiggs, Peter J. Smith, Neil Usher, S. H. Leslie, Dr E. J. Mishan, John Biggs-Davison, MP, M. J. G. Field. Sir: May I offer Mr Hurren (Letters, 31 May) a...

Sir : You have said in unequivocal language what others, and not least the Church of Scot- land with no ready-made public platform, have been trying to get through to the people...

May) is a distinguished authority whose technical knowledge most certainly sur- passes my own. With the basic facts as he presents them, I agree; but with the judgments he...

Sir: May I add a postscript to my letter (31 May) on the immigration issue in order to correct any impression that I am concerned solely with revealing the nature of our past...

Sir : The truth about Essex is that a lot of lies (unintentionally, no doubt) have been told by ill-informed and prejudiced people such as George Assinder (Letters, 31 May) and...

Sir : The Gaullist foreign policy of French and European independence is supported by many students and workers who demand his departure. In furtherance of that policy France...

Sir: In your column 'Spectator's Notebook,' Mr J. W. M. Thompson mentioned Mr Cros- land's civilised action in reopening the inquiry into the siting of London's third airport,...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS The authenticity of the clay tablets recently unearthed at Buyuk Agri Dagi, the biblical Mount Ararat, in Northern Turkey, and be- lieved by many...

In last week's article, the words in italics were; through a printing error, omitted from the following sentence: `To meet this the Govern- ment is attempting to negotiate an...

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to use the following ten words, taken from the opening passages of a well-known work of literature, in the order given, to construct part of...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were invited to compose the case notes of an imaginary patient under psychoanalysis, using a new ana- lytic symbolism derived from Alice in...

PHILIDOR Black White 6 men Specially contributed by Dr S. Subrahmanyam (India). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 389 (Bottacchi). Q - R...

Across 1 Nautical note-taker, with built-in ink supply (7, 6) 9 Applause for the bosses is rather wooden! (9) 10 Symbolic uncle, graduate of the dance (5) 11 Burlington House...