PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The author of an anonymous attack on the Archbishop of Canterbury in the pre- face to Crockford's Clerical Directory was found dead in circumstances that suggested suicide. The Revd Dr Gareth Bennett had earlier denied being the author of the piece, which accused Dr Runcie of 'nailing his colours to the fence' and of being a weak and ineffectual leader of the Church of England. A Christmas strike by the Post Office workers' union was averted when a secret deal was struck on hours and pro- ductivity. In the High Court an injunction was granted against the BBC prohibiting the broadcasting of the names of all former or current members of the security ser- vices, shortly before a radio programme which would have quoted some of them. Three senior figures of the medical estab- lishment, led by Mr George Pinker, the royal gynaecologist, said that urgent action was needed to save the health service. British Steel announced half-year profits of £190 million. It is now the most profitable steel industry in Europe and is to be sold off as a single business as soon as possible' according to Government ministers. Con- sumer credit in Britain rose in November In retirement
by £400 million and now stands at a record £22 billion. The cricket tour of Pakistan was put in jeopardy following a public, finger-wagging row between the England captain Mike Gatting and the umpire Shakoor Rana during the second Test match at Faisalabad. Stopping over in Britain en route for the summit in Amer- ica, Mr Gorbachev met Mrs Thatcher at RAF Brize Norton. A smiling Mrs Gor- bachev was photographed with the cast of the Carterton School nativity play; in the cookery class, she politely declined a freshly-made mince pie.
MR GORBACHEV accompanied his wife to the United States for a three-day summit meeting during which a treaty on the limitation of intermediate and shorter range missiles was signed. The Soviet leader went to America with the avowed aim of also making progress with the reduction of strategic offensive weapons. Upon arrival Mr Gorbachev said, 'May God help us.' Ultra-conservative critics of the deal described the wave of enthusiasm for the Russian leader sweeping the US as a `Gorbasm'. At the Copenhagen Euro- pean Community summit Mrs Thatcher again insisted on rigorous measures to reduce farm subsidies and food storage costs. West Germany and France argued for a more 'flexible' policy. European transport ministers finally approved an airline deregulation package which should make air travel within Europe cheaper. This followed agreement between Britain and Spain over the use of the airport at Gibraltar. An airliner crashed in Califor- nia, killing 43, after gunfire aboard. Pope John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople met at the Vatican to forward their efforts towards Christian unity. This was only the fifth or sixth such meeting of the two leading figures of Christendom since the Great Schism of 1054. Prince Norodom Siha- nouk, the former Cambodian leader, met the present prime minister of the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian govern- ment Hun Sen in France in a first tentative effort to end the country's guerrilla war. The Bundesbank lowered its key interest rate from 3 per cent to 2.5 per cent as part of a co-ordinated reduction by west Euro-
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