Portrait of the Week— MAJOR YUR1 ALEXEYEVITCH GAGARIN, of the
Soviet Air Force, was launched into space, circled the globe, and returned alive. The trial opened in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, a German, for crimes against humanity in general, and against the Jewish people in particular.
AT ONE OF MS infrequent press conferences, attended by 500•journalists, President de Gaulle said that he was certain that the future of Algeria was as an independent State, and that France did not want to rule the country by force. But he made it clear that Algeria would be the loser by complete secession, and the gainer by retaining an association with France. Ethiopian troops of the UN forces in Elisabethville cap- tured white mercenaries fighting for Katanga- most of them white South Africans. Only one delegation—that of Portugal—voted against yet another United Nations resolution condemning South African apartheid, Britain at last standing up to be counted amongst the righteous. Jomo Kenyatta, who is now politely referred to as 'Mr.' by the Kenya Government, though still under restrictions, held a press conference, just like President de Gaulle.
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A GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER proposed that the nationalised industries—though it didn't make it very clear which—should make ends meet Over a five-year period, raising their charges if necessary. A strike of BBC TV electricians and one of trawler skippers fizzled out, and at Wands- worth Gaol prisoners refused to obey orders and to work in the laundry as a protest against the punishment of one of their fellows. Sixty-seven bring-back-the-birch Tory MPs (not counting two tellers) voted against the Government in the big- gest back-bench revolt for ten years, and other Tories abstained. The Government got by, in the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill, with the help of the Opposition. Another revolting Tory, Lord Salisbury, who was charged by Lord Alexander of Hillsborough in the House of Lords with not having declared his interest when debating Central Africa, resigned from the board of the British South Africa Company because, it was said, of medical advice not to overwork.
THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT, which goes to some trouble to ensure that no books are translated into Russian for publication in the Soviet Union unless they show the West in an unfavourable light, is to translate and publish Sir Anthony Eden's memoirs. A Soviet submarine officer defected to the West, and the Daily Mail reported that Francis Powers, the U2 spy pilot, would soon be released by the Soviet authorities and would elect to stay In the Soviet Union. In a speech in the United States Mr. Macmillan said that the Communist bloc was stronger than ever and the West as weak as usual, and that the West ought to buck Its ideas up. A day or so later President Kennedy promised to strengthen NATO.
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RIM ISH CAR MANUFACTURERS took orders worth £17 million at the International Automobile Show in New York, and boasted that the export slump was over. No mention was made of whether spare parts or services would be available for the cars they had sold, Meanwhile, United States authorities, reducing dollar expenditure overseas, Imposed restrictions on the purchase of British cars by American servicemen in this country, and their free transport back to the United States. The Conservative Party did well in the county council elections, and Lord Morrison resigned the presidency of the Association of Municipal Corporations because it agreed, on the whole, with the recommendations of the Royal Com- mission on Local Government in Greater London Which, he said, would destroy the LCC and, 'as a Londoner, I resent it.'
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