PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Egypt's Chief of Staff, General Riad, was killed in an artillery duel with Israel across the Suez Canal. United Nations observers blamed the Egyptians for starting the firing and Mrs Golda Meir formally undertook to form a new Israeli government. There were many protests against Federal Nigerian bombing of civilian Biafrans and the British government agreed under pressure to hold a debate on British in- volvement in the war. Sir Denis Greenhill. per- manent head of the Foreign Office. flew to Lagos. General Gowon told Britain not to interfere. A one-day national strike took place in France, and General de Gaulle said subver- sive forces were trying to 'lock the French people into a totalitarian prison.' The franc was shaky. America's new Defence Secretary, Mr Laird, warned the North Vietnantese that renewed attacks were trying the patience of the United States. Mass protests were staged in Russia and China following a border clash.
Mr Wilson said in a BBC television pro- gramme that he had had to face more personal attack than any other Prime Minister. Mr Anthony Barber, the Conservative party chair- man, called him a weasel. Mrs Wilson, broad- casting in Desert island Discs, said she liked angels. The Queen opened the new Victoria Line tube but the public were slow to learn how to work the new fare-collecting machines. Astronauts in the Apollo 9 performed various manoeuvres in space and sang 'Happy Birth- day' to friends on earth. Paul McCartney, MBE, last of the bachelor Beatles. married Linda Eastman, rich, American and divorced, in London. Budget day was fixed for 15 April.
Because of the continuing stoppage at Ford's it was said that a £20 million expansion plan was in doubt : Mr Heath talked of 'industrial anarchy.' A Labour ntp, Mr Gordon Bagier, denied that he had acted improperly in working for a public relations company which repre- sented the Greek junta. James Earl Ray was sentenced to ninety-nine years' imprisonment in Tennessee for killing Martin Luther King. The Board of Trade issued a, booklet warning business men to beware of sexual traps when visiting communist countries. The Engli,h cricket team which went to Pakistan because of 'political difficulties with South Africa re- turned home prematurely because of riots A routine week at the London School of Economics: the second 'occupation' of the term took place, and some private documents and examination papers were stolen from the dean of undergraduate studies' office; fiftecn students pleaded guilty at Bow Street to caui- ing obstruction .during an earlier incident, and were discharged. An escape of water tem- porarily cut off the Downing Street telephones, and Mr Short, the Education Minister, was told not to be boring by a computer with which he was conversing. It was reported that a seventy- foot sea monster, with tusks and eyes like headlamps, had been washed ashore in the Gulf of Mexico.
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