Portrait of the Week
THE meeting of NATO Heads of Governments and 'their Foreign Ministers opened with a great flourish in Paris on Monday after weeks of flurry, speculation and sometimes re- crimination. In the end President Eisenhower was allowed to make the trip and pleased his anxious audience in Paris by standing up in his car on the Way from the airport and waving to the crowds. The serious work of the conference is not, at the time of writing, complete; the highlights to date have been an impressive series of speeches re- affirming the peaceful intentions of the Pact and urging (what is not altogether in line with State Department policy) a serious consideration of Marshal Bulganin's latest sheaf of letters which Were delivered to the heads of countries in the Alliance shortly before they set off for the meeting. The most constructive aspect of these was a para- graph supporting the Polish suggestion of a non- nuclear zone consisting of the two Germanies, Poland and Czechoslovakia; and accordingly it is said that disarmament has been discussed at greater length in.Paris than had been expected. The American proposals for strengthening the Alliance are chiefly in the direction of closer co- operation and the pooling of technical resources. To this there has been added the suggestion that there should be a NATO atomic stockpile which could be doled out to member countries in case of emzrgency; it would be under United States custody. A pre-conference plea from the Prime Minister of the Lebanon that any decision which might affect the Arab countries should be referred to them has not had much response so far, though the Turkish Prime Minister has mentioned in g:.i.zral term the outflanking of NATO by Russia. Th :iifficult questions of Cyprus and Algeria have b_ gingerly approached but not yet handled.
It seems, too, that the Dutch are likely to get little comfort over Indonesia from the talks. It is true that President Sukarno is soon to go away.on a convalescent holiday, but his appeals to nationalism are still being heard, and the airlift
of Dutch personnel out of the country goes on.
In Cyprus itself the general situation is no better, with frequent riots and occasional deaths continuing. However, a good impression was created in Nicosia by the new Governor, Sir Hugh Foot, who walked about the old /own unescorted, a thing no Governor has dared to do for some years. He has also seen five of the Cypriot mayors.
We have been reminded of the heart-breaking plight of Hungary this Christmas by the news that fifteen Catholic priests are on trial for their part in 'counter-revolutionary activities' and eighteen other workers for their part in last year's rising. In South Africa the Crown case against sixty-one of the 156 people accused of treason since last year has been discontinued.
The Americans have successfully tested their inter-continental missile. Salvador Dali has pro- duced an edition of Don Quixote which is said, at fifty million French francs, to be the most expen- sive new book in the world.
The Bank rate tribunal has been sitting intermit- tently. The Government has decided to postpone payment of the capital and interest due at the end of the year on the American and Canadian loans. Dorothy L. Sayers has died.
Some of the coldest weather for almost two years has hit England. In the midst of the shivers the Transport Commission has rejected a claim for higher wages and the Union of Manufacturers an appeal from the Chancellor to cut prices. The prices index has gone up a point. The chairman of the Welsh Conservative Party has been appointed Minister of State for Welsh Affairs, a new post in order to perform which the new Minister will sit in the House of Lords. The Oppo- sition in the Commons has been whetting its knives for the last debate before the Christmas recess in which the Prime Minister and Mr. Lloyd will report the result of their Paris visit. The Lords have decided to allow the entrance of women into their august councils in spite of Lord Saltoun, who remarked that 'because boys and girls were together at a hunt ball there was no reason why they should be together at a maternity home.'
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