— Portrait of the Week A WEEK OF CEREMONY: the Queen
began the first State Visit to Germany by a British Sovereign since 1913, the Kennedy family came to London for the inauguration of the Kennedy memorial garden at Runnymede, the Foreign Ministers of France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union met briefly in Vienna for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Austrian Treaty of Neutrality, and Mr. Randolph Churchill was one of a group of new honorary fellows elected to Churchill College, Cambridge.
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BUT A WEEK, TOO, OF EXPLOSIONS: China set off her second nuclear bomb, a series of delayed action bombs went off unexpectedly, ravaging the American base in Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, and thirty-one Welsh miners were killed in an underground explosion in the Rhondda Valley. The Americans went five days without bombing North Vietnam, then resumed on the sixth. About 22,000 other Americans remained in the Dominican Republic, without, it seemed, quite knowing what to do: envoys and special representatives rushed in but the fighting continued and the leader of the military junta, General Imbert, embarrassed the Americans by declining to step dOwn. There was fighting, too, in Bolivia and Ecuador, while for Britain there was a state of emergency in Mauritius and advice from the UN Committee on Colonial- ism to get out of Aden.
AT HOME THE TORIES HAD A FIELD DAY with 562 gains in the local elections and only ten losses. Most people agreed that a General Election seemed nearer, and the Tories became the favourites. In came the fourpenny post;the cost- of-living index was revealed to have risen 2.1 points—the highest monthly rise since May/June 1955—and Mr. George Brown referred the printers' pay claim to the Prices and Incomes Board. There was a strike at Foyle's bookshop. The Government resented advice from bankers not to restrict economies to the private sector. The Commons began the Finance Bill Committee stage, and a committee of MPs is to consider the televising of Parliament.
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MR. ROBERT GARDINER, the Ghanaian who led the UN missiot in the Congo. is to give this year's Reith Lectures on race relations. Britain and France signed a further agreement on the joint development of aircraft,. British Rail reduced its annual deficit by a further £13,000,000, and Sir Frank Soskice said he hoped Britain would have coloured policemen soon : while West Ham beat Munich two—nil to win the European Cup- Winners' Cup.
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