Portrait of the Week
Russia warned America that the two countries appeared to be on a collision course, and also advised Europe that it must choose between collective suicide by following America, and adopting its own policy towards the Soviet Union. Moscow also announced that there would be Polish border manoeuvres in September.
Britain was in more trouble over Ireland. The Irish Prime Minister, Dr Garret Fitzgerald, claimed that politicians of all parties at Westminster privately recognised the desirability of uniting the North and the South. Cardinal O'Fiach, the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland, said that Mrs Thatcher did not seem to recognise the strong feelings the Belfast hunger-strikers aroused. The criticism of Mrs Thatcher's Irish policy spread to her own Government; some ministers were reported to be alarmed by the IRA's victory in the propaganda war and called for Humphrey Atkins to be replaced, possibly by James Prior. Another prisoner went on hunger strike at the Maze.
There was also criticism of Mrs Thatcher's economic policy, in spite of figures showing that industrial production was improving. Three economists wrote to the Prime Minister, calling on her to adopt an economic U-turn, and blaming her for the slump. Some other opponents of Conservative policies, the East Lothian Council, admitted defeat and drew up plans to cut spending by £15 million, the dismissal of nearly 1,000 teachers being the first step. The Edinburgh Festival, which receives a grant from the council, opened unscathed.
British Rail's problems seemed as large as those of the Government as fresh talks began to try to avert the national rail strike at the end of the month. The chairman, Sir Peter Parker, warned that BR could lose £130 million by the end of the year, 20,000 jobs might be lost through the strike, and fares would have to rise by 13 per cent. The 160-mile-an-hour Advanced Passenger Train lived up to part of its description as 'the train of tomorrow today' by being delayed until 1987, ten years late.
The American embargo on delivery of planes to Israel was lifted; President Sadat asked Washington for similar planes, and the PLO denied a plot to murder the Egyptian president, who had been the only head of state to see the Prince and Princess of Wales on their honeymoon.
The father of Helen Smith, the nurse who died after falling off a balcony in Saudi Arabia during a party two years ago, accused her host, Richard Arnot, of murder, and claimed that the Foreign Office was involved in a cover-up. In Britain, 800 nurses joined EXIT, the voluntary euthanasia organisation, and papers on a two-week-old spina bifida baby who died in hospital were sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Doctors called for new criteria to determine brain death.
The Polish printers went on strike, and stopped newspaper publication in Warsaw, in one of the most serious confrontations between Solidarity and the Communist Party so far. The pro-Shah gunmen who hijacked an Iranian gunboat were offered political asylum in France.
London Zoo lost one of its Capybaras— a giant rodent weighing 100 pounds. Readers of The Time.c were given a number to ring in case they spotted the animal, which is described as friendly. P. H.
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