Portrait of the Week
COLONEL JOHN GLENN became the first United States astronaut to circle the earth: he completed three orbits, returned safely, and put in for his four hours' flying-time bonus. Mr. Khrushchev came up with polite congratulations and the suggestion that the United States and Russia should pool their resources in the conquest of space. Dr. William Hilton, the British scientist whose researches made it possible for Colonel Glenn's capsule to return without burning up in the atmosphere, revealed that he was out of a job and drawing unemployment benefit: three of his colleagues had gone to find work in the United States.
IT WAS UNDERSTOOD, though not officially an- nounced, that the French Government and the Algerian rebels had come to terms; meanwhile, a French military aeroplane attacked an FLN camp over the Moroccan border, and a Moroccan village in which were Algerian refugees, and plastic bombs continued to go off in Paris. Mr. Sandys came back from Rhodesia to discuss the future of the Federation, leaving behind him sus- picions that he planned to let Nyasaland• secede from the Federation and the Commonwealth, and to boost Barotseland into semi-independence as a balance to Northern Rhodesia. Dr. Jagan', Prime Minister of British Guiana, had to call in British troops to deal with rioters against his budget pro- posals, Dr. Jagan being a good judge of the efficacy of British military measures, previously used in British Guiana to prevent a suspected coup (feint of his own. The chairman of the South African Wool Board said that if Communist China agreed to buy substantial amounts of South African wool, the Chinese in South Africa would be regarded as white, just"Jike the Japanese. At a London meeting of the Committee .for the Restoration of Democracy in Pakistan, Pakistani democrats hit Pakistani non-democrats over the head with banners inscribed, 'Restore Democracy in Pakistan.'
A GOVERNMENT WHITE PAPER showed that present British defence policy would be maintained, with a much closer merging of the three Services, and a task force kept in being east of Suez. The leaders Of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which had decided not to condemn the resumption of nuclear tests, seemed initially to take the view that the Defence White Paper amounted to nothing, less than an anti-NATO document—a view which must have been arrived at after some acrobatic interpretations.
* SlOi 1313 GAULLE visited Dr. Adenauer at Baden-Baden and discussed the closer political union of the six Common Market countries; he also replied to Mr. Khrushchev's note proposing ao eighteen-power disarmament conference, and said that France was always willing to take part in a conference of the four nuclear powers.
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THE GREAT GALES of the weekend brought death and destruction to Yorkshire, and in particular to Sheffield, where nearly half the city's houses were destroyed or damaged, and .a state of emergency proclaimed. The wild weather swept • on to Northern Germany, where well over 200 people were killed or drowned in floods, and more than 100,000 rendered homeless. British railwaymen decided to accept a three per cent. rise in pay, and not to call for a national railway strike. .A shortage of grave-diggers was reported in Wilt- shire, where it was suggested that parishes should share a mechanical digger. The Oxford Union decided to admit women as debating members, and the only woman member of the 1,100-strong Gamekeepers' Association resigned, without at all suggesting that any of the other 1.099 were getting the profession a bad name.
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