— Portrait of the Week— WITH TWO SEATS LOST in the
little General Election and Mr. Macleod still insisting that the tide was turning, Mr. Macmillan decided to visit Presidents de Gaulle and Kennedy to see how they won their elections : other likely topics of after-dinner conversation include defence and Mr. Khrushchev's new-found sweet reasonable- ness. While France was recovering from the shock of a Parliament dominated by one elected party, Germany was reconciling itself to another year of Dr. Adenauer. Meanwhile Mr. Mikoyan left Cuba, since everything else of Russian value had gone already; Dr. Castro began apeing statesmanship, demanding international inspection of anti-Castro bases in Havana—Mr. Kennedy was not in the least amused. While Britain poured arms free of charge into India, Mr. Nehru came down on balance against the Chinese cease-fire proposals —not that he was against the idea, it was just that the terms were not good enough. Pakistan fulmi- nated against the West for taking Nehru's side, thus harming her position in Kashmir: taking a more sensible line were the Australian tennis authorities who insured the Davis Cup tourna- ment in case a war between India and China pre- vented play. Nasser's troops in the Yemen were rumoured to be in trouble, but out of the blue over four hundred Russian advisers, tourists, cul- tural aides and sports delegates arrived in the Yemen. Latin American politics slowed down from the customary thirty-three revolutions per minute to something nearer two per week; plots in both the Argentine and Guatemala were foiled. and the entire Guatemalan Air Force placed under arrest. The same may happen here, for al- ready six RAF men have applied to fight the next 4-election, wherever it is. There will be real Panic if the Navy jumps on the bandwagon, for icule's Fighting Ships this week revealed that the British Navy was virtually redundant. Meanwhile the last National Service officer planted a tree and left the Army.
COLD WAR GAMES CONTINUED: Russia claimed Mr. Wynne admitted spying and continued to Purge the Greek Embassy in Moscow. Geneva talks resumed while the United States announced Russia was testing H-bombs every two days. Al- most once every two days a new plan is produced fur the Congo : U Thant declared the Union Miniere would pay funds to the Central Govern- ment--the Union Miniere said it wouldn't. `Two nations' had a new meaning in this country as well, when unemployment figures touched a twenty-two-year peak for November, and the press discovered that all is not well north of the Mercy. All is far from well on the Mersey itself, where Ford's of Dagenham threatened not to go ahead with their new factory because of delaying tactics. The Vatican Council is to close for nine months, and inter-Church relations were not helped by the Baptist minister who declared that the RC Church was 'the mother of harlots' mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Though the mammoth petition against race hate and -Mr. Bcvins's plans for higher postal services had little prospect of success, the Stratford Company re- vealed that it was to receive a £47,000 subsidy, which would tide over its main troubles.
EVENING BECAME ELECTRA OR ITV, when the Play was transmitted in the original Greek, Tough commercial executives did not expect t Tto replace Coronation Street at the head of the AM ratings. Culture is all the rage in America oo, where National Culture Week is about to be- gin with Mrs. Jackie Kennedy as one of the major hostesses: Vanity Fair Was turned into a musical in London. The Bank of England an- nounced that 172 million farthings had not been returned : a full-scale search for them will soon begin- The MCC met to discuss plans to revive interest in cricket and did away with the dis- tinction between amateur and professional, de- claring, as if we didn't know already, that there are no longer any gentlemen in cricket.
Previous page
