PORTRAIT OF THE YEAR
In January, the British Government was afflicted by an argument about helicopters. Mr Michael Heseltine, the Secretary of State for Defence, left the Cabinet on being told in future all his remarks about the Westland helicopter company of Yeovil would have to be approved by the Cabinet Office. It was ascertained by the Prime Minister that he had not merely left the room but resigned. He favoured a 'Euro- pean solution' to Westland's troubles, while his enemy Mr Leon Brittan, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, favoured an 'American solution'. Then Mr Brittan resigned, because it was found that his department had leaked a confidential letter from the Solicitor-General, in order to discredit Mr Heseltine. It was asked whether Mrs Thatcher had known about this leak before it was made, as officials at No. 10 had. There was said to have been a misunderstanding among the officials. When Sir Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, or top official, was attacked by the Commons Defence Select Committee, Mrs Thatcher said she was proud to defend him. Mr Brittan's successor, Mr Paul Channon, soon afterwards announced that American companies wanted to buy parts of British Leyland, including Land Rover. Although the 'American solution' had been adopted in the case of the helicopter company, the BL deals provoked such a storm of economic nationalism that the Government gave in. It was said that Cabinet government had been restored. Mrs Thatcher declared that she had no intention of standing down. In May, opin- ion polls showed the Tory Party in third place.
THESE polls were taken after the Libyan raid. In March, the United States had sunk a Libyan patrol boat when American planes were attacked during exercises off Libya. Several terrorist attacks on Euro- pean targets were said to have been spon- sored by Colonel Gaddafi, including the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque which killed an American soldier. In April, American bombers operating from British bases bombed targets in Tripoli, by acci- dent inflicting civilian as well as military casualties. Colonel Gaddafi, of whom the small adopted daughter was killed, was said to have fled, but instead appeared on television to announce: 'Allah is stronger than America.' Many commentators thought Mrs Thatcher had lost the next general election, because she had allowed the use of bases in Britain. France did not allow the planes to enter French air space: not only was the French embassy in Tripoli damaged in the raid, but in the course of the year Paris suffered more terrorist outrages than any other West European capital. In the French elections, the right- wing parties won a majority of three in the National Assembly, excluding the National Front, which took nearly ten per cent of the vote, just more than the Communists. M. Jacques Chirac became Prime Minister. At first his 'cohabitation' with President Mitterrand went quite well, but then the students rioted in protest at university reforms. M. Chirac gave in to them and the railway workers went on strike. The Span- ish voted in a referendum to stay in Nato, but the Swiss voted overwhelmingly to stay out of the United Nations. The Austrians elected Dr Waldheim, formerly Secretary- General of the UN, their President, though he never satisfactorily answered the ques- tion: 'What did you do in the war?' He was accused of involvement in the killing of Jews in the Balkans. In the Austrian general election, the right-wing Freedom Party, whose leader visited Hitler's birth- place on the last day of the campaign, doubled its share of the vote to ten per cent.
THERE was a very serious accident at Chernobyl, not far from Kiev. Almost as soon as increased levels of radiation had been detected in Scandinavia, over 1,000 miles away, the Soviet news agency Tass admitted that there had been a fire in a nuclear reactor. Pravda reported, from the town of Chernobyl, 'There is calm and confidence on the faces of the people in their protective suits,' but it was evident that little had been done to evacuate unprotected people from the contaminated area. Western scientists estimated that besides those killed immediately, 48,000 people might die from cancers caused by the radioactivity. An explosion aboard a Soviet nuclear-armed and powered sub- marine 900 miles off New York caused it to surface. Three days later it sank. The American space shuttle blew up only 72 seconds after taking off, with the loss of all seven people on board. 'Man will continue his conquest of space,' commented Presi- dent Reagan. It was revealed that a 42,000- lb hydrogen bomb had been dropped in error on New Mexico 29 years ago, but failed to go off. Mr Reagan said the USA would no longer observe the Salt II treaty if the Soviet Union continued to infringe it. The United States then infringed the trea- ty. The Soviet Union released several famous dissidents during the year, but imprisoned Mr Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist. The Daniloff affair threatened the forthcoming Russo- American summit, until he was released in exchange for a Russian charged with spying in New York. Mr Meagan denied that a deal had been done. A summit was held at short notice in Reykjavik, ending not in an arms control agreement but in disappointment.
THE following people died: Lord David Cecil, Christopher Isherwood, L. Ron Hubbard, Glubb Pasha, James Cagney, Sir Peter Pears, Jean Genet, Simone de Beauvoir, the Duchess of Windsor, Lord Shinwell (after saying 'I've had enough'), Jorge Luis Borges, Lord Boothby, Osbert Lancaster, Averell Harriman, Henry Moore, John Braine, Sir Gordon Richards, Molotov, David Penhaligon and Lord Stockton. Mr Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated, shot in the back after leaving a cinema in Stockholm, but President Pinochet of Chile survived an ambush in which five of his . bodyguards perished. In India, although a gunman fired several shots at Mr Gandhi without hitting him, at least 600 people died in violent incidents in the Punjab. In the Philippines, President Mar- cos insisted he had been re-elected, but Cardinal Sin said the sanctity of the ballot has been violated, and the President had to be rescued by the Americans, ceding pow- er to his electoral opponent, Mrs Cory Aquino. Rumours that President Kim II Sung of North Korea had been assassin-
PORTRAIT OF THE YEAR
ated proved false. The former emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa went home to the Central African Republic and was put on trial for murder, theft, cannibalism etc. In West Cameroon, at least 1,500 people were killed by a cloud of gas which rose from a lake. In San Salvador, an earth- quake accounted for 1,000 people. In Hartlepool, a woman died after catching tetanus from a garden gnome, on whose fishing rod she impaled her leg.
THE London press was taken entirely by surprise when Mr Rupert Murdoch moved production of his newspapers, including the Times and the Sun, to Wapping, where they were printed in a new and well- defended plant by electricians, not prin- ters. The print unions made strenuous but unsuccessful attempts to cut this plant off from the outside world. They rejected an offer of £58 million in compensation for loss of jobs, though many individual prin- ters took the money. Two new newspapers appeared: Today, devised by Mr Eddy Shah, a technological pioneer but editorial failure who before the end of the year had to sell out to Mr Tiny Rowland, and the Independent, which competes against the other quality papers and is serious in tone. Mr Peregrine Worsthorne was made editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Max Hastings editor of the Daily Telegraph. They were told they would have to go to a new office on the Isle of Dogs, but Mr Worsthorne said he would edit from the Garrick Club. Mr William Deedes was made a life peer. Princess Anne complained of the 'un- adulterated trivia, rubbish and gratuitous trouble-making that appears in all sections of the so-called media'.
TOWARDS the end of the year, President Reagan found himself more and more in trouble. The Democrats took control of the Senate by a larger margin than ex- pected, and the speaker of the Iranian Parliament claimed that Mr Robert McFar- lane had travelled to Iran carrying a Bible and a box of cakes as presents from President Reagan. It was learned that the United States had supplied arms to Iran in return for the release of hostages held in the Lebanon, despite an avowed policy of not ransoming terrorists. Furthermore, the $30 million profit from the sale of arms to Iran had been transferred via Switzerland to the Contras fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, at a time when the Congress had forbidden funding for the Contras. President Reagan said he would sack no- body. He at once sacked Colonel Oliver North, a member of the National Security Council staff, and accepted the resignation of Admiral Poindexter, its chief. Congress became wildly excited, the President's popularity plummeted and Poindexter and North refused to say whether and when the President had authorised their activities. The French ransomed some hostages, but were shameless about it.
MEANWHILE the British Government tried to stop an MI5 officer from publishing his memoirs in Australia, by the doubtful expedient of sending the top official, Sir Robert Armstrong, to testify. On the way he attacked a photographer and in court he behaved like 'a wally among the wallabies', as Mrs Thatcher's parliamentary private secretary denied describing him. Lord Rothschild's name came up, and he asked the Prime Minister to clear him of suspi- cion of being 'the fifth man', which she did, though not in the terms he requested. None of this seemed to harm the British Government's standing with its own elec- tors, for it ended the year with a clear lead in the opinion polls. The Alliance parties suffered badly at the time of their confer- ences for failing to agree a common de- fence policy. The Labour Party suffered badly for espousing a non-nuclear defence policy, expounded in many words and with much personal conviction by its leader. Mr Kinnock also attacked left-wing Labour councils for bringing the Party into dis- repute. The GLC and the six metropolitan counties ceased to exist. A government Bill to legalise Sunday trading was defeated. In Northern Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Agree- ment brought no perceptible improvement in security. The Unionists resigned their seats, and with one exception were re- elected, and after this constitutional pro- test had failed, hooligan elements took to attacking policemen. Prince Andrew was created Duke of York and married Miss Sarah Ferguson. England lost Test series against the West Indies, India and New Zealand, but retained the Ashes in Austra- lia. The largest lemon seen in Great Britain was grown at an agricultural research station. It was nearly two feet in circumfer-
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