PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr Harold Wilson spent the weekend in Lagos, talking to the Federal Nigerian rulers, but his attempt to see Colonel Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, was swiftly rejected as 'a propaganda gesture.' So the Prime Minister flew to Addis Ababa and saw Haile Selassie instead. Mr Edward Heath, meanwhile, was touring the Middle East, reiterating Tory opposition to Britain's proposed withdrawal from the Gulf area by 1971. Many other travellers found movement difficult as a result of a pilots' strike which brought British Overseas Airways to a standstill.
Former President Eisenhower died, aged seventy-eight. Britain was thought to have acted poorly by not sending sufficiently eminent mourners (Lord Mountbatten and Mr Healey) to the funeral, but General de Gaulle was there. In Anguilla the atmosphere was calmer after Lord Caradon flew in for the British govern- ment; British commissioner Tony Lee and 'President' Ronald Webster drank tea together. At Westminster, the atmosphere was anything but calm as a furious row, developed in the Labour party over Mr Callaghan's open oppo- sition to the Government's trade union reforms. Mr. Stonehouse, the Postmaster-General, was also in hot water for saying that devaluation had not worked as well as had been hoped.
Meanwhile three new Tory MPS arrived after by-
elections at Walthamstow East (a Tory gain), Brighton Pavilion (Mr Julian Amery) and Weston-super-Mare. Bookmakers William Hill quoted odds of 5 to 1 on the Tories win- ning the next general election. Highland Wed- ding won the Grand National.
Britain's consumer boom seemed to be dying down : hire purchase debts and retail sales fell smartly in February. In the same month the United States had its biggest-ever deficit on foreign trade. Captain O'Neill gained a vote of confidence from the annual Ulster Unionist Council meeting (338 to 263) and General Yahya Khan, who succeeded Ayub Khan as ruler of Pakistan last week, assumed the office of presi- dent. Widespread anti-Russian disorders broke out in Czechoslovakia following the country's victory over the Soviet Union at ice hockey, and Marshal Grechko arrived in Prague for what was described as a tour of inspection of Russian occupation troops.
Sir Hugh Greene handed over as director- general of the BBC to Mr Charles Curran. Bul- lion worth E75,000 was stolen from a van in a London street. Mr Crossman promised urgent measures to improve conditions for mentally subnormal patients after a report disclosed ill- treatment of inmates of Ely Hospital, Cardiff. A razor attack by one pupil on another was re- ported from an infants' school at Deptford.
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