PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Stormy weather.
The British Government continued to suffer grave embarrassment in connection with the court case it is fighting in Sydney, Australia, where it is represented by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong. Mr Michael Alison, the Prime Minister's Principal Private Secretary, denied that he had described Sir Robert as 'a wally among the wallabies', the judge attacked the British Government for putting him in 'an intolerable position', 'quite unable to pre- dict from one day to the next' what its position would be, and the Government gave the judge the secret papers it had tried for weeks to withhold. The judge read the papers and said an edited version should be shown to the defence. The Government said it would appeal against this ruling. Sir Robert Armstrong had earlier, on the insistence of Sir Michael Havers, the Attorney-General, told the court that Sir Michael had not been in- volved in the decision in 1981 not to try to ban a book by Mr Chapman Pincher. Sir Robert apologised three times for making `an unintentional mistake'. Labour MPs attacked Sir Michael: why was he not involved? Tory MPs attacked Mr Neil
Kinnock: why had he spoken by telephone to the lawyer acting for the other side? Labour MPs counter-attacked by asking how these conversations could have be- come known, and persuaded the Speaker to examine whether Members' telephones had been tapped. Mr Kinnock went to the United States, to try to persuade the Americans that the Labour Party's plan to remove American nuclear weapons from British soil is a good thing. Mrs Thatcher attacked him for his 'abandonment of the bipartisan approach to security matters', and threatened to give him no more security briefings.
PRESIDENT Reagan failed to quell con- gressional curiosity about the Iran-Contra arms fiasco by announcing a three-man presidential inquiry into the National Security Council's part in it. Various con- gressional committees also began to in- quire. Colonel North, the military adviser dismissed from the National Security Council, was said to have returned to his office and shredded many documents, and to have been very unhelpful when ques- tioned by Congressmen. In Israel, senior
defence sources said Israel had initiated the sale of American arms to Iran, and had sold far more than admitted by President Reagan. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan told Mr Reagan, 'Your presidency, Sir, is tottering,' but Mr Reagan told Time, 'I'm not going to crawl into a hole.' He then agreed to the appointment of an indepen- dent judicial investigator to look at the arms fiasco, and appointed a new National Security Adviser, Mr Carlucci. The United States ceased to observe the Salt 2 treaty, by arming B52 bombers with cruise mis- siles. In the Punjab, Sikh terrorists hijack- ed a bus and killed 24 Hindu passengers, bringing the death toll to at least 625 this year. The British Government appointed two inspectors to look into the affairs of Guinness on suspicion of improper share dealing. It was learnt that Lord Dawson of Penn, doctor to King George V, had hastened the King's end so that his death could be announced in the morning papers. The Prince of Wales launched the Inner City Trust, to fund self-help community schemes. Cary Grant, though ageless, died of a heart attack. In Perth, the second Test
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