Portrait of the Week
LAst week's announcement from Russia on the uncom- fortable subject of inter- continental missiles does not seem to have had a very bene- ficial effect on the Great Powers. The United States has promptly exploded a very powerful bomb in Nevada and promises another series; Russia, in spite of Japanese pro- tests, is also to start a new group of tests. Mr. Sandys has been in Australia looking at rockets and celebrating on the wireless the existence of huge stocks of American hydrogen bombs. A comprehensive Western plan for disarmament was put forward at the UN sub-committee's talks in London, which included a concession to Russia on the matter of the suspension of tests. Mr. Zorin none the less felt able to reject the plan without reference to his masters at home.
The said masters have been busy in several spheres, having appointed Mr. Molotov as Soviet Ambassador to Ulan Bator in Outer Mongolia and (though they have expressed themselves un- interested in his fate) Mr. Shepilov to a teaching job in the Far East. Marshal Bulganin will also, presumably, have been taking a look at Mr. Macmillan's reply to his verbose letter of mid- July. He will not, one imagines, have got much out of it. It deals a few sharp digs at such subjects as the jamming of British broadcasts to Russia, the political capital made out of visits to Russia, Soviet policy in the Middle East, and the 'camou- flage of obscure wording' used, presumably, in Mr. Bulganin's last letter. The opening of the American school term has been the signal for more racial trouble in the South, where some States still seem determined to keep racial segregation in spite of the Supreme Court ruling on the subject. The Republicans have lost the late Senator McCarthy's Wisconsin seat.
Malaya has at last been declared independent by the Duke of Gloucester, and has been 'wet- cOmed to the Commonwealth' by Mr. Dulles. The other new member, Ghana, has been the subject of slightly suspicious glances after Dr. Nkrumah's announcement that there is to be a military call- up there, and that the police will be controlled by a somewhat suspect politician; since the Prime Minister is apparently to have his likeness on stamps and coins it is not surprising that there have already been whispers of dictatorship.
The greatest show on earth is again under way at Blackpool, where the TUC is in session. Dele- gates have so far voted against altering their constitution in any way, while their president has condemned unofficial strikes, wage restraint, and the three wise men. The Labour Party's pensions scheme has received the official benison of the meeting.
The gold and dollar reserves fell in August by about f80 million partly as a result of rumours that the mark might be revalued and partly as a result of heavy buying of grain and tobacco. Mussolini's body, having been disinterred and handed back to his family, was reburied in the tomb of his ancestors to the accompaniment of a small Fascist riot. A terrible rail disaster in Jamaica has cost more than two hundred lives.
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