Portrait of the Week
OREIGN affairs have been boiling merrily this week.
What with the French delegation flying back in dudgeon from New York after the vote to include Algeria on the agenda of the General Assembly, Colonel Nasser's an- nouncement of the signing of an arms contract between Egypt and Czechoslovakia, and the renewed upheavals in French Morocco, Islamic nationalism is plainly having a field-day, whether its impetus is directed against Israel or against `colonialist powers.' One result of these events is that M. Faure, the French Prime Minister, is going to meet Dr. Adenauer rather than M. Khrushchev, the Riissian vote on the Algerian question being the more resented in that a French parliamen- tary delegation had understood the Soviet leader to have given an assurance that Russia would not meddle in French internal affairs. Meanwhile, in North Africa there have been tribal risings in the Riff, and the withdrawal of the Sultan to Tangier has been carried out in conditions that involve the breaking of the French Government's agreement with the Moroccan nation- alists. What with one thing and another, M. Faure's position now appears pretty shaky and it seems doubtful whether he will survive long enough to discuss the Saar with Dr. Adenauer. Colonel Nasser's move, accompanied as it has been by the production of a British intelligence document to demonstrate the Israelite menace, has also put the diplomatic hive into a buzz, sending Mr. George Allen, assistant secretary in the State Department, scurrying to the Middle East with almost indecent haste, and drawing a Tass statement, in which righteous indig- nation and conscious virtue are nicely blended.
In Cyprus the arrival of the new Governor, Sir John Harding, has been greeted with the usual menacing slogans by Eoka and with rather more courteous hostility by Archbishop Makarios. There has been a twenty-four-hour general strike in the island as well as a number of incidents involving attacks on British soldiers. It remains to be seen whether the death of Marshal Papagos will make any difference to Greek policy in this matter. The Buraimi Oasis affair also continues with a statement from the Foreign Office that Saudi Arabia has posi- tively been using bribery to gain her ends in that area and that the British Government approves the withdrawal of Sir Reader Bullard from the arbitration tribunal. In Indonesia the National Party appears to be ahead in the electioni, which have taken place in complete calm, disturbed only by minor bandit raids. Ex-President Peron has flown to Paraguay in a seaplane, and M. Gheorghiu-Dej has become first secretary of the Rumanian Communist Party. In America President Eisenhower seems to • be recovering and has appointed Mr. Sherman Adams as his `co-ordinator' with the administration. A neglected trouble spot is the Faroe Islands, where riots have followed the arrival bf squads of Danish police with instructions to suppress the islanders' defiance of Copenhagen. Mr. Nehru has spoken of the moral decline of Indian youths—a phrase which has a familiar sound.
At home both political parties are limbering up for their conferences. Mr. Poole has become Conservative chairman in succession to Lord Woolton, and Mr. Harold Wilson's com- mittee on Labour Party organisation has come to conclusions about the steps that should be taken. The gold and dollar reserves fell by £40 million in September. There has been a walk-out at the Daimler factory following on some of the staff being declared redundant, and Mr. Josef Malicki, secretary- general of the Polish Social and Cultural Association in Great Britain, is to be deported.
For the miscellany this week the sending to Rangoon of the Buddha's tooth from Peking must take pride of place. A London medical school has found that medical students are illiterate. Mr. Macmillan was transported by helicopter and a number of Parisian motor-cars, parking in the wrong place, by crane. The Brooklyn Dodgers have beaten the Yankees in the world series of baseball and, less sensationally, England de- feated Denmark at football. V. K. Zzzu has now acceded to the last place in the London telephone directory.
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