Portrait of the Week
THE. CHINESE again accused the Russians of play- ing the American game in Vietnam, and Mr. Smith reversed the charges so to speak, accusing Britain of playing the Communist game in Rhodesia. It was his painful duty, on the suspen- sion of the Rhodesian Reserve Bank, to declare his country unwilling and unable to discharge her debts to the World Bank, or, bluntly, bankrupt. African members of the OAU threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Britain if Rhodesia were not reconstituted by December 15. 'What can this mean?' asked one sceptic, 'that they plan to remove their overdrafts from London?' Mean- while Mr. Kapwepwe, Zambia's Foreign Minister, complained that the Javelins sent by Britain were completely out of date. An RAF spokesman thought he had been misinformed. Mr. Bottom- ley declared Britain could not deal with Mr. Smith. Lord Gardiner apparently thought he had been misinformed. And in Bechuanaland, gangs of convicts toiled to erect a low power BBC transmitter near the Rhodesian border.
nor THERE WAS JOY in Rome and Istanbul. The Pope and the Patriarch Athenagoras together healed the Grand Schism pronounced with mutual excommunication 900 years ago; and the end of the Vatican Council (still no news on birth con- trol) saw a reverse for another ageing patriarch. President de Gaulle polled 44 per cent in the French presidential election, 12 per cent more than his left-wing rival, M. Mitterand, and announced his intention of standing again in the second ballot. A plot to blow up the bronze lion on the battlefields of Waterloo came to nothing, when Russian alarm clocks failed inside two time bombs. A Russian probe crashed on the moon. Two Americans settled down to a fort- night in space. Russia increased her defence budget by 5 per cent. America's discount rates rose by half of 1 per cent. School teachers in Birmingham came out on strike, Mr. Crossman revealed a savage contempt for our rating system, and a judge could barely conceal his admiration for Mr. John Turner's coup at the Dagenham greyhound races.
AS CHRISTMAS APPROACHED, food and drink vied for headlines: Chinese state duck farms announced a target of one million Peking ducks this year. thirty times the number of ducks pro- duced before Communist rule, and- 2,600 gal- Ions of Chateau Neuf du Pape poured down a ravine when a lorry crashed near Chateauneuf. Barnoldsby Orange Miss, Supreme Champion at Smithfield. was congratulated by the Queen. And a wise old bird sitting on her eggs at London Zoo forecast a mild winter: Rebecca, the spotted eagle owl, has never been known to lay unless she could depend upon weather warm enough to rear her brood.
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