—Portrait of the Week— Sr` THE COUNTRY WAS STARK, staring
bonkers after all. By a tightrope majority of four Labour became the masters again—although its hopes of another 1945 became just another 1950. The opinion polls converged at the last moment to give the right result. Mr. Gordon Walker was defeated at Smeth- wick, and six Tory Ministers disappeared from the House, while in all 111 new boys were elected. Mr. Wilson moved into Downing Street: he did not meet Sir Alec Douglas-Home (Sunday Times. page 8)--,he did (Sunday Times, page 9).
WITH FIVE DAYS GONE of the promised '100 days of dynamic action' Mr. Wilson hustled into power. Most of the jobs were soon filled (among the new men Sir Charles Snow becomes assistant to Mr. Frank Cousins) and to further the image as a reforming administration the Government prom- ised to sweep away eighteenth-century limitations on the number of Ministerial posts. The trade gap kept the economics Ministers busy; Mr, Ray Gunter tried to prevent a national dock strike: and Mr. Gordon Walker is to go to America next week. Mr. Wilson, however, still had time to accept the post of Chancellor of the new Bradford University.
A MOMENTOUS WEEK ABROAD: Mr. Khrushchev also lost his seat at the head of Soviet affairs, and could not keep his promise to the three Soviet astronauts to meet them when they came down. Pravda criticised Mr. Khrushchev's 'hare-brained schemes,' and his place was taken by a new B & K combination, Messrs. Brezhnev and Kosygin. Meanwhile China exploded her first atom bomb— and promptly called for a Summit to ban nuclear arms. In the US, the resignation after a morals charge of Mr. Walter Jenkins, a close assistant to President Johnson, seemed momentarily to revive Senator Goldwater's drooping election hopes, but the President's calm display of public disapproval and private sympathy lessened the effect.
EX—PRESIDENT HOOVER DIED, and ex-President Truman was taken to hospital after a bad fall. Dr. Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and M. Jean-Paul Sartre was rumoured to have refused the Literature prize. President de Gaulle returned home from South America, with little iccomplished, and Pope Paul announced he is to visit Bombay next month. Mr. Tshompe claimed he knew of a plot to kill him, Russian-trained Zanzibar troops were reported to be massing on the Mozambique border, and the Southern Rhodesia Government was so angry at Mr. Wilson's refusal to take its opinion-sounding seriously that it hinted at taking the independeRce action that has been threatened for months.
WITHIN TWO DAYS OF TAKING sOFFICE, the oldest member of the Wilson Cabinet, Mr. James Griffiths, had promised a new town for Wales. But other Government Ministers, notably in transport and aviation, were taking to office more gingerly. Exports of cars and steel reached record levels, and Blue Streak made a successful second flight. The rising costs of the Anglo-French Concord project could lead to its scrapping now, hinted some newspapers, but this was denied. Sir Hugh Fraser claimed ownership of the Glasgow Herald, but Lord Thomson disagreed.
IN SPORT, THE OLYMPICS WEEK, and Britain's best- ever, with four gold medals, and a host of silver. Mr. Wilson sent a congratulatory telegram, prais- ing winners and losers alike for sportsmanship: at least our losers were better behaved than the two boxers who thumped the referee, or the Korean boxer who sat in the ring for fifty minutes in protest.
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