Portrait of the Week
MR. CECIL KING and his Daily Mirror group made a bid for the hand of Odhams Press when that firm was almost at the altar with Mr. Roy Thomson. Mr. Macmillan told the House of Commons that he was 'rather doubtful' whether the Government could do anything about press amalgamations, and Lord Hailsham told the House of Lords that 'the newspapers contain Practically nothing .nowadays except facts about proposed take-overs between one and the other' —this apparently being a good reason for doing nothing about.it.
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PRESIDENT KENNEDY told Congress in his State of the Union message that there were 'troubled Years' ahead for the United States, but that he would explore every area of co-operation with the Soviet Union. It was also announced that the United States ambassador in Moscow was coming home for talks. Meanwhile, the new President won a victory in Congress when the Democrats and liberal Republicans scored 217 to 212 in the House of Representatives to expand the House rules committee and thus facilitate the Passage of liberal legislation. United States scientists sent off into space a chimpanzee in a Mercury capsule, which returned safely, with the Chimpanzee in good condition. An American rear- admiral made a rendezvous at sea with Captain Galvao to arrange the landing in Brazil of pas- sengers from the liner that the captain had seized.
IT wAs REVEALED—and resented—that the Admiralty had decided that coloured ratings of HMS Victorious should be disembarked before the carrier visited South African ports. The United Nations authorities in the Congo protested to President Tshombe of Katanga about the bombing of pro-Lumumba forces in Manono, and deplored the withdrawal of UAR, Guinean, Moroccan and Indonesian troops. The Indian Government refused to send a contingent. The United Federal Party and the Dominion Party of Northern Rhodesia, both representing white settlers, decided to boycott the constitutional con- ference. The Kenya African National Union became as rcft with dissension as the British Labour Party.
THE LAOTIAN GOVERNMENT confessed that when It had said that the country had been invaded by Communists and asked the Western world for help it had been purely for the sake of internal propaganda. M. Spaak resigned as secre- t-try-general of NATO so as to be free to lead the Belgian Socialist Party in the March election, and Mr. Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister of Israel. Britain and the UAR resumed diplo- matic relations.
THAT PROGRESSIVE SEPTUAGENARIAN, Field- Marshal Montgomery, recommended 'concen- trated doses of weed-killer' for the 'old guard' who co.ntrol British ski-ing, on the grounds that they are 'against change and progress and suffer from a high degree of mental constipation.' It Was decided to go ahead with the electrification of the London-to-Manchester railway line, and to give railway pensioners a little more money. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in London, advised on the matter of African horse disease by the Office of Epizootics in Paris. Was able to tell Moscow that the Russian horses Will be allowed to compete in the Grand National at Aintiee. Mr. Charles Clore told the Committee on Company Law that it was not necessary, in his opinion, that a company director should be able to read and write, and a number of city gentlemen heaved sighs of relief when he gave as an example only an unnamed farmer.
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