Considering that Mrs Thatcher appears to share President Reagan's view of the massive reality of the Soviet military threat, it is odd that defence cuts should be causing a...

Role-playing at sea Ferdinand Mount How the Royal Navy ever came to be known as the Silent Service is a mystery. All military lobbies are garrulous, but you can't beat an...

Some readers may recall that about two years ago the Spectator started a campaign for the restoration of the old counties, several of which were wiped out and many others...

Lay apart all filthiness Auberon Waugh If the Pope dies, or is seriously reduced in his pontifical function by the wounds he received last Wednesday, then he will have...

Tim Garton Ash Berlin Whatever has happened to Chancellor Schmidt? Seven months ago he was swept back to power with an overwhelming vote of confidence from the West German...

Peter Hebblethwaite Rome In Arthur Koestler's account of the Khazar empire, which flourished between the Don and the Volga in the early Middle Ages, we read of certain...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington There were a few protests from clergymen that it was a bit much to name a recently commissioned attack submarine the USS Corpus Christi, but...

Sam White Paris It's a rush for the lifeboats by Giscardiens and Communists following the wreck of their hopes and illusions in the presidential election and in the face of the...

The Americans are beating us again. This time, they have invented a pencil which will make an indelible mark. The lead in the pencil is not plumbago, but a composition; it...

Philip Williams Francois Mitterrand is still the least known of French politicians after one of the longest careers in public life. Ambiguity was there from the start, for he...

Richard West Guatemala City Some of the journalists in El Salvador assured me that 'Guatemala's twice as sinister, . That's where the war will really break out . . . That's the...

Wilfred De'Ath Last week I made a misguided attempt to join the Peoples March for Jobs which is currently walking from Liverpool to London (where it expects to arrive on or...

Journalists as tin gods Paul Johnson Journalists in the United States have always, in my opinion, received too much deference. They have a constitutional status. Government...

Wall St blues Tony Rudd Modern monetarism was born in America and judging by recent events it could be buried there too. When the new Administration came into office it was...

Sir: Terrorism lives by publicity and some terrorist movements are recorded as having died for want of attention from press and broadcast. Your editorial of 9 May can thus only...

Sir: The usually admirable Alexander Chancellor's paragraph on Cats (16 May) barks up so many of the wrong trees simultaneously that we appear to be dealing with what Americans...

Sir: Richard Ingrams in his review of The Making of Mankind on BBC2 (9 May) pours scorn on the evolutionary explanation of Man's origins. What does he himself believe? Is he a...

Sir: Taki, in his usual inconsequential fashion, chooses this week (9 May) to sneer at Canada, in a piece purporting to expose the character defects of J. K. Galbraith. The...

Sir: Absence in New York last week prevented me from dealing with Sir Roy Shaw's letter in a brief footnote. It is said he is becoming a little paranoid about criticism of the...

Sir: Sam White's comments from Paris on potential recruits to the Mitterrand cabinet thoroughly scrambled the credentials of one contender (16 May). The 'former Common Market...

" A. N. Wilson Loitering with Intent Muriel Spark (Bodley Head, pp. 222, £6.50) • Twenty years ago, Muriel Spark had the great misfortune to publish a masterpiece: The Prime of...

Caroline Moorehead Children of Lir Desmond Hogan (Hamish Hamilton pp. 176, £6.95) Modern Irish Short Stories edited Ben Forkner (Michael Joseph pp. 557, £7.95) A Stone Throw...

Anthony Storr Cockburn Sums Up Claud Cockburn (Quartet pp. 270, £8.50) Claud Cockburn was born at Peking 'on the day the Japanese blew,. up the Russian flagship Petropavolsk at...

Gavin Stamp Hugh Casson's Diary Hugh Casson (Macmillan pp.176, £8.95) Why does anyone keep a diary? For a truthful record of events? To encourage greater self-awareness? Or...

Jonathan Keates Edwardian Excursions: from the Diaries of A.C. Benson ed. David Newsome (Michael Joseph pp. 190, £12.50) In the autumn of 1901 the management of Covent Garden...

Nicholas Garland Daumier Roger Passeron (Phaidon pp. 326, £45) Hogarth David Bindman (Thames & Hudson pp. 216, £5.95, £2.95) It often seems that every aspect of our modern...

Peter Ackroyd Melvin and Howard ('AA', Gate One and Screen on the Green) The legend of Howard Hughes is a powerful one; it resembles some allegorical painting by Delacroix, in...

Mark Amory Translations (Hampstead) Have You Anything to Declare? (Round House) An Evening with Quentin Crisp (Mayfair) Brian Friel has been writing plays for over 30 years and...

John MeEwen The most striking aspect of the 213th Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy (till 16 August) is how ripe it is for a takeover by the tllitists once again. For...

Prospects Alan Gibson As the new season gets under way, I permit myself one cheerful thought. The weather ought to get better. We have had four wet and often cold seasons....

Uninformative Richard Ingram The BBC's Everyman programme has no precise brief. It is supposed to be a God-slot but such is the nature of people's attitude to religion...

Write or wrong Taki My high spirits at being back in England were somewhat dampened when I was faced with the prospect of opening ten pounds of mail, mostly bills and a writ...

Sun struck Jeffrey Bernard Athens Dear Reader, I promised the Editor that I'd write to you, which is a hell of a drag I can tell you, because I've got far better things to do...