The war of the 1940s was the defining moment of “the Greatest Generation”. It is called Seabiscuit.For us foreigners, the name may not ring a bell. But for Americans of a certain age, it summons up the ultimate feelgood story – the little racehorse whose exploits, briefly at least, banished the miseries of the Depression.The Americans have always lusted after heroes and lionised bygone eras in the hunt for them. And that is what America is doing.The most intriguing movie here this summer deals not with Spy Kids, Terminators or Pirates in the Caribbean. And even Private Jessica Lynch’s dramatic rescue in Iraq seems to have been less than meets the eye.
The lesson is clear: put not your trust in frail humans, but go for a horse instead. Kobe Bryant, a role-model basketball star, is currently arraigned on rape charges. Why do American heroes have feet of clay? The sublime Joe DiMaggio, according to a recent biography, was in reality a greedy opportunist.

One diplomat said: “It’s hard to know who’s disappeared and who has not because the field keeps shifting.”One rumour is that Canada, which has never held the post, might propose John Manley, the Deputy Prime Minister. Another is that Eldbjorg Lower, Norway’s first woman defence minister, who served from 1999-2000, might come into the running The chances of a last-minute surprise are high.. Antonio Vitorino, Portugal’s European Commissioner, seems to have bowed out of the race.Nato defence ministers will have their last chance to resolve the issue at a meeting in Colorado in early October. As the outgoing secretary general is British and his predecessor was Spanish, those two nations are unlikely to propose a candidate.The initial frontrunner was Antonio Martino, the Italian Defence Minister, but he has said he was not interested in the job – although some observers believe his name might resurface at the 11th hour. By tradition, neither the US nor France, which is not part of Nato’s integrated military command structure, nominates a secretary general. But he has never served as a defence minister, and the Netherlands has held the post twice, whereas a Norwegian has never got the job.Lord Robertson’s post has been difficult to fill in the fractious post-Iraq war climate, which split Nato.

The Dutch Foreign Minister, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, is the favourite but the prospect of Nato being led by a woman for the first time has made Norway’s charismatic Defence Minister, Kristin Krohn Devold, a strong contender.Described by one diplomat as “intellectually impressive” and “imaginative”, the 41-year-old centre-right politician is also a sports enthusiast who famously surprised Norwegian troops when visiting them on winter exercises. Norway’s “action woman” Defence Minister is mounting a strong bid to become the first female secretary general of Nato, as the hunt for a new head for the transatlantic alliance reaches its last lap.
With the secretary general, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, leaving at the end of December, two unofficial candidates are making the running. “We were left with a situation in one case where the guy would have needed 15ft-long arms because you couldn’t get that pattern unless you were standing 15ft away from the person who was injured,” he told BBC News 24.”We can’t use emotive words like murder. We can say it’s either self-inflicted, or highly likely, unlikely etc. It is really a matter for the police, the coroner, the courts, the Crown Prosecution Service, people like that, to make these decisions.”Surrey Police had been expected to say at a briefing tomorrow that it had found no evidence of third-party involvement in any of the deaths.However, after Mr Swann’s report came to light, the force contacted the four families to postpone the announcement citing “differences” between its consultant experts..

He spent six weeks investigating the deaths from a mobile laboratory set up on the grounds of the barracks. The others included the Forensic Science Service and the German Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Office), which took part in the Surrey Police investigation. But he believed it was “highly unlikely” that a further three gunshot wounds on his torso could have been caused by his own actions.As for Private James Collinson, 17, from Perth, who died in March last year, he concluded that it was “unlikely” that a bullet wound to his chin and head was self-inflicted but it was possible that it was the result of an accident.Mr Swann’s team, was one of three groups of experts to have probed the deaths. The discovery prompted Surrey Police to halt plans to announce the conclusions of its own investigation in order to examine the new evidence.For Mr Gray, whose son was found with two bullets in his head at the barracks in September 2001, a public inquiry into the deaths and the way police have conducted the investigation was essential.”It is the only way to find out once and for all what really has been going on,” said Mr Gray, from Hackney, east London “There have been too many young soldiers who have died .. and these deaths are not being looked into properly. The father of one of four soldiers who died in suspicious circumstances at the Army’s Deepcut barracks demanded yesterday that there should be a public inquiry. He declared: “I believe that their strategy will fail and will fail miserably.” ¿ Irish police arrested 10 men and seized arms and ammunition last night after discovering a republican “terror camp” in a forest near Tipperary, thought to be linked to the Continuity IRA.. Its “cessation of violence” has already been breached recently, police believe, in that a missing republican, Gareth O’Connor, is thought to have been shot dead by the IRA.Martin McGuinness has said dissidents were attempting to derail the peace process and bring about a situation where the IRA would go back to war.