Ring Around Nobile

Excitedly played by citizens of many lands, last week, was the game of Ring Around Nobile--a question game. Was that Swede really eaten by those two Italians? Would Dictator Mussolini snub and degrade General Nobile? What about Titina, the General's little, yapping fox terrier bitch? Why wasn't she eaten? Is bitch eating worse than cannibalism? Russia. Moscow and Leningrad saw redder than usual, last week, as the great Communist newspapers Pravda ("Truth") and Izvestia ("News'") flayed "these Fascist swine!" An editorial in Pravda--whose editor is Nikolai Bukharin, closest associate of Dictator Josef Stalin (see RUSSIA)--keynoted significantly thus: "Here in Russia we know the true meaning of the word comrade. Among the Fascisti it means every man for himself." Copied from Pravda and reprinted by hundreds of provincial papers was a ribald, satanic poem by Comrade Vladimir Myakofski, entitled Cross and Champagne. Based on the undisputed facts that General Nobile dropped upon the North Polar region a large cross blessed by the Pope and carried a supply of champagne in which to toast this event, the poem soars into the very zenith of satiric sacrilege and "Champagne Popery."* Coldly, factually the Soviet press service Tass presented details on the basis of which cannibalism might be imputed to Captains Filipo Zappi and Alberto Mariano (respectively Pilot and Navigator of the Nobile dirigible Italia), who set off to tramp across the ice to land with the Swedish meteorologist Dr. Finn Malmgren, but were alone when rescued (TIME, July 23). Tass reported that, on the day before the rescue of Zappi and Mariano, a Soviet plane photographed them from the air, and that a third man or his remains was then visible, prostrate on the ice. Tass told that when Captain Zappi was rescued he said that Dr. Malmgren had been left behind some days previously (at his own request) to die. Tass stated that Captain Zappi was wearing, when rescued, Dr. Malmgren's fur boots and coat, and two other pairs of fur boots and two other coats--whereas Zappi's comrade, Captain Mariano, seemed sick, weak, and wore no fur boots.

Since the correspondent of Tass was the only newspaperman aboard the Soviet rescue ship Krassin his despatches could not be cross-checked from others. The Captain of the Krassin, a Norwegian, Herr Egge, displayed the wise and characteristic taciturnity of his people. Three days later, Captain Zappi was spirited into Stockholm, where he shed a thoroughgoing flood of tears before the aged mother of Dr. Malmgren and sobbed: "That Soviet aviator must have seen a pair of leather trousers which we had thrown away. ... I have a clear conscience before God. . . . Dr. Malmgren and we were friends and brothers. . . . When he ordered us to go on he would not accept any provisions and lay down upon the ice, clad only in his sport suit. ... You know him, Donna Malmgren. All we could do was to obey him. He was like that." Frau Malmgren was quoted by correspondents thus: "I feel perfectly calm. I believe absolutely that Captain Zappi has told the truth." Sweden. As the Lapland Express, carrying Nobile & Party, rushed across Sweden, last week, a few, sympathetic peasants, one a child of six, brought wild flowers to General Nobile when the express made its usual frequent halts. But the Italian's special car was carefully switched around the suburbs of Stockholm--home of Dr. Finn Malmgren--lest any mob should lynch. Italy. Signor Benito Mussolini said: "Naturally, an inquiry will be made--in Italy by prominent Italian officials. Any suggestion for any other inquiry would be absurd and offensive, and if it were advanced from any quarter it would be immediately rejected." The Italian Air Ministry took the ingenious position that since General Nobile is a resident of Milan his return and formal welcome concern that city alone. But even the most disciplined Fascist cannot disremember how Rome and all Italy welcomed and gloried in Umberto Nobile when he returned from the successful Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile flight around the Pole (TIME, May 17 and 24, 1926). As the General's car rolled into Milan, Fascists cheered, faith unshaken. Multinational. The great Arctic explorer, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, scion of Danish stock, born in Canada, alumnus of Harvard, resident of Manhattan, appropriately put an astute, multinational period to the Nobile affair last week. Said he: "It was generally known before Nobile left that he had no experience in Arctic conditions. It would have been proper to criticize him on that ground before he started, but such criticism is out of place at present. "I don't know what happened to Malmgren, whether he was left to die, whether he was stripped of his clothing, whether his body was eaten by his companions. Perhaps no one will ever know. "But it is clear to me that Zappi and Mariano, in going on ahead, felt that they were acting as a relief expedition for the entire party they had left behind them on the ice. As a matter of fact, it might easily have happened that their conduct might have been the means of saving the others. "I hope political considerations will not prevent the truth from being told." Titina. Latest despatches reported Titina well and still happy. She was not eaten because the main Nobile party, with which she sagaciously remained, was never out of other food.

* The Papal table is usually supplied with Italian, not French, wines.