Cultural Pursuits

General Dwight Eisenhower, who had hardly a moment to himself last week, took time to bless a typical U.S. product which many a citizen regards as a very mixed blessing. Said he: "You don't know what it means to hear language that clinks sweetly in our ears ... to hear commercials on the radio ... it means America."

Frank Sinatra, in Rome with a U.S.O. troupe, had an audience with Pope Pius XII and reported, wide-eyed, that the Pontiff had asked if he was a tenor or baritone. Said The Voice: "I was amazed the Pope had heard of me. I was speechless. I am enthralled by all the grandeur. I am thrilled. . . ."

Doris Duke ("Richest Girl in the World") Cromwell, of late an ink-dabbler, explained why in Rome: "I . . . feel definitely drawn to journalism as a means of self-expression." Hopeful of getting into professional ranks, she said: "At one point I thought I'd use a nom de plume but I reconsidered, because life is complicated enough as it is."

Archibald MacLeish, now an Assistant Secretary of State, was succeeded as Librarian of Congress by a professor-librarian with whom the poet had sometimes clashed: Acting Librarian Dr. Luther Harris Evans, a 42-year-old Texan.

Too-solid Flesh Admiral William F. Halsey, who

wants to ride through Tokyo on Hirohito's white horse, got encouragement from the Reno Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber ordered a custom-built, silver-mounted saddle for the Admiral, solemnly asked Washington for his beam measurements. "I wouldn't know about the posterior," said his daughter, Mrs. Preston Lea Spruance, a distant cousin (by marriage) to Admiral Spruance, "Daddy is about 34 inches around the waist, and his hips aren't much larger. Neither mother nor I has ever measured."

Hermann Goering, whose diamond-studded baton wound up in the White House last fortnight, lost his outsized pants to the Seventh Army.* Major General John W. ("Iron Mike") O'Daniel, 3rd Division commander, hung the Goering britches oh his wall, observed: "A lot of pants."

Ernest Hemingway, who tore his scalp open (52 stitches) in an auto crash in Britain last year, fared better when his car skidded on a wet curve outside Havana, piled up in a ditch. Added to the rich Hemingway collection of nicks. lumps, and bruises/-: forehead scratches and a sore knee.

Arrivals & Departtures

Lieut. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt,

in the Navy since 1942, had a reunion with his energetic mother, Margaret Emerson, in Hawaii. The much-married (four times) Bromo-Seltzer heiress turned up as a Red Cross field worker, found that her 32-year-old millionaire-sportsman son looked less like a playboy.

Beatrice Lillie, before flying back tc Britain after a season on Broadway, told Manhattan reporters that Information, Please experts would hop to Europe this week and that she would guestpert for them in Paris about July 1. Clifton Fadiman, F.P.A. and John Kieran were surprised to learn where they were going.

Jim Thorpe, 57, the greatest all-around U.S. athlete of the '20s, saw his 18-year-old son go into the Navy, joined the Merchant Marine himself.

Fuller Explanations

Harold L. Ickes, irritated by new rumors of his impending resignation as Secretary of the Interior, spelled out the situation in his own sweet way: 1) he had offered his resignation when President Truman took office; 2) all told, he had submitted at least six resignations; 3) two different names that had been mentioned as his successor's were both right, because "it takes two men to do this job." Concluded terrible-tempered Harold Ickes: "Even Methuselah had a successor."

General George S. Patton Jr. fought a spirited rearguard action against criticisms of his unco-soldierly remarks. To Patton's public "Goddamits," Los Angeles' Rev. Don Householder had cried: "Never in our country's history has there been such a profanation. . . . We trust that the General ... will hereafter remember his moral obligation to the youth of America." After the General spoke of the next war before a Sunday School class in San Gabriel, Calif., Stars & Stripes howled: "Please, General . . . just sort of hold your tongue at least until after that San Francisco conference." The General finally grumbled to a Manhattan reporter: "You can't stop fires by abolishing the fire department [but] now look, lady, be a nice girl and let's not have any scare headlines. I'm always getting in trouble."

*Getting Goring into shape for trial, U.S. captors by last week had sharply cut his daily allowance of morphine (an addict since World War I, he was taking 20 times the normal dose when he surrendered eight weeks ago). Meanwhile, U.S. interrogators learned from one of Hitler's office helpers that the Fuehrer took 5 cc.s of morphine daily, /- Numerous body scars, a foot scar and an aluminum kneecap from World War I; a forehead scar from the time a bathroom skylight fell on him. He shaved off his beard last year without injury.

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