PEOPLE

Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

A chance remark in Manhattan started a sort of international incident. A group of New York Italo-Americans presented a sample of their pizza to President-elect Dwight Eisenhower, who tasted it and declared it better than the one he had eaten in Naples in 1943. That snorted the Neapolitan bakers when they heard his statement must have been "war pizza" made with abbreviated ingredients. Last week Admiral Robert Bostwick Carney threw the weight of his Allied Forces, Southern Europe behind the Neapolitans. Eleven teams of "Mick" Carney's officers visited eleven Naples restaurants, while Carney himself, with the top brass of six nations, sat down to an array of pizza at the Hotel Excelsior. After the evidence was finally tucked away and evaluated, Carney gave his decision to Italian radio listeners: "I am a partisan of the Neapolitan pizza . . . but this discrepancy of point of view with Ike will not put any dent into the Atlantic defense line of Southern Europe."

Miners' Boss John L. Lewis found himself in the unusual position of having to congratulate an operator: his younger brother, Howard Lewis, 60, was named vice president of the Old Ben Coal Corp. of West Frankfort, 111.

Like many another girl anxious to make good in Hollywood, Oscar-winning Cinemactress Anne Baxter has given up things to get ahead. She sacrificed her chestnut hair to become a striking martini blonde; she swallowed her pride and smoked cigars at the suggestion of her publicity man; she betrayed a family secret by feeding a columnist the story that her grandfather, Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, wore only a bright red sash on his wedding night. Last week, after six years of marriage, she filed for a divorce from Actor John Hodiak. Grounds: incompatibility.

His office in Springfield, Ill. announced that Adlai Stevenson, "for his own enlightenment," will make an early-spring trip to India, Japan "and probably Korea, since he'll be that close." The visit will be made "as a private citizen." The Navy posted its list of reserve lieutenant commanders who are eligible for promotion. Among those who may get to add the new half-stripe: Veep-elect Richard Nixon, Columnist Walter Winchell, former Tennis Champ Helen Jacobs, and Pennsylvania's Congressman James G. Fulton.

For the first time since he was elevated nearly 14 years ago, Pope Pius XII left his Vatican palace to attend a concert half a mile away. The event: an oratorio and other sacred works composed and conducted by Lorenzo Perosi, director of the Pope's music, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday.

In Paris, General Matthew B. Ridgway announced that Air Force Brigadier General William Preston Nuckols, 47, briefing officer in Korea for a year of the Panmunjom truce talks, would be the new NATO Public Information Officer.

At home in Washington, General Peyton C. March, World War I Army Chief of Staff and the only surviving four-star officer of that war, celebrated a quiet 88th birthday. Said he: "I'm not seeing anyone, and I'm issuing no statement.

After all, a man of my age should celebrate by doing nothing." In Fort Myers, Fla., baseball's venerable Connie Mack checked off birthday No. 90 with a sideline tip: "There's not a worry in the world worth worrying about. That helped me live longer than anything else I know." In Tokyo, Crown Prince Akihito marked his igth birthday with a family dinner and a diplomatic reception. In preparation for his first trip abroad--the coronation in London next June--the prince is passing up his usual winter skiing vacation to concentrate on his studies: European political history, French (in which he stands first in his class) and philosophy.

A selection of Henry Ford papers, which will be placed in the Ford archives in Dearborn, Mich, next spring, was exhibited in Washington. Among them was a letter written in the childish scrawl of his son, the late Edsel Ford, and dated 1901, two years before the first model T went into production: "Dear Santa Claus: I haven't had any Christmas tree in four years and I have broken my trim-ings [sic] and I want some roller skates and I want a book and I can't think of anything else. I want you to think of something else." Andre Marty, 65-year-old Marxist bullyboy of French Communism who has been slipping down the hierarchy of the party, reached the bottom rung. After being booted from a succession of top posts, his own local cell came to a decision: Marty is "no longer fit to be a member of the party." In Washington, Senator Joe McCarthy was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with four gold stars (accompanied by six citations signed by Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball) for "heroism and extraordinary achievement" as. a Marine intelligence officer in World War II.

--On her singing tour of Korea, Metropolitan Opera Soprano Helen Traubel was flabbergasted at the eager, enthusiastic response when she asked a G.I. audience in Seoul if she could give them "just one little Wagnerian aria." Said she: "I thought you'd prefer Betty Hutton, and I'm a far cry from that." Georgia's Governor Herman Talmadge, recently elected chairman of the Southern Governors Conference, announced that South Carolina's Governor James F. Byrnes would act as head of a conference group which will try to "present the Southern viewpoint to the nation." Said Talmadge: "Good public relations is something sorely needed by the South." The aim, he added, will be to "adequately present the South's viewpoint on radio, television, in committee hearings and in magazines."

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