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

From Cuba, Author Ernest Hemingway wrote to 23 junior-high-school students of Louisville, Ky., thanking them for their kind words about his book The Old Man and the Sea: ". . . I wanted to write it for many years and finally did it instead of putting it off. Putting things off is about the worst thing you can do and I do plenty of it. If you ever need any advice from an expert on putting things off, I'm your man . . . You need to know almost all there is about your craft, or trade, or whatever you want to call it, to be able to do it. Then you need a lot of luck. I had a lot of luck writing this last book."

Clicking away with two cameras, just to make sure, Mrs. Winthrop W. Aldrich, wife of the new U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, recorded for the family album her husband's trip in a horse-drawn landau as he rode off to Buckingham Palace to present his credentials to the Queen.

After mulling it over, Norman Thomas, 68, six-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party in the U.S., outlined a new policy for American Socialists. Wrote he, in a pamphlet called Democratic Socialism--A New Appraisal: "The working class is not the Messiah which some of us thought." Socialists must not press state ownership too far, since "the state under the most democratic theory and practice will become too huge, too cumbersome . . . A completely noncompetitive society would be dull and stagnant . . . Socialism should try to stress competition for the laurel wreath rather than the sack of gold . . . But it should recognize that material progress has been furthered by competition for material reward . . . The concept of the class conflict basic to Marxism needs modification. Marx thought that the lines of division between workers and owners were becoming steadily clearer. This, however, has not been the case, least of all in our own country." And capitalism, Marx notwithstanding, is not necessarily the cause of war; neither is Socialism "a panacea against war."

In Windsor, England, the Duke of Edinburgh, who recently won his pilot's wings, flew a U.S.-made Harvard trainer (the Navy's SNJ) sporting the insigne of his new rank: the five white stars of an R.A.F. marshal.

In Independence, Mo., Harry S. Truman dropped into a local automobile agency to inspect his latest purchase: a $4,000-plus black Chrysler sedan, with chrome-wire wheels, electrically operated windows and seat controls. "It's got so many gadgets on it," said Motorist Truman, "I'll have to go to engineering school so I can handle it." Shortly afterward, the new owner backed the car out of the agency garage, whooshed straight across the street and rammed lightly into a utility pole on the curbing.

Honored with medallions for helping to promote good will and understanding among Protestants, Catholics and Jews were Theatrical Producer John Golden, Publishers William Randolph Hearst Jr., Walter D. Fuller and Jack R. Howard, Comedian Danny Kaye, RCA's Chairman David Sarnoff (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), 20th Century-Fox's President Spyros P. Skouras. Also present at the ceremonies, sponsored in Manhattan during Brotherhood Week by the National Conference of Christians and Jews: Alben W. Barkley and wife Jane.

Vacationing at Antigua in the West Indies, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson was notified that his Georgetown, D. C. home had been looted by burglars. The estimated take: three overcoats, some silverware, ten bottles of whisky.

His colleagues in the House of Commons learned from Prime Minister Winston Churchill that one recent visitor to 10 Downing Street was none other than Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko. Churchill invited Gromyko in to thank him for the U.S.S.R.'s flood relief gift of $252,000.

Having completed the second of two still to be released pictures (Julius Caesar, The Wild One), Actor Marlon Brando announced that he would make just one more and then call it quits. Said he: "This is the result of a long-term plan. I got what I wanted out of pictures. I was able to buy a ranch for my folks in Nebraska and provide a nest egg for myself. Now I can do the things I want to do." Among them: his sixth film, Pal Joey, a world trip, a stage career. The stage, explained Brando, has more freedom from censorship than the screen, e.g., The Wild One, about a band of rough-riding motorcyclists. "There were 15 different pressure groups that didn't want this picture made . . '. This sort of pressure has robbed the movies of their vitality . . . The censorship of A Streetcar Named Desire was ridiculous." Pal Joey, a musical, will admittedly be a switch for him, but "I got tired of people saying the only thing I could play was a slob."

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