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

Crown Prince Akihito, 35,000 miles, 197 days and 14 countries after leaving home, returned triumphantly to Japan. As he stepped from airplane to ramp to red velvet carpet, well-wishers shrieked "Banzai!", flashbulbs popped, the Yokohama customs office brass band blared the national anthem, and 500 rounds of fireworks boomed in downtown Tokyo. Self-possessed Akihito nodded to 200 official greeters (including Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida and U.S. Ambassador John M. Allison) on his march down the 50-yd. carpet, waved to 500,000 rain-washed faithful on the drive to the Imperial Palace. There he was received by his parents, Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako, who had watched his arrival on television.

"We are certainly not a nation of nitwits," said the nimble-witted Duke of Edinburgh to lunching manufacturers in London. "In fact, wits are our greatest single asset, and one which we can still rely upon." Britain's future is bright, he was confident, if the nation properly exploits its scientific and managerial genius. In short, declared the Duke, "we must literally live by our wits." --

Despite his long sojourns in France, the Duke of Windsor still speaks French with an accent. While inspecting flowerbeds at his new property at Gif-sur-Yvette outside Paris, he was giving instructions in French to his head gardener when he was interrupted: "Excuse me, Your Highness, but I do not speak any English."

In Manhattan, where he went down to the Queen Elizabeth to greet his wife and daughter, Zinaida (a Moscow University professor of law), Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky was a honey bear to photographers, gave them his best peace-offensive smile.

Medal-of-Honor Major General William F. Dean, 54, brushing aside rumors that he might retire ("I'm not an old man yet"), flew from his California home to Washington for reassignment and a minor eye operation. Korean dirt, dust and wind had caused a skin growth on the cornea of his left eye. It began two months before the Communists captured him, he said. "You can't blame the Reds for it."

While shooting scenes in Reno for Johnny Dark, a sports-car story, a Hollywood movie crew hired a local amateur--Nevada's leonine Senator Pat McCarran --to play the role of road-race starter. Although miscast in the silent role, McCarran whipped the green flag down with such artistry that only one retake was necessary. The Senator announced that his $10 pay would go to charity.

Asked by Washington newsmen whether he would run for the Senate next year, Cleveland's ex-Mayor Thomas Burke, newly appointed successor to the late Senator Robert Taft, replied: "Well, I've only been down here half a day, and I kinda like it."

Cinemactress Shelley Winters, whose rowboat scene in A Place in the Sun helped make her an Oscar candidate two years ago, ran through the scene once again during her nightclub debut in San Diego. Wearing a "figure-clutching," ivory brocade dress, Shelley also warbled a few songs (Find Me a Primitive Man) well enough to win a cheer ("Socko") from Variety. But she was so sure she had done poorly after the first show that she burst into tears backstage. "I went out on the nightclub floor," she said, "and saw all those faces and asked myself, 'What the hell am I doing here?' "

On the first lap of his 38,000-mile world tour, Vice President Richard Nixon got a warm welcome to New Zealand, won friends by whipping about the country on a three-day sightsee, rubbing noses with Maoris, and making speeches in favor of world trade. On the next stop, Australia, the reception was just as warm except for a cold blast from the Communists, who passed out leaflets about "Tricky Dick" and told him, Australian fashion, to go back home: "Nick off, Nixon."

Ohio's Farmer-Author Louis Bromfield", who has written for every medium short of the head of a pin, turned in his latest copy to a calendar company. The bucolic prose: a description for each of twelve color photographs of his Malabar Farm for a 1955 calendar.

Gian-Carlo (The Consul) Menotti, Italian-born composer of eerie operas, was asked in Washington whether he thought composers ought to reap some of the take from jukeboxes. "Unfortunately," he said, "I'm afraid that my music will never get into jukeboxes unless ihe whole country gets neurotic."

While the principal contenders minced their tongues--Winthrop Rockefeller in his Arkansas mountaintop estate, and Barbara ("Bobo") Rockefeller in her Park Avenue apartment--word seeped out that a monster cash settlement was in the works as the first step to their divorce. The reported haul for Bobo and five-year-old Winthrop Paul: $5,500,000, mainly in trust funds and securities, plus $70,000-a-year alimony.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.