Top Hat, Beauties & Beer

As mayor of one of the world's most polyglot cities, New York's Robert F. Wagner decided it would be a good idea --and possibly good politics--to make a brisk good-will tour of some of the mother countries of his constituents. Most of the homelands were happy to have him (all but France agreed to foot his expenses), and early this month the hail-fellow mayor and his blonde wife were off. By last week the Wagners were the most talked-about Americans abroad, from Dublin to Tel Aviv.

Father's Coat. First stop on their itinerary was London. The mayor, in a natty, brown-checked suit and a vivid yellow-striped tie, was unabashed to find his British welcomers all dressed up in formal attire. Downing a quick Scotch-on-the-rocks at London Airport, he gazed at the dense horizon of top hats and sighed. "I guess I'll have to buy one," he said. "I haven't worn a topper since last St. Patrick's Day parade." At a luncheon a few days later, Wagner was properly turned out in formal dress and a rented top hat. "That morning coat," murmured a passing Englishwoman. "It was my father's," the mayor explained.

In four breathless days in London, the mayor chatted with the Duke of Edinburgh, invited Princess Margaret to New York "any time she pleases," toured the Houses of Parliament, boated on the Thames and dined at the Fishmongers' Hall. A rainstorm delayed the Wagners on their way to another dinner party at the U.S. embassy, kept Ambassador Winthrop Aldrich and the other dinner guests dawdling over their cocktails for a full hour. Wagner was on time for his visit with Queen Mother Elizabeth, however, and reported that the Queen "told me I could smoke, and reminded me that I smoked four cigarettes, one after the other, at the banquet we had for her" (in New York in 1954).

In Ireland the Wagners inspected the National Stud Farm in County Kildare, dined with U.S. Ambassador William Howard Taft III, lunched with President Sean O'Kelly and admired the Dublin statue of Cu Chulainn. the legendary Irish hero. Paris provided the most unusual welcome, however. As the Wagners arrived at Orly airfield, several young girls pushed through the crowd of officials and shed their coats to welcome the mayor in skimpy red, white and blue bathing suits. "Salut, Monsieur le Maire," they screamed, then rushed to cuddle Wagner for the photographers. Mrs. Wagner quickly sized up the situation, firmly disengaged her astonished husband and led him away while gendarmes shooed off the girls--Miss France of 1954, Miss France of 1955. and Miss Paris of 1955. Said Family Man Wagner: "Well, that's Paris." Father's Home Town. In Paris the mayor shopped, dined with the Duchess of Westminster, assured Octogenarian Sir Charles Mendl that he looked younger than ever, and delighted French haberdashers by wearing a pleated shirt with his dinner jacket. He was impressed with Paris' anti-horn-honking regulation, but feared that such a rule could not be enforced in New York without extra police.

On a sentimental side trip to Nastaetten, Germany--birthplace of his father, the late Senator Robert Wagner Sr.--almost the entire population (2,104) turned out to greet Wagner, and an American flag with 46 stars fluttered bravely from the town hall. But Nastaetten's Buergermeister Heinrich Knogel was worried about some suspicious strangers who turned up. "Maybe they are swindlers!" he said darkly. At Nastaetten's official reception Wagner committed a blunder by refusing a glass of Rhine wine, pride of the region, and ordering beer instead.

In Tel Aviv this week, the Wagners rested briefly in the only air-conditioned hotel in Israel and prepared for a grueling, three-day tour of the country. Said the mayor: "My sympathies have always been with Israel and I see no reason to change them." Still ahead were two more stops in the mayor's whirlwind tour: Greece and Italy.

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