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

Moments after Dwight Eisenhower pinned a third oakleaf cluster on his Distinguished Service Medal, strapping General Matthew B. Ridgway, 60, retiring Army Chief of Staff, was all but cheered by his chic wife "Penny" and crew-cut son Matthew Jr., 6, who proudly inspected his father's newest decoration.

Since Britain's doughty Poetess Dame Edith (Fac,ade) Sitwell, 68, and Cinemactress Marilyn (The Seven Year Itch) Monroe, 29, met in Hollywood last year, Dame Edith's life has not been the same. Intrigued by the incongruity of the two ladies, the world's press thenceforth gleefully linked their names on the least pretext. Last week, Dame Edith was asked about Marilyn again, reached the end of her rope, cried: "If I hear that young woman's name again I shall shriek! Being a polite and, I hope, chivalrous woman, I said to her . . . that I hoped if she came to London she would . . . have tea with me. That is all there was to it . . . but since then my life has been made absolute hell."

Because Queen Elizabeth II's "public relations are too often bungled," London's Sunday Express set aside chauvinism, nominated an American "expert" for the job of handling palace public relations. The Express' choice: suave expatriate Cinemactor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., K.B.E., "a good mixer, a tireless getter-about and smoother-out of trouble."

Still on the mend after a heart attack that laid him low in Cairo last February, the Ago Khan, 77, looking surprisingly chipper, enjoyed a sunny outing at Paris' Longchamp race track with his handsome French-born wife, the Begum.

The U.S.S.R.'s ace front man, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, headed home from the U.N.'s tenth anniversary whoop-de-do in San Francisco. Flashing a toothy smile from under his grey mustache, Molotov deported himself like anybody's lovable old maiden aunt, exuding good will and sedate good humor. When his eastbound train reached Utah, he was handed a security-cleared "Military Map of the U.S.," showing key military installations as of 1953 and bearing printed regrets that censorship prevented inclusion of newer facilities. Arriving in Chicago, Tourist Molotov was greeted by a band of grim-faced hecklers, mostly Baltic refugees. A postal employee was spotted at the depot carrying a shotgun and a .45 revolver. Because he refused to be disarmed briefly (he was guarding mail), he was sternly guarded by two cops while Molotov walked through. The diplomat was soon bustling through Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, where school kids trailed him and one little girl piped: "Isn't he cute?"

Cute as could be in his new role of museum-gadabout,* he popped up next morning at Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History, where he marveled at 60-million-year-old dinosaur eggs, asked a utilitarian question about an Arizona desert scene: "Of what use is the cactus in everyday life?" At noon, he sped out to the Long Island country home of Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch, approvingly sampled a Bloody Mary cocktail. Evening found him back in Manhattan, a surprise viewer of the travelogue Cinerama Holiday (the Reds once scoffed at the Cinerama process as "an inferior imitation of a 15-year-old Soviet invention"). Next day, with more Baltic Bronx-cheerers on hand, Molotov sailed for Europe. Said he throatily: "Please tell the American people we wish them peace and prosperity."

Word came from East Germany that puppet President Wilhelm Pieck has ordered a significant gift constructed for Red China's Mao Tse-tung. The trinket: an item of rolling stock sure to be appreciated by the head of any civilized Communist state--a fancy armored railroad car with bulletproof windows.

Only three days after he played host to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in Oslo, Norway's peppery old (82) King Haakon VII slipped on a wet bathroom floor in his country home, broke his thigh, was tucked into a hospital bed for the first time in his hale and hearty life. A day earlier, Elizabeth had better luck on slippery footing in Dundee, Scotland. She was departing from Queen's College, St. Andrews University, after a brief visit on a rainy day. Four medical students observed that an 8-ft. red carpet, itself soggy from the downpour, failed to stretch even halfway from a doorway to Elizabeth's waiting car. Dodging cops, they whipped off their scarlet varsity gowns, laid them the entire 20-ft. length of the Queen's path. Elizabeth smiled, hesitated, then--374 years after her forebear Elizabeth I similarly trampled Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak--trod across the gowns.

*Charging through Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art last month, Molotov was shown French Neoclassical Jacques Louis David's famed painting, The Death of Socrates, seemed puzzled about who Socrates was. Pausing to peer at a Rembrandt, he asked: "Who was Rembrandt?" He had, however, heard of Flemish Master Hubert Van Eyck, one of whose works was pointed out to him as acquired by sale from his old Boss Stalin.

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