Assembled in the capital for a "Life with Father" luncheon at the Women's National Press Club and a visit to the White House, nine of the 20 living children of U.S. Presidents (plus other descendants of chief executives stretching back to John Adams) dropped some light-hearted footnotes to history. Among the Presidents subjected to filial gossip:

P: William Howard Toft. Daughter Helen Taft Manning, 67, told her favorite yarn about her portly (300 Ibs.) father and his much-lampooned girth. When Taft was Civil Governor of the Philippines and recuperating from an illness, he reassured Secretary of War Elihu Root of his recovery by cabling Root that he had just ridden 50 miles on horseback. Crackled back Root: "How is the horse?"

P: Woodrow Wilson. Daughter Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, 69, recalled Wilson's triumphant return to his birthplace of Staunton, Va. shortly after his first election in 1912. Visiting with his ancient Aunt Janie, a "grim old Presbyterian" almost stone deaf, Wilson twice bellowed into her ear trumpet: "I've just been elected President." Digging him at last, Aunt Janie inquired: "Of what?" "Of the U.S.," shouted Wilson. "Don't be silly!" snapped Aunt Janie, indignantly dismissing him from her presence.

P: Calvin Coolidge. Son John, 52, Connecticut business-forms manufacturer, still remembered the upshot of his mother's purchase of a costly home-remedies book from a door-to-door fast talker. After leaving it on a table to leaf through later, she found penned on the flyleaf in Cal's handwriting: "Don't find anywhere in here a suggested cure for suckers."

P: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Son James, 51, California Democratic Congressman, reminisced about a sweltering summer weekend when F.D.R. was entertaining Britain's late King George VI and now Queen Mother Elizabeth at Hyde Park. At Roosevelt's suggestion, the King and the President climbed into bathing attire, drove off toward a nearby swimming pool along a road lined with U.S. and British Army guards. Spotting a clutch of photographers with cameras at the ready, the King abruptly shouted: "Stop the car!" "Why?" asked F.D.R. "I don't think," grinned His Majesty, explaining that he wanted no photographs, "my people back in England would understand my reviewing the troops in my bathing suit."

Out of a clear Red sky a Soviet translator named Victor Louis dropped a casual line to Musicomedy Authors Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to inform them that an unauthorized version of their long-running My Fair Lady, its book translated by Louis, will be staged in two Russian cities next season. Despite the fact that they stand to collect no royalties on the Russian production, Louis brassily requested Lerner and Loewe to forward a complete orchestral score for the hit. So incensed that they could have danced all night with rage, the pair promptly appealed to the State Department, the Soviet Embassy in Washington and the Soviet U.N. mission to head Louis' Fair Lady off.

Harry Truman, quite unaware of his age (75 this week), bounced into Manhattan and suddenly seemed all over town at once. In a lecture at Columbia University he discussed a favorite topic, the Presidency and "great" men who have held the job. Said Harry: "I wasn't one of the great ones--but I had a good time trying to be." Then he dashed over to Broadway to catch a performance of the new musicomedy, Destry Rides Again, after the show demonstrated some southpaw gunmanship to Stars Scott Brady, Dolores Gray and Andy Griffith.

Demonstrating that even a retired statesman's public chores are never done, Herbert Hoover, an honorary chief of many tribes, left his Waldorf Towers teepee in Manhattan to enjoy a powwow and annual banquet of the Boys' Clubs of America. In a coals-to-Newcastle gesture, . one of the young braves offered a fancy peace pipe to Quaker Hoover, a noted peace partisan for 40 years.

Like many a thespian before her, Irish Actress Siobhan (Saint Joan) McKenna learned that the art of political commentary is more treacherous than it appears. The storm broke after Belfast-born Siobhan, 35, appearing on a BBC teletape of CBS's Small World, indulgently described Irish Republican Army terrorists as "young idealists," defended their recent border raids in Ulster (four Orangemen killed, 20 injured) as "throwing peanuts." In Northern Ireland's parliament, Prime Minister Viscount Brookeborough took the floor to proclaim, "Normally, I would not pay any attention to this lady, but if she were put across someone's knee and spanked, it might do her good." In London the BBC canceled Part II of Siobhan's Small World. (In the blacked-out telecast Siobhan observed that Britishers are nervous abroad, Irishmen are composed.) Said Actress McKenna: "In America they will think the BBC is afraid of me and my opinions."

Capping his recent emergence from the political limbo where he has languished since the beginning of World War II. Sir Oswald Mosley, top British fascist of the '30s, unveiled his dream of riding Britain's sharpening race issue into the House of Commons. Announcing that he will run in the next general elections on a "Keep Britain White" platform, Mosley started right off roiling the political waters with his choice of constituency: North Kensington, which includes part of the slum-infested Notting Hill district, scene of last summer's London race riots (TIME, Sept. 8).

Under light artillery fire from British newspapers for undertaking private negotiations with the Kremlin, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, 71, characteristically went onto the offensive. Even before his peace mission got off the ground, Monty riled proper Britons by confiding to CBS's Ed Murrow: "If there should be a roughhouse in Europe . . . American blood must be shed the first day. I guarantee that. I'll shoot one myself." When he got to Moscow, the salty victor of Alamein distressed Soviet brass by departing radically from the planned itinerary, hustling them about the city on his own impatient look-see. At last, after two sessions with Nikita Khrushchev (who last week surprised no one by copping a Lenin Peace Prize), Monty hopped back to London with the cryptic report that he had gone to Moscow "as a soldier to talk to soldiers."

Viewing the conductor's trade from the inside, Britain's trumpet-tempered Maestro Sir Thomas Beecham genially admitted that he was a vile tyrant on the podium. Temporarily back in London from self-exile (for tax reasons) in Paris, Sir Thomas told 330 old friends who had gathered to celebrate his 80th birthday: "I am a cold-blooded monster. I get the orchestra to such a state of jitters they can't help playing hell-for-leather." As for his place in musical history: "I will not be called the greatest musician ever; on the other hand, I am a damned sight better than any foreigner."

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