Hero! Hero!

It was about time, Signer Benito Mussolini decided last week, that Signer Dino Grandi should become in Italian eyes the hero of the London Conference.

Punching one of the pale buttons on his big dark desk, II Duce dictated to the secretary who hurried in, the gist of what newsorgans would say next day all over Italy. With this chore attended to the Dictator ate his frugal lunch, returned to his office, locked the door. Then for a time passers-by heard the wild, crashing strains of the Mussolini violin--his "Wooden Woman" as the instrument is called in the argot of the populace.

Some Italian editors echo Il Duce louder than others, but always loudest is young Editor Mario Carli of L'Impero ("Orders is Orders"). It was he who last year called Austria ''a miserable spitoon" when relations were strained with that country (TIME, April 22). His headline on the Naval Conference last week:

SEA WOLVES UNITE WITH LAND WOLVES!

Below, with a Niagara of passionate Italian adjectives, Signer Dino Grandi, black-shirted Chief of the Italian delegation in London, was metaphorically described as strangling the British sea wolf with his right hand while he choked the French land wolf with his left.

What had happened meanwhile in London was a trifle less dramatic than strangling wolves. Ever since Il Duce rose swashbuckling to power, flames of suspicion have been darting higher each year between France and Italy. Actual volcanic eruption was far off last week. In London all that Signor Grandi actually did was first to have high words with British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson in private, then to send a note around to the hotel of Foreign Minister Aristide Briand of France.

The note was a scorcher, a strangler, but written in that backhand fashion called "the language of diplomacy.''* On its face it merely informed M. Briand that Italy would consider it a friendly act if France should sign no agreement or treaty at London to which Italy was not a party. This meant, of course, that Italy would consider it an unfriendly act on the part of France if she should sign a four-power treaty with the U. S., Britain and Japan or any one of 25 tentative special Anglo-French "security agreements" (TIME, April 7), drafts of which were strewn all about M. Briand's proverbially untidy bedroom last week.

A later trumpeting by the Fascist press announced that Signor Grandi had received assurances from M. Briand that France would continue to perform only "friendly acts" so far as Italy is concerned. Whatever this meant, it sufficed to make the blackshirt a homemade Hero.

Ladies Leave. Mrs. Charles Francis Adams and Mrs. Dwight Whitney Morrow set sail for Manhattan last week. Secretary of the Navy Adams admitted that his wife was going home to spend the Easter holidays with their son Charles Francis Jr. Mr. Morrow did not deny a report that his wife was leaving "because of important social engagements." Earlier in the week the wife of Ambassador-Delegate Hugh Simons Gibson had returned to her children in Brussels. Mrs. Henry Lewis Stimson was left the sole U. S. delegate's wife to stay on doggedly through the eleventh week of the Conference.

M. Briand is a bachelor. Mr. MacDonald is a widower. Mr. Wakatsuki left his wife in Japan. Donna Grandi, the only wife of a Chief of Delegation who has done any actual work, the efficient, confidential secretary of Dino ("Wolf Strangler") Grandi, had already returned to Rome, declaring it impossible to remain longer.

Ancestors Queried. Almost every day correspondents had a new version of what sort of pact might be signed and how many nations might sign it. Regarded as dead certain was the acceptance by Japan of the Anglo-U. S. draft agreement (TIME, April 7). But suddenly in Tokyo, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Kato, exercised his right to go over the heads of the entire cabinet, laid before Emperor Hirohito powerful objections to what had been agreed.

In London attempts were made to pass off the Kato protest as a mere expression of personal opinion, but in Tokyo there were rumors that the Emperor and privy council were reviewing the whole compromise from its beginnings, were conferring with the Imperial Ancestors and the Sun Goddess.

Minimum Certainty. In these circumstances the plenary session of the Conference scheduled for last week--the first in seven weeks--was postponed to this week. M. Briand crossed from London to Paris, puffing his de-nicotinized cigarets inscrutably, carrying to Prime Minister Andre Tardieu the 25 tentative "Security Pacts"--mute evidence that the Conference was diplomatically bankrupt.

Reporters were told day after day by chief U. S. Delegate Stimson that a three-power Anglo-U. S.-Japanese pact was a ''minimum certainty."

*Correspondents were vexed when Mr. Arthur (later the Earl of) Balfour used the expression "limitrophe" at the Washington Naval Conference, but he charmingly explained: "Its use is almost entirely confined to diplomatic correspondence."

Later a reporter passed him a note to ask if d-i-c-h-o-t-o-m-i-z-e was the correct spelling of another ''diplomatic word" he had just used. "Did I really say 'dichotomize'?" wrote Mr. Balfour in reply. "How silly! Why not say 'bisect'?"

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