Newsiest Dictator

Nearly every kind of hot news story about Benito Mussolini began to sizzle in capitals from one end of Europe to the other last week, while Il Duce made still more news in sizzling Africa:

Mussolini was charged by the Madrid Defense Junta with having committed a slip tending to prove that Italians fighting in Spain are not "volunteers" as Rome maintains but Italian regulars. What Madrid claimed was a message from Il Duce flashed to Italian commanders in Spain which read : "Aboard the Pola on my way to Libya I have received your dispatches.

. . . Tell our legionnaires I am following their action hourly. . . . Mussolini." This drew prompt official denial from Rome where it was called "a fake, clumsy trick."

Mussolini, who was denounced by im plication recently by the Archbishop of Canterbury for "Italian atrocities in Ethiopia," last week was directly attacked by the Dean of Winchester, to the alarm of the British Foreign Office which took pains to intimate that monkeying with Mussolini is risky work for the United Kingdom's State Church. At London, in the presence of Emperor Haile Selassie, a solemn Anglican service for native Ethio pian war dead climaxed when the Dean of Winchester said the Italian people ''have been seized by a spirit of evil of a superhuman nature. . . . The ruler of Italy supposes himself to be a Caesar, but he is the true type of the Assyrian Emperor Antiochus, surnamed 'The Brilliant' and nicknamed 'The Madman.' "

Ethiopia's Minister to Great Britain charged that among natives executed at Addis Ababa after the bomb attempt on the Italian Viceroy (TIME, March 1) were two of his sons and a son of another Ethiopian Minister: ''These three were among the fine flowers of Ethiopia's enlightened intellectuals."

Mussolini's small-statured sovereign Vittorio Emanuele III canceled at Rome last week the Italian delegation headed by Crown Prince Umberto which was to have represented His Majesty at the British Coronation. Reason: Vittorio Emanuele III and his subjects, including Il Duce, are united in considering His Majesty not only King of Italy but also Emperor of Ethiopia, united too in refusing to stomach what they call the "British insult" de livered when George VI invited Haile Selassie to send a native delegation "to represent the Ethiopian Emperor at the Coronation." This hot quarrel last week made sure of a snub in Rome for British Ambassador Sir Eric Drummond when he called to ask the Italian Foreign Office whether further Italian troops were being landed in Spain through the British fleet now assigned to blockade its west coast. Attitude of Count Ciano, the Italian For eign Minister and son-in-law of Il Duce, was that the British were in the best position to answer their question.

Mussolini spent the week riding about Libya, frequently on an Arabian stallion, frantically cheered by Mohammedans and Jews who chiefly populate Italian North Africa. Brandishing an Islamic sword of honor just presented to him at Tripoli, Il Duce roared: "Mohammedans! Young Arabs of the Fascist Lictor! My powerful sovereign, His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele III, King of Italy, Emperor of Ethiopia, has sent me once more -- after eleven years -- to this land where flies the Italian tri color. I have been sent to understand your necessities and satisfy your legitimate demands. You offered me a most welcome gift in this sword, which is a symbol of justice and which I will take to Rome to preserve among my most cherished souvenirs for life."

This speech Benito Mussolini implemented with concrete guarantees from the Italian Government last week to continue to protect all Mohammedan institutions in its territories and rush new public works to completion in Libya. To the Jews he promised: "You can count on my protection!" Pledging the collective fealty of Libyan Jews, their Rabbi Dr. Aldo Lattes cried: "Rome is just and pious and always has treated her sons as a Great Mother does. The Jews of this land are proud to be under the protection of the. Italian tricolor."

Mussolini provided the occasion for a dictator-smitten French actress-journalist to shoot one of her country's most distinguished diplomats on the platform of the Gare du Nord last week just as he was stepping onto the Bluebird Express.

Exotic, smartly-dressed Madeleine de Fontages, 30, suddenly whipped out a toy-sized pistol, put a tiny pellet of lead into Count Charles de Chambrun, a descendant of the Marquis de Lafayette, an honorary citizen of the U. S. and longtime French Ambassador in Rome. Then, as the Count stamped furiously off down the platform nursing his flesh wound, Mile de Fontages posed fetchingly for newscameras with the Paris gendarmes who arrested her. "I regret that my pistol jammed after the first shot," said she. "I decided to revenge myself on the Ambassador. He caused me to lose the love of a man who is too well known to be mentioned."

Three hundred pictures of Benito Mussolini were found in the flat of Mile de Fontages, one inscribed "To Mme Madge Fontages -- with my respects -- Mussolini." An entry in a diary she had kept from April to November 1936 implied that an affair with Il Duce had reached its climax in July, read thus: "Today he said, 'Ethiopia no longer means anything to me! Now I only have the sweet memories of this unforgettable hour of love.' "

Bored Paris correspondents know that more than one blase second-string Continental newswoman gets her best interviews by giving herself and thinks little of the exchange, but they listened to the shooting diarist's quickly hired Paris lawyer. His story was that Ambassador de-- Chambrun had broken off a French woman's great romance with the Italian Dictator, and so naturally she shot him. "Naturellement, Messieurs! Mark you, gentlemen, the great love of her life, a love which she could not master!" Although Dictator Mussolini and Dictator Hitler have just linked their countries in a close pact, official German radio stations were soon broadcasting the substance of French reports which were printed ten days before the shooting by Paris' often amazingly forehanded scoop-weekly Aux Ecoutes ("The Eavesdropper").

"People in Rome were astonished last year to learn of the flattering attentions which Mussolini gave to a Frenchwoman staying in Rome who was a former actress and then mixed in politics and finally became a journalist," related Aux Ecoutes.

"The idyll lasted only a short time. In accordance with her usual customs, she talked too much. Rumors reached the ear of Il Duce, which made him doubt both the discretion, and fidelity of the pretty foreigner. A Minister warned Mussolini that he was risking the annoyance of a petty scandal.

"The result was that the young woman was no more received by Mussolini. Weeks passed during which she wrote Il Duce letters that went unanswered. The automobile at her disposal was withdrawn and hotel bills accumulated unpaid. One morning she was found unconscious in her room after having taken an overdose of veronal. "She remained several days in a hospital. During that time Italian police seized her papers, notably her private diary in which her adventures with Mussolini were recorded. Mussolini, when shown the diary, was touched to see that what to him had been of no importance, had become so vital to her. Gallantly, he ordered all papers returned to the young woman and also an envelope containing about $790 to enable her to get back to France."

The Nazi broadcast jazzed up this able Aux Ecoutes scoop to tell Germans that not $790 but $75,000 was given Mile de Fontages--a sum which no statesman in thrifty Europe would ever have to part with to a journalistic strumpet. At latest reports wounded Count de Chambrun, ever the gallant diplomat of the old school, was refusing to have the woman who winged him prosecuted. Said the Countess de Chambrun, former Princess Murat: "This journalist often saw my husband when she was in Rome writing news stories. She certainly was suffering from hallucinations when she suddenly appeared at the station and shot a man who had always treated her with deference and courtesy in her role as a newspaper woman."

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