Decorators

Lady Mendl, eightyish, ageless, international smart-setter, predicted great things for her wartime home, Hollywood. Said she: "Hollywood is the new kingdom of youth and ambition. . . . This is the new focal point of civilization. .. . Among the kings and queens of the future, the stars of Hollywood will be prominently enthroned."

General Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, of the U.S. Army Air Forces, pinned the D.S.M. on the bemedaled chest of Colonel Philip Cochran, 34-year-old inspiration for "Flip Corkin" of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates comic strip. The citation: for crack performance in the first airborne invasion of Burma.

Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of the British ground forces in Europe, reached up and added a bar to the D.S.O. of Major General Colin Muir Barber, leader of the 18th (Scottish) Division and tallest British Army General --6 ft. 6 in.

Provocateurs

Humphrey Bogart, Hollywood's No 1 he-man (To Have and Have Not, Casablanca), announced that he had separated from his wife, ex-Cinemactress Mayo Methot, Bogart, who nicknamed his wife (also his yacht) "Sluggy" and bragged about their many private and public fights in six years of marriage (on their fifth anniversary, he gave Sluggy a rolling pin), kept mum about the reasons. Hollywood newshawks pointed out that Methot was for Dewey, Bogart for Roosevelt.

Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad, Brit ain's bubbling, goat-bearded ex-pacifist philosopher and mainstay of the BBC "Brains Trust" (British equivalent of In formation Please), was invited to speak at Cambridge University on international affairs, was greeted with tear and smoke bombs by student rioters who aimed to prevent him from speaking. Reason: in 1933, Joad had spoken at Cambridge in defense of the Oxford Union's once-famed resolution--"Not to Fight for King and Country."

Earnest Albert Hooton, Harvard's pessimistic, publicity-wise anthropologist, who has long reported that men are reverting to apes, plumped for a woman President of the U.S., claimed that women "could hardly have made a worse mess" of world affairs than that made by men. He declared that women's "capacity for moral self-deception is smaller than that of males . . . they see things black or white. . . ." He also hoped for a woman President, because "we should then have a first gentleman of the land, and some of us would rather be that than President."

Celebrants

General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Christmas wish was reported over the radio, and granted just before the U.S. mailing deadline. The wish: a 2-lb. package of hominy grits.

John Dewey, shy, sage Grand Old Man of U.S. philosophy, father of progressive education, quietly celebrated his 85th birthday in his Manhattan home, calmly reaffirmed his belief in education through scientific inquiry. Professor Dewey, who raised all of his six children by progressive methods, then recalled that one day his five-year-old son had turned on a kitchen faucet, could not turn it off, flooded the room, ran into his father's study and shouted: "Don't say a word, John; get the mop." Professor Dewey smilingly remembered that he had "got the mop."

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