Things to Think About

Salvador Dali, surrealist painter and publicist whose trademarks are droopy watches, meandering cyclists and gangrenous torsos, promised Manhattan a show this winter, and assured the world that art could do much "to promote greater understanding between nations; it is the only international language that people can understand."

Ilka Chase, professional wit and author (In Bed We Cry), advised women to marry younger men, explained: "Men, poor things, age so quickly after they're married. . . . The older wife is the ideal combination of what every boy craves: she's mother-wife-mistress, the 3-in-1 bargain package."*

Andrew Jackson Higgins, colorful New Orleans boat builder (PTs and landing craft) who toils and talks at fever heat, returned from a Pacific tour to announce a two-man crusade (with Admiral Nimitz) to get American men into cooler and fewer clothes. "First thing I did after leaving Honolulu," he said, "was to take off my tie, open the top two buttons of my shirt, and chop my pants off above the knee."

Milton S. Hershey, purveyor of chocolate bars and philanthropy (some $60,000,000 worth to orphans), observed his 88th birthday in the Pennsylvania town that bears his name, and revealed his own rich recipe for success: "Late to bed and late to rise."

Bernarr ("Body Beautiful") Macfadden, still full of beans at 77, hired Manhattan's Carnegie Hall to get a few things off his manly chest. Before a healthy audience of some 2,000, he flailed clerical prudery, plumped for the healthy life and for good clean sex ("The sexes were never made to be separated.") and explained Cosmotarianism, "the Religion of Happiness." The white-maned publisher, clad in suit and shoes to match, did push-ups and headstands (calculated to prolong life from ten to 25 years), warned women: "Beauty must be associated with a good digestion."

Royal Prerogatives

Frances P. Bolton, Ohio Congresswoman now exploring the Middle East, told Bagdad reporters that King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia had broken precedent by permitting her, a mere woman, to enter his private council chamber in Riyadh. Said the King: "No tradition should be allowed to stand in the way of good understanding."

The Duke of Windsor & his Duchess sailed from Manhattan for France, where she will remain while he goes to England to visit Queen Mary for the first time in nine years. The ex-Governor of the Bahamas admitted that a new job might be in the offing: "Though I'm past the half-century mark , I still feel that I can be useful." (Columnist Walter Winchell waved the couple a warm goodbye: "Good riddance to them both--the snobs.")

Princess Elizabeth, niece of the Duke of Windsor whose equestrian mishaps were stock gag fodder in the '20s, came a cropper herself on the Balmoral Castle grounds in Scotland, got some nasty leg bruises when her horse threw her against a tree.

Discoveries & Disclosures

Heinrich Himmler was found to have compiled a Who's Who for automatic arrest in the event of a German invasion of England. The Gestapo blacklist, discovered in his Berlin headquarters, ranged from Winston Churchill to Noel Coward and David Low.

Mary Astor, 39, cinemactress whose purple diary, involving Playwright George Kaufman (George Washington Slept Here) made top tabloid news in 1936, announced that this winter Chicago Broker Thomas G. Wheelock would become her fourth husband.

Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Manhattan's big-mouthed Mayor, got a glimpse of an all-but-spitting-image grandnephew, Richard Denes, when Correspondent Kathryn Cravens returned from Germany with a photograph (see cut). She found Richard and the Mayor's sister, Gemma LaGuardia Gluck, in Berlin.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower learned that he would receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Oxford next month. (So would General Mark Clark, Ambassador John Winant, Harry Hopkins, British Field Marshals Montgomery and Brooke, Air Chief Marshal Tedder.)

Kay Kyser, 40, drawling, corny Professor of Musical Knowledge, just back from a tour of the South Pacific, told the press he was through with radio. Said he: "I'm just so doggone tired. All I want to do is go back to Rocky Mount, N.C., and sit around with my 83-year-old mother and spit and whittle." His sponsor, American Tobacco Co., tartly reminded him that his radio show still has 26 months to run, hinted at a suit for breach of contract if he tried to quit. The Professor decided not to.

Leo Tolstoy, the Soviets decided, should be commemorated with a museum --the stationmaster's dwelling at Astapovo, where the great novelist died 35 years ago. After a last bitter quarrel with his wife, Tolstoy had stormed from his Yasnaya Polyana home, entrained for Moscow to begin life anew at 82; on the train he was seized with chills and fever, got off at Astapovo, succumbed to pneumonia a week later.

Imogene Stevens, 24, sloe-eyed Texan who last June jolted staid New Canaan, Conn, by bumping off Seaman Al Kovacs, 19, in an "aura of sex recrimination, beer and window-smashing reprisals" (so said Coroner Theodore E. Steiber), returned from a summer of Army camping with her husband, Major George R. Stevens III. Rumor said that she might seek a change of venue for her impending manslaughter trial because of public prejudice.

Men In Motion

Fritz Kuhn, porky, peccant (embezzling) ex-Bund leader, ex-U.S. citizen, got a free freighter trip to Germany along with some 500 other deported compatriots.

Admiral William F. ("Bull") Halsey, having formally reneged on his vow to ride Hirohito's white horse, made the mistake of meeting up with his old cavalry man friend, Major General William Chase, in a Tokyo suburb. The General proffered the Admiral a hoary steed and insisted that he trot his stuff. Taking the bit in his teeth, the Admiral ventured a slow, seagoing jog, dismounted quickly, gasped: "Don't leave me alone with this animal. I was never so scared in my life."

E. Phillips Oppenheim, 79, who has written 150-odd thrillers about international espionage, murder, grand dukes and grand larceny, returned to his prewar Guernsey (Channel Islands) home. On the Oppenheim stove: a sizzler with World War II trimmings.

*Observed the 17th Century's apothegmatic Sir Francis Bacon: "Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses."

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