Politicos

Joseph Stalin was solid. The voters in the Stalin Automobile Factory district in Moscow, after due deliberations, nominated him for re-election as their deputy to the Supreme Soviet. The vote: unanimous.

The Earl of Halifax, towering, impenetrably well-mannered British Ambassador to the U.S., denied that he was being recalled, but knew just what he would do when he was. Said the well-heeled Lord of Hickleton Hall, Yorkshire: "I'm going to become a farmer."

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., who left a comfortable senatorial seat to join the fight in Europe, was out of the army as a Lieutenant Colonel and back on his Massachusetts farm, drafting a public speech for next month's delivery. On future plans he was virtually mum: "I haven't ruled anything out or anything in."

Robert Moses, New York's panjandrum park commissioner, who has sounded off on just about everything and been righteously rude to just about everybody, let loose his Mosaic thunders at a small-statured victim. A stunt radio program had persuaded one of its audience--Lieut. Colonel William M. Hendrix--to model a figure of his wife, his first attempt at sculpture (see cut) and present it to the park system. Said bad-tempered Moses: "I can think of nothing more unwelcome than your gift of the bronze, life-size statue of The Ideal American Wife. I say this unhesitatingly without having seen it. ... We have a number of reclamation operations . . . which require fill of all kinds. I can promise that your statue will be part of the foundation of a new park, but it will be underground. . . ."

High Life

Gloria Swanson, high-styled siren of the silents, trim and tiger-eyed at 46, fought her fifth husband* for high-styled support, went to court in Manhattan for separate maintenance of $1,000 a week. Wall Streeter William N. Davey had the money, said she, but they didn't get along: 1) he drank too much; 2) she wanted to live at her place on Fifth Avenue, he at his on Park; 3) she liked twin beds, he a double one big enough to sleep a ball team; 4) he talked about building her a yacht with a glass bathroom, but never did. "I realized," said Actress Swanson, "that he was a cad. . . ."

Walter Donaldson, veteran hit-songwriter (My Blue Heaven), was sued for back income taxes by the U.S., which figured that the author of Little White Lies and You're Driving Me Crazy owed $15,780, including interest and penalties.

Bill Mauldin, cartoonist of G.I. Joe (and Willie), who has sued his wife for divorce, charging adultery, drew a countersuit from her: that he had threatened to make off with Son Bruce, two. She asked a Los Angeles court to restrain him, also asked for $710 a month out of his estimated $200,000 income.

Betty Grable was at a gambling club with Husband Harry James when a stickup gang entered, scooped up the house receipts, walked out. "One of them pointed a machine gun right at me," reported the amazed blonde. "But I don't think he recognized me. Anyway, he didn't say anything."

Thinkers

Ely Culbertson, famed bridge professional* who plays now at world-planning, was set to carry to Europe next fortnight an atomic-bomb-control plan. Gist: an arms-quota system, with .the quota good & low. He wanted to talk it over with Britain's Attlee, France's De Gaulle. Said he: "I am more sure of the success of my plan for international organization than I ever was of the success of the Culbertson system." The master of the no-trump takeout now plays bridge but seldom, though the game booms and brings him money from his books and system-teachers. "To keep an ideal," said Idealist Culbertson, "is much more expensive than to keep 10,000 chorus girls, and bridge pays for the ideal."

Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, veteran desk-chair strategist, appraised some German generals for Harper's magazine, found that the most influential in War II was Hans von Seeckt (died in 1936), "who rebuilt the German Army after 1918." Liddell Hart's favorite: Erwin Rommel. British troops in Africa so admired Rommel, said he, that "when Montgomery took over the British command, special efforts were made to damp the 'Rommel legend' as well as to create a counter-legend around 'Monty.' " His summation: Rommel was "a military genius--more so than any other soldier who succeeded in rising to high command in the war."

Arrivals & Departures

Jane Russell, hyper-mamillary star of unnumbered stills, was at last about to be seen in motion. The Outlaw, three years old, was finally free of censor trouble and ready for showing next month.

Ray Milland and Ingrid Bergman, New York's cinema critics decided, did the best acting of 1945--Milland as a drunk ripe for psychiatric treatment (in The Lost Weekend), Bergman as a psychiatrist (in Spellbound), and as a nun (in The Bells of St. Mary's). Best picture: The Lost Weekend.

Justice Joseph F. Crater, whose unexplained disappearance was a Manhattan sensation of the '305, was finally declared gone for good by the New York World-Telegram. The old World had offered $2,500 for inside dope on the judge's fate, a month after he ducked into a cab and vanished. After 15 dopeless years the World's successor finally withdrew the offer.

Charles ("Lucky") Luciano, 48, onetime king pimp and bigtime racketeer of Manhattan, "sang" his way to freedom after nearly ten years of a 10-to-20-year sentence, would now be deported. The wartime service that earned the reward:* tipping off the U.S. to "sources" of information about his native Italy. His liberator: ex-prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who gained much of his early fame by sending Lucky to the pen.

Great Expectations

Charles E. ("Commando") Kelly, famed Congressional Medal of Honor winner (40 dead Germans in a single engagement), let the world know from Pittsburgh that he was about to become a father.

Jackie Cooper, champ weeper of the prewar cinemoppets (The Champ), got out of the Navy after 26 months (mostly drumming with a band). He, too, neared papahood.

Dorothy Lamour got husband William Ross Howard III back from the Army, hoped to bear him a welcome-home gift almost any minute.

* Others: Cinemactor Wallace Beery, Herbert Somborn, the Marquis Henri de la Falaise, Sportsman Michael Farmer. * In Scandinavia, contract bridge is known as "culbertson." * Two other sentences (ro-to-is years) were also dropped.

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