Burden of Proof

For Singer Paul Robeson, it was a busy week. Stepping off a plane in New York after a four-month tour of eight European countries, including a visit to the U.S.S.R., the burly baritone orated: "In Eastern democracies [i.e., the Soviet satellites] the people are happy and singing and are trying to build for peace--while I have to be met by a police squad*... an interesting welcome." As for Europe, "I found nothing but friendliness and good will for the workers and progressives in America." But "I found no liking for the Marshall Plan among the common people. I found ... a feeling in Europe that some people on Wall Street are trying to dream up a war." Furthermore, Robeson told reporters: "Everything I said during my tour of Europe was distorted by ... American press agencies. I prefer to give what I have to say to papers like the Daily Worker." Later in the week, still pestered by newsmen at the wedding of his son, Paul Jr., to Marilyn Greenberg, a white Cornell classmate, Baritone Robeson denounced the U.S. press once more: "I have the greatest contempt for the democratic press, and there is something within me which keeps me from breaking your cameras over your heads." Besides, he added angrily, "this marriage would not have caused any excitement in the Soviet Union."

That evening, Traveler Robeson spoke before a rally sponsored by the Council on African Affairs. He sang five songs, and spoke for 90 minutes. Sample: "Yes, I love this Soviet people more than I love any other nation, because of their suffering and sacrifices for us, the Negro people, the people of the future in this world

... I am born and bred in this America of ours. I want to love it. I love a part of it. But it's up to the rest of America when I shall love it with the same intensity that I love . . . suffering people the world over, in the way that I deeply and intensely love the Soviet people. That burden of proof rests upon America."

All In The Family

In Stockholm, Sweden's King Gustaf V turned 91. His traditional birthday fishing party was rained out (the day before he had landed a five-pound pike with no help from anyone); so he celebrated indoors, with a half-bottle of red wine for lunch, and a visit from great-grandson Prince Carl Gustaf, 3, who brought flowers and homemade birthday candles.

In London, Mrs. Elsie Bambridge, fiftyish, daughter of Rudyard Kipling, clamped down on publication of her father's biography, which she herself had ordered written. The author, the Earl of Birkenhead, who had put in three years on the 160,000-word manuscript, said: "We had disagreed" on certain conclusions drawn from facts, "but I did not know she planned to ban it entirely." Said she: "It's my own affair and I do not wish to answer questions about it."

In Zurich, gossipy rumors of a tiff between Cinemactress Jennifer Jones, 30, and her boss, Cinemagnate David O. Selzniclc, 47, prompted a strong statement from him: "It's an absolute big lie that Miss Jones and I have had or are having any disagreement. We are great friends and always have been . . . The date of our marriage has not been fixed. To decide upon that is up to the lady."

In Manhattan, TV Funnyman Milton Berle, 40, and Actress Joyce Mathews, 29, who were divorced two years ago, were remarried in a private ceremony from which the word "obey" was omitted.

Thoughts & Afterthoughts

Winston Churchill, 74, who has successfully weathered the storms of war and politics, finally faced a struggle he was dubious about: "The question of my . . .

retirement at 75 may well come up in the future," he mused (his birthday is Nov. 30). "You never know whether there will not prove to be life in the old dog yet." The question of war or peace will be decided "by the 13 men of the Politburo," declared New York's Governor Thomas E. Dewey, just back from a 31 -day tour of seven Western European countries, speaking at Williams College commence ment exercises. "But why should those 13 men be stupid enough to change from a cold war to a shooting war? They have won more in the last four years of uneasy peace than any nation ever won by war." U.S. money, snarled terrible-tempered Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor of the Royal Philharmonic and self-appointed watchdog over Britain's musical taste, has let "musically barbarous" Britain have too many orchestras. "We could not possibly afford this orgy of extravagance [but for] Yankee . . . beneficence." British music has hit "rock bottom," he cried. "Not one person in a thousand knows the difference between one orchestra and another." British Novelist E. M. Forster (A Pas sage to India), visiting in Manhattan, made a trip across the Hudson to take in a burlesque show in Union City, N.J. "I liked the comedy, the knockabout, very much indeed," he later reported gravely to the New York Times. "But the caricature of the ballet that the girls did eluded me. I think they were taking off the Rockettes. It was far too subtle."

*Standard New York City procedure for celebrities likely to draw a crowd.

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