Alarums & Excursions

The New York Journal-American printed a surprise message to its readers from Publisher William Randolph Hearst, 86. "I do not think I am very radical," he wrote for the record. "Indeed, I sometimes think that as I have grown older and slowed down a bit, I am really not radical enough."

In Washington, David E. Lilienthal, 50, who resigned as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission after a lot of senatorial heckling, poked a little fun at his most outspoken detractors. Applying for a card in the Georgetown Public Library, he was asked for references, wrote down the names of Iowa's Senator Bourke Hickenlooper and Tennessee's Senator Kenneth McKellar (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Cracked Hickenlooper: "If the inquiry comes through, I'll be glad to assume the responsibility for recommending that he be trusted with the taking out of library books."

The cold war had become a professional bore to tubby British Director Alfred Hitchcock (Stage Fright, The 39 Steps). "There is no more variety," he complained, "spies are now always Communists or Russians."

A skin irritation was distressing much-battered Author Ernest Hemingway, 51, as he left Italy for his home in Cuba. He blamed it on the glare of the snow in the winter resort of Cortina, where he spent a lot of time polishing up his latest novel, Across the River and into the Trees. His friends in Havana predicted that he would feel better once he got aboard his motor cabin boat, the Pilar, where a man can dress only in shorts, troll for big fish and stay unshaven for weeks (see cut).

"Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs," Dr. Albert Einstein observed, and told the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club that he would be "proud" to accept a life membership they offered him in their organization.

Former President Herbert Hoover, 75, enjoyed a relaxed day's angling off Key Largo, Fla. and hooked two bonefish, one weighing 7 lbs.

"I long ago made up my mind that I was not going to write any memoirs," said General George C. Marshall, wartime U.S. Army Chief of Staff and now president of the American Red Cross. "To be of any historical importance, they have got to be very accurate. Now if you do put it all in, you may do irreparable harm [to the reputations of living men] ... I don't want to have anything more to do with that sort of thing. I am better employed with the Red Cross . . ."

The Younger Generation

The Shah of Iran, 30, sat patiently through two days on a shooting platform built in a tree, while 50 elephants and 200 native beaters combed an East Bengal jungle, routed out not a single tiger.

Britain's Prince Charles, 16-month-old son of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, was getting some royal training early. His nurse took him to a vantage point in London's Clarence House, where he reviewed the Royal Procession preceding the opening of Parliament (see cut). Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace remained mum about the persistent rumors that his mother would have another baby this year.

U.S. Tennis Star Gertrude ("Gorgeous Gussie") Moron, 26, who agitated staid Wimbledon last year by playing in lace-trimmed panties, threw Cairo's prim tennis set into an uproar last week by appearing at an international match in black shorts, instead of whites prescribed by tradition and regulations. The newspaper Le Progres Egyptien denounced the whole business as "shocking." Rejoined Gussie, looking bewildered: "I'm just a nice girl who plays tennis. Everything I do seems to get into the papers."

After spending four years on his own learning the movie business, Samuel Goldwyn Jr., 24, felt that he was ready to work for his famed Hollywood producer-father. The senior Sam agreed and hired Junior as producer and co-writer of a postwar film called No Time Like the Present.

Quiet, Please

Sir Thomas Beecham suddenly staggered and clutched his forehead at Cheam, Surrey, while conducting the Royal Philharmonic. Players set down their instruments, and caught him as he fell. Doctors ordered him to bed. Diagnosis: flu. In London, Princess Margaret, suspecting that she had caught the flu bug from her lady in waiting, was bedded at Buckingham Palace, missed the state banquet for visiting French President Vincent Auriol (see INTERNATIONAL).

In Manhattan, New York's Governor Thomas E. Dewey underwent a successful operation for acute bursitis. A calcium growth was removed from his right shoulder. Soon out of the hospital, with his arm in a sling, he was asked how he felt. After thinking it over for a moment, he replied: "Nearly as good as new."

Columbia University's Dr. Hideki Yukawa, 1949 Nobel Prizewinner in physics, was treated at a Manhattan hospital for a severe cold, complicated by overwork.

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