In the Purple

Britain's Princess Margaret arrived in Paris for a busy four days of footloose fun. At the Hertford Hospital charity ball, she mingled with the best of the smart set, danced with Paul Auriol, son of the French President, and also came face to face with a brash American custom. A young Army civilian employee from Chicago threw royal protocol aside, introduced himself and asked for the next dance. Margaret was diplomatically delighted" to meet him, but, she said, "I'm terribly sorry, I seem to be booked up just now." The next evening at the home of Sir Alfred Duff Cooper, former British Ambassador to France, Margaret charmed the guests, including Greta Garbo, with an hour's session at the piano, playing and singing French songs. Next day, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and aides had to cool their heels for 40 minutes waiting to serve Margaret tea while her chauffeur tried to find SHAPE headquarters. The Princess was all apologies and smiles when she arrived, and Ike managed one of his famous beams in return as he said, "Your Royal Highness, it is nice to see you." Then, after another evening of discreet nightclubbing, Margaret's Paris party was over and she headed home to London.

Sweden's Prince Bertil, second in line for the throne and an eligible bachelor of 70 told the magazine Husmodern (Housemother) that he would certainly not follow the example of his two brothers who had married commoners. Said he: "I shall marry one day, but only a princess. I consider this my imperative duty. Of course . . . the choice as automatically very limited."

Saudi Arabia's Minister of Defense, Prince Mishaal Ibn Abdul Aziz proved to be a man worth his escort. After a tour of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base at Dayton, one of his secretaries handed a guard a princely tip: $500 in bills. It's impossible," the man stammered. "I can't accept anything like this." Said the secretary: "You can't refuse. The Prince insists you take it for all the police."

In the Red

A London meeting of writers, actors and politicians gathered to launch a -L-250,000 memorial fund for the late George Bernard Shaw, heard a few words from the Irishman's longtime friend Lady Astor, who objected to the fact that he had left the bulk of his estate to promote a phonetic alphabet (TIME, April 2). Said she: "It was a ridiculous will. Let us form a society to break it . . . I took intelligent people down to argue with him about it. I said to him, 'Leave me some money. In generations to come, people will say, "That was the woman he loved." ' But, added well-heeled Lady Astor, "He never gave anything to the people he loved. Here I am in reduced circumstances, with my house falling down . . ."

Visiting in Montreal last week, Lord Beaverbrook, 72, gave some depressing figures on the present-day economics of publishing in Britain. Of some $2,200,000 which his Daily Express (circ. 4,200,000) earned last year, the government took $1,400,000 in taxes before dividends, then collected all but sixpence on every pound paid to stockholders. Beaverbrook, who owns nearly three-fourths of the stock, ended up with $16,800 for his pains.

In Seoul, Mayor Kim Tai Sun presented Eighth Army Commander General James A. Van Fleet with a scroll, an eight-inch silver key, a bouquet of roses and pronounced him honorary mayor of the city on its 558th anniversary as capital of Korea. A few days later, Mayor Sun was out of office. The R.O.K. government inspection committee dismissed him for embezzling several hundred million won of government funds.

In London, Mrs. Adrian Conan Doyle, daughter-in-law of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, announced a new dollar-earning scheme. She will bring the Baker Street room of Sherlock Holmes, assembled for exhibition at the Festival of Britain, on a tour of the U.S. next spring.

In the Pink

Lieut. General Lauris Norstad, 44, Allied Air Commander of SHAPE, admitted to New York Herald Tribune Columnists Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg that he was getting on a bit. Said he: "When I was playing squash every day, not so long ago, I used to think of golf as an old man's game. Well, maybe it is, but now I'm playing golf." However, he said, fishing was still his first love, and for his casting expeditions he had bought a jaunty Tyrol hat, decked out with the traditional chamois brush and silver pins.

Vice President and Mrs. Alben W. Berkley arrived in Korea for a firsthand "fact-finding" tour. Said he: "The politicians back home got to bellowing that this was a forgotten war. I told the President he shouldn't come over, but I had some free time." After a Thanksgiving dinner in a jet pilots' mess, the Veep moved up to the front lines, where he autographed a 105-mm. howitzer shell, pulled the lanyard and celebrated his 74th birthday with the wish: "I hope I got some of 'em."

In the Sub-Treasury Building on Manhattan's Wall Street, Alexander Hamilton, president of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society and great-great-grandson of the first Secretary of the Treasury, awarded General U. S. Grant III the society's George McAneny Medal for his work in preserving historical landmarks.

In Tokyo, Kimie Tojo, the shy, 19-year-old daughter of Japan's wartime Premier, arrived to make her donation to the blood bank, became so upset by the photographers that the doctors sent her home with a case of high blood pressure. Next day, with no photographers watching, she returned and calmly left her pint of blood.

In Columbus, Ga., Rear Admiral (Ret.) Richard E. Byrd, 63, announced that he was just waiting for world tensions to slacken before taking off on another trip to the South Pole. This time, he said, women would be included in his crew, since they had "proved they can take it.

When a Frankfurt-New York plane put down at La Guardia Field, reporters greeted Barbara Hutton with a bit of good news: a Paris court had just granted her a French divorce from fourth husband Prince Igor Troubetzkoy, supplementing her short-order Mexican decree of last summer.

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