Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

In a quiet room of Providence's VA Hospital, bearded, longtime expatriate Author Elliot (The Last Time I Saw Paris) Paul, 67, a lifelong agnostic, now dying of heart disease, called for a priest, crossed himself with three fingers in the sign of the Trinity, and became a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. "Teach me to pray," he asked the priest. "I want to pray."

Golf-playing physicists have one big advantage--they know their physics. Hoping to improve his game (mid-80s), topnotch Physicist-Professor Luis W. Alvarez, 46, went about it scientifically, designed a stroboscopic golf-trainer. The electronic gadget allows the golfer to see "a series of positionally arrested images" of the club head and tell whether it is approaching the ball at the proper angle. The University of California physicist shipped one trainer to a fellow golfer in the White House, last week received a patent (No. 2,825,569) on his idea.

Her hot-blooded romance and marriage with Roberto Rossellini having fizzled into an annulment suit in an Italian court, Ingrid Bergman, 41, ventured on a northern route, lighted a new romance with rich, arty, Swedish Producer-Publisher Lars Schmidt, 45. Finding the way less volcanic, Ingrid first visited Schmidt's family, then, badly concealed behind dark glasses, high boots and a flat cap, and hugged around her chin by a scarf, she went off for a quiet weekend with Lars in a wooden summer cottage on a Swedish West Coast island. "I love that little island," purred Ingrid, who had once been enchanted by another idyllic island, Stromboli. Asked whether a marriage was in the making, Bachelor Schmidt replied: "We can neither deny nor confirm that," but the couple announced that they would spend their summer together on what local wits had dubbed "New Stromboli."

In the pink stucco palace of Monaco, Princess Grace calmly awaited her second child, and Prince Rainier amused himself in the royal zoo. But behind the apparent serenity of Their Serene Highnesses, a serious political crisis lurked in the shadows. For the first time in the eight-year reign of the chubby Prince, the National Council (which is elected by Monaco's male citizens, has only advisory power) dared to challenge Rainier's status as Europe's only surviving absolute ("by divine right") monarch. Not only did the Council demand constitutional reforms from the Prince, but also that he fire his luxury-loving Minister of State. When Rainier retorted, "I will accept no limitations of my powers," there, for the moment, the matter rested, and all Monaco went back to listening for the great boom of the cannon on Monte Carlo's Le Rocher--21 rounds for a girl, 101 if the House of Grimaldi gets a male heir, which would doubly insure continued freedom from French income taxes.

Trying to nose his way into Russia to make a TV film, Bob Hope waited for a visa in London, then flew back to the U.S. to sit it out. But in Washington the visa came through so fast that the Russian embassy's cultural attache greeted him with "Hello, Conqueror," explained: "To get a visa in two weeks, this is remark able." Later the comedian was handed a USO appreciation award (for years of contribution to "the welfare and well-being of America's armed forces") by his old friend Dick Nixon, who recalled that in his first election campaign, "Hope stared intently at me for a minute and then sighed: 'What an ad for Sun Valley we two would make.' "

Svelte, sultry Negro Singer Lena Home, currently charming Broadway as a musicomedienne in Jamaica, explained in a New York Post interview that race equality, to her. meant "enjoying things that other people enjoy," and not just intermarriage. "When I think of marriage, I think of Lennie (Musical Director Lennie Hayton), a man who has been kind to me. I don't think 'white man.' " An active champion of her race. Lena said she had often been exploited by "white liberals" and saw "a lot of phony sympathy around," but she played along because "it was openly for Negro causes."

Warmly wishing him well, President Eisenhower accepted the retirement of Harold R. Medina, 70, from active service as a U.S. Circuit judge. Presiding over the sensational 1949 trial of eleven first-string Communists, Judge Medina survived the endless Red heckling and haranguing, worked quietly, meticulously, indefatigably, won fame and the nation's respect by conducting the fairest nine-months-long trial the Reds could have had.

After a series of earnest, fretful speeches on the "teenage problem," the moderator of a P.T.A. meeting in Saluda, Va. asked: "Are there any remarks from the floor?" Up rose Marine Lieut. General (ret.) Lewis B. ("Chesty") Puller, 59, five-time winner of the Navy Cross, commander of teen-agers in two wars, father of boy and girl twins in the local high school. "I certainly do have something to say," boomed the general, in a voice that could be heard to the shores of Tripoli. "Just don't worry about the young boys of today. They don't need to be coddled, and they don't need to be condemned. Out of the 13,000 men under me at the Chosin reservoir in North Korea, 4,000 became amputees. Nobody complained about American youth then. Leave your sons alone--let them grow up to be men."

After reviewing the case and listening to the judgment of his colleagues, Air Force Secretary James H. Douglas last week reaffirmed the 1925 court-martial sentence ("suspended from rank, command and duty, with forfeiture of all pay and allowances for five years") of General William L. Mitchell. In essence, Secretary Douglas' verdict was that Billy Mitchell's ideas on air power had long been vindicated but that the punishment for his unmilitary behavior should stand.

Recuperating in Paris after finishing an exhausting job as a gun moll in En Cas de Malheur ("If Things Don't Work Out"), toothsome Brigitte Bardot was also recovering from a broken engagement to Cinemactor Jean-Louis Trintignant (her husband in ... And God Created Woman) who is currently shouldering his army hitch in Germany. Explaining that she cannot stand long separations and that he does not get enough leaves, BB said: "I'm terribly demanding, I know, but I need the one I love near me all the time to defend and console me."

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