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

Iran's Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi told a nationwide radio audience to go ahead and celebrate the country's New Year without him: "I am sorry not to be able to personally participate in the rejoicing of my nation on this festive occasion. In order to ensure the future of the country and to safeguard the hereditary monarchy, I was constrained to part with my dear spouse, who during difficult times in the past seven years ever shared my sorrows . . ." In Cologne, ex-Queen Soraya, a divorcee because she bore no children (TIME, March 24), planned a trip, possibly to South America.

At the University of North Carolina, Man-About-Books Malcolm (Exile's Return) Cowley took one of Chapel Hill's best-known grads down a peg. Thomas (Look Homeward, Angel) Wolfe was not the great modern American novelist (as claimed by none other than Novelist William Faulkner), in fact rates below both Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, argued Critic Cowley, adding: "Wolfe never broke out of writing expanded lyric poems about himself."

India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, whose gallery of heroes runs from Gandhi to Lenin, sanctioned nationwide celebrations on April 9, birthday of a Red-lining favorite: Actor-Baritone Paul Robeson, 59. Said Nehru of Robeson (who has been denied a U.S. passport since 1950) : "He has represented and suffered for a cause which should be dear to all of us-the cause of human dignity."

Although troubled with a minor back strain, Pat Nixon (who quietly celebrated her 45th birthday last week) showed up at the annual Republican Women's Na tional Conference in Washington, compared new spring hat notes with Mamie Eisenhower. Later, the First Lady learned that for the sixth time she had been chosen one of America's 14 best-dressed women by Manhattan's Fashion Academy, along with such well-tailored veterans as Broadway Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, a four-time choice, Mrs. Henry Ford (three times), and Radio-TV Burbler Maggi McNellis (eight times). A newcomer: Opera Diva Maria Callas.

Perched high above the jungle grass aboard an elephant, U.S. Ambassador to India Ellsworth Bunker took five quick shots at a moving target, neatly bagged his first quarry: a prince-sized (12 ft. 10 in. long, 5 ft. 9 in. high at the shoulder) Indian bull bison. Warily clutching his gun, Nimrod Bunker posed for the camera with his solemn host, the Maharajah of Mysore, and the carcass, which was sent to a taxidermist for mounting.

After years of bleating that he was only an honest businessman, deported Manhattan Vice Czar Charles ("Lucky") Luciano, 60, convinced a Naples court commission that he is not really "socially dangerous" at all. Rejecting police arguments for closer surveillance of high-living Businessman Luciano, the commission found him "a free citizen who . . . conducts a perfectly regular life which gives no grounds for censure."

None the worse for wear after three days of greeting some 1,500 social belles at Britain's last palace debutante presentation, Queen Elizabeth II, stunningly garbed in a pale pink satin frock embroidered in a design of roses, and Prince Philip happily returned to less arduous royal duties as they attended the world premiere of the British film Dunkirk at a London theater.

In a court hassle over a lawyer's fee, counsel for Winthrop Rockefeller belatedly confirmed the high cost of freedom: in the divorce payoff to blonde "Bobo" (TIME. Aug. 16, 1954), Arkansas Farmer Rockefeller shelled out $6,393,000-close to $1,000,000 higher than previous estimates. The breakdown: $2,393,000 in cash (taxfree) and trust funds totaling $1,500,000 to Bobo, plus trust funds totaling $2,500,000 for son Winthrop Jr.

Peering dimly past his infield problems to the state of the economy, syntax-tangling Yankee Manager Casey Stengel, new director of the Glendale (Calif.) National Bank, barked his views on high finance to New York Timesman John Drebinger. Banker Stengel sagely dismissed the current recession as no 1929-style collapse: "There's too much money saved up, which we didn't have in '29 . . . Trouble is people are too cautious and keep it where it don't pay them enough interest." What about the Federal Reserve's retreat on the discount-fate policy? "Well, you can only retreat so far. Then the next thing you know you're in last place, which is the last place you want to find yourself in ... because you are now going to be out of a job, which goes if you are managing a bank, a butcher shop or a ball club."

Near the end of his world tour, stiff-lipped Traveler Peter Townsend, 43, ill-fated suitor of Princess Margaret, arrived in France, gloomed to reporters: "I found three categories of persons in the world--one-third mad, one-third becoming mad and one-third wise, most of whom are primitives."

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