Thailand's ex-Premier P. Pibulsonggram, 63, onetime dictatorial Thai field marshal who was booted from power in 1957, was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Bodh Gaya, India. Father of six grown children, Pibulsonggram took an oath of celibacy before a golden image of Buddha. In keeping with Buddhist doctrine, he was not required to divorce his devoted wife, Mme. La-iad, a renowned feminist.

The Chicago Sun-Times' wandering Newshen Glenna Syse spent 39 minutes with Author James Thurber, left with the conviction that he is "the funniest man alive." In an epigrammatic mood, Thurber ranged free and easy over--by count--39 subjects. Glenna's sampling included a Thurberism on age: "I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were 15 months in every year, I'd only be 48.* That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40." On the forthcoming election: "It's accusation time in Normalcy. And in spite of the nominations, my mother is voting for Lindbergh." On martinis: "One is all right, two is too many, three is not enough."

Indonesia's President Sukarno worked his face up into a "say prunes" expression as a Soviet gift-bearer pinned a Lenin Peace Medal on him. The ruble equivalent of the prize: $25,000. As Sukarno saw it, the honor was fitting recognition of his overflowing "love for humanity."

"I don't object to nudity," explained Musicomedienne Carol Charming. But after watching an undraped contingent of Folies-Bergere dolls at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, Carol asked out of her $100,000-a-year contract with the Tropicana that called for an eight-week appearance this year and next. The nudes were "just wonderful," she insisted. "The trouble is, if I were to work in the same show --as the management wanted--I would just flop. There's no sympathy in the Folies. I can't get laughs until an audience is with me, and I can't get them with me if they have their minds on nude girls."

It was all settled: Heavyweight Boxing Champion Floyd Patterson would fight Swedish Challenger Ingemar Johansson in a third bout for the title. Date: Nov. 1. Place: Los Angeles. But last week, the man who counts most threw a haymaker at the plan. Said Champion Patterson: "I might fight Johansson before Nov. 1 or after Nov. 1, but I'll not fight him on Nov. 1." Why was he so sore? Well, for one thing, Patterson first heard the news from a gas station attendant, who heard it on the radio. Then there were the promoters, Feature Sports, Inc. and their counsel. Lawyer Roy Cohn, 33, who has come a long way from the Cohn and Schine days with the late Senator Joe McCarthy. Declared Patterson: "Cohn thinks I'm an insolent, dumb backwoodsman. Before the last fight, my lawyer asked Cohn if I shouldn't see the fight contract. And Cohn said, 'Floyd? Can he read?' "

Eighteen years after he designed the WAVES' uniforms for the U.S. Navy, Chicago-born Couturier Mainbocher, a youthful 69, got a formal token of appreciation from the ladies he clad so smartly. In Dallas, he was given the Navy's Meritorious Public Service Citation--the Navy's second highest civilian award and the first ever to go to a fashion designer. Said Mainbocher (real name: Main Rousseau Bocher): "It was not an easy assignment. One problem I did not have--color. It had to be Navy blue."

Journeying to Hyannisport, Mass, some weeks ago, the Central Intelligence Agency's hearty Director Allen W. Dulles briefed Democratic Candidate Jack Kennedy on the dark doings behind the Iron Curtain and elsewhere, as instructed to by President Eisenhower. One Kennedy man was moved to mutter: "He keeps giving all this terrible information. But how can you get worried? There's Allen with his tennis racket in his bag." Last week the man who knows more hair-curling secrets about the Russians than any other U.S. citizen traveled to Texas to brief Lyndon Baines Johnson. No tennis. But there was Allen relaxing in a lawn chair, chatting pleasantly with Johnson's wife Lady Bird, and meditatively purring his pipe, looking on top of the whole spy-covered world.

Groping for a new-angle tourist attraction, the Calabrian mountain resort of Villaggio Mancuso three years ago hit upon an "Oscars of Two Worlds" theme, whooped it up as an affair honoring two disparate callings of folks--actors and scientists. But there was chaos at the village's annual ceremonies last week when the twain met. Appearing in a low-cut gown, Cinemactress Sophia Loren was grabbed by fans, who tried to hoist her on their shoulders, was rescued kicking and bellowing by the cops. In the confusion, the Oscar for medicine went to Sophia, and a West German medical researcher, Professor Johannes Kellin, who should have got it, got a beauty prize instead.

To 293 Americans, living and dead, who helped Japan advance from feudalism to democracy in the past century, went a special commendation from a committee of 14 Japanese business and political leaders. Among those honored (they or their survivors got a certificate of appreciation and a lacquer picture of the first Japanese ship to visit the U.S.): Commodore Matthew Perry, who opened up the country to the world; President Ulysses S. Grant, who aided Emperor Meiji's modernization program; John Foster Dulles, who negotiated the Japanese peace treaty; Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who built Tokyo's quakeproof Imperial Hotel; General of the Army Douglas MacArthur; Mrs. Elizabeth Vining, ex-tutor of Crown Prince Akihito; and three Rockefellers, the late Philanthropists John D. Sr. and John D. Jr., and John D. Rockefeller III, head of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Britain's Marathon Walker Barbara Moore, 56, a vegetarian dietitian who is staying in shape in order to bear a child when she is 100, followed her transcontinental U.S. hike with a 400-mile stroll in Australia and casually announced plans for another bunion-building exercise: she will now walk around the world. But this time, said Dr. Moore rather waspishly, she will make sure that no young whippersnappers like those British Army sergeants in the U.S. will be around to crab the act. She will announce no future routes until 24 hours before starting. "I will not say where I will walk. If I do, someone will try to get ahead of me."

After less than a month on the job, Butler Thomas Cronin gave notice to his employers, Britain's Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, took his leave of Kensington Palace with seven suitcases, two trunks, several brown paper parcels and his favorite armchair. The princess was "more than charming," allowed Cronin, a steel-grey 44, but Tony was somewhat less ideally cast. He and his butler had "differences of opinion, a clash of personalities," said Cronin sadly. The master had a habit of summoning him by vulgarly snapping his fingers, insisted that he be called "sir," as he didn't like to be called "Mr. Jones." Unkindest of all, said Cronin, Tony had taken over his job: "I was not allowed to employ my staff. I didn't pay them their wages, and many other matters were not left in my hands as they should have been." Recalling his salad days as butler to U.S. Ambassador John Hay Whitney, Cronin wistfully pointed out that there he had supervised 37 embassy servants. "That," said he primly, "is the right way to run a household."

*Bad arithmetic: Thurber would be 52.

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