Who's Who

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were surprised beneficiaries of the estate of the late Albert H. Phillips of Eastbourne, England, but got no part of his estimated $76,000 cash bequests. Instead, "as a tribute of respect for their outstanding qualities of leadership," each was willed a watercolor painting by obscure 19th-Century Artist John Callow (for Roosevelt: New York Harbour; for Churchill: Fishing Boat).

Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, whose second ex-wife married his onetime personal pilot a fortnight ago (TIME, July 3), made marital news himself. The Tribune of Wisconsin Rapids. Wis., acting on a report from Newsweek that he was engaged to the town's WAC Captain Ruth Briggs (see cut), saw Captain Briggs' mother, Mrs. Franz Rosebush. Said she: "Yes, it's true, but I wasn't going to announce it until Ruth said so." Newsweek had also mentioned Mary Churchill and the widowed Duchess of Kent as possible fiancees. Walter Winchell leaped into the fray, reprinted an item from his column of March 20: "Roosevelt intimates still insist the rumors about Elliott's next being Winston Churchill's daughter Mary are unfounded. That he never even met her. The fact is that Elliott's favorite person abroad is a WAC captain." In London, Colonel Roosevelt denied his engagement to Captain Briggs, whom he had met at the Casablanca conference. Back in Wisconsin, Mrs. Rosebush said that any further statement "would have to come from Ruth," after which Ruth, in London, stated: "We are just good friends." Said Elliott: "I have nothing to say."

Nicholas ("Miraculous") Murray Butler, whose biography had long been the longest in the U.S. Who's Who (last edition he had 129 lines), gave way in the 1944-45 edition to International Business Machines President Thomas J. ("Think") Watson, who garnered 148 lines. New names in Who's Who included:

Earl Browder, U.S. Communist No. 1, who listed as his club The International Workers Order.

Eric Johnston, go-getting U.S. Chamber of Commerce head, last week returning from Russia.

Sergeant Marion Hargrove, 24-year-old best-seller (See Here, Private Hargrove), the youngest addition.

Sister Elizabeth Kenny, whose claims to polio cures were denounced at the recent A.M.A. convention (TIME, June 26).

Who's Where

Jascha Heifetz, tuning up with two recitals in Rome before going on tour among front-line troops, announced that he would play only classical numbers, including some "musical spinach" like Bach's lighter works. The virtuoso observed that 10% of the soldiers "seem to like serious music . . . the other 90% get leg shows."

Merry ("Madcap") Fahrney, red-haired cough-syrup heiress (TIME, April 19, 1943), who romped off to Buenos Aires two years ago after divorcing husband No. 5 and denouncing the U.S., declared herself finished with Nazi Baron Herbert von Strempel (up-to-the-last-minute favorite for No. 6) and ready to marry again. Her new intended was 20-year-old Carlos Ojeda, son of Mexico's Ambassador to Argentina. A short-time Columbia student, Carlos spoke enough English to reveal that she was "the most perfect cook I ever saw; she captured me by the tummy." Cried the thirtyish madcap: "Americans say I am a Nazi spy and Germans say I am an American spy. . . . A woman's place is in the home, to have babies and be a good wife."

Robert Graves, English poet, novelist, literary journeyman, World War I captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers,* wrote a letter to the London Times in which he attacked the BBC for a July 4 program, The Spirit of 1776, which gave the "American version of the War for Independence." Sample: a rebel from "beyond the Hudson" says: "It seems like sometimes a man's got to fight if other people just won't let him be. . . . That's what we've got a right to do just like the British, and that's what I aim to keep on doing." Said onetime Fusilier Graves: "This is no time to persuade the British public . . . that British greed and tyranny had solidly united the thirteen colonies in a white-hot fury of revolution. . . . The broadcast account of Breed's Hill, popularly miscalled Bunker Hill,/- was beautifully and comprehensively inexact."

John Llewellyn Lewis drove to the Alexandria, Va. city hall to pay his taxes like a good citizen, but got stung with a $2 fine; he had failed to put 5-c- in the parking meter outside.

* Whose only regimental blot is their surrender at Yorktown.

/- Graves was right: the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breeds Hill, next to the original Bunker--both are now called Bunker. The Bunker Hill monument is atop what was Breed's Hill.

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