Visions

General Douglas MacArthur, expected back in the U.S. within a week or two--for the first time since before the war--was probably the most eagerly awaited visitor since war's end. A possibility: telling a joint session of Congress about the occupation.

Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, back from a tour of bombed Jap cities, pined for more distant latitudes: "The thing I'd like to do most is go back to the South Pole."

Salvador Dali, who will try anything once and usually does, tried designing the well-dressed woman of 2045. She looked a little like a scarecrow with a fatal fascination for crows, a little like a collision of paper pinwheels (see cut). Her accessories included a big crutch with a zipper (to serve as a handbag, also as spiritual and moral support) and a little crutch with strings (to lift the skirt).

Sergeant Lew Ayres, once famed as the screen's lofty and antiseptic Dr. Kildare, now a veteran and still a conscientious objector (though he thinks compulsory military training might be a good idea), got back from the Pacific, where he was a chaplain's assistant with a hospital unit, made first-wave landings -on Leyte and Luzon. His post-discharge plans: perhaps a go at writing, producing or acting in educational and religious movies, "teaching men to understand one another."

Major Charles Boxer, freed from a Jap prison camp and from his ex-wife in England, sailed for the U.S. and Author Emily Hahn, who told the world in her autobiography (China to Me) that Boxer was the father of her four-year-old daughter. Said he, before leaving Hong Kong: "It would be much better if we were married . . . more convenient when staying at hotels." Said she, in Manhattan: "I think we'll try for one more."

Generalissimo Francisco Franco, ear still to the ground and still a little hard of hearing, let it be known that he wanted Barcelona newspapers to stop calling him Caudillo (Chief). The preferred handle hereafter: "His Excellency the Chief of State."

Lieut. General James H. Doolittle, asked at a press conference if he was in favor of drafting women, got right down to essentials: "I'm in favor of women-- period."

Jackie Coogan, onetime boy cinemactor, ex-glider trooper, set up as a secondhand dealer in planes, reported that he had already bought 35 surplus ships from the U.S. and resold them to private customers.

Ellen Wilkinson, Britain's Minister of Education, was lecturing in English at a gathering of school principals in Berlin. Said she: "In Britain we have three main political parties: Conservatives, Liberals and Socialists. The Socialists are now in power." Her German interpreter translated: "In Britain we have three main political parties: Conservatives, Liberals, and National Socialists. The National Socialists are now in power."

RATINGS

Winston Churchill got the Africa Star, the Italy Star, the France and Germany Star, and the Defense Medal (similar to American theater ribbons) from King George VI. Said the King, with typical British care not to exaggerate: "Mr. Churchill should have these medals."

James M. Cain, concocter of literary 20-minute eggs (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce), settled down in New Orleans to write another novel, described book critics as "ex-police reporters gone highbrow ... simply weird in their ignorance." He complained that "all critics confuse themselves with God," and concluded that "the confusion is unjustified."

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz got a special Navy Day bow from the Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors, who made him a High Chief of Hawaii (first since Franklin Roosevelt, in 1934) and gave him the robe of royalty--a cape of yellow, red, and green mamo, oo, and iiwi feathers. In return for his chief's rating, the Admiral bravely chugged through a thank-you paragraph of Hawaiian.

Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, was awarded one-third of the $30,000 Nobel Prize in medicine; sharing it with him were two less publicized British penicillinists--Sir Howard Walter Florey, organizer of the research team which found practical means of extracting the capricious drug, and Dr. Ernst Boris Chain, the team's chief research genius.

Sinclair Lewis, whose new Cass Timberlane is a very best seller, took a look around and happily noted a "growth of literary consciousness," countered with the gloomy observation that "the best seller of today has little influence compared with the comic strip."

Queen Salote, 45, towering (6 ft. 3 in.) ruler of the Central Pacific's tiny Tonga Islands, was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. The Empire's only other queen besides Elizabeth, she aided the Allied cause with a 500-strong handful of native warriors, some $500,000, and two Spitfires.

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