Statecraft

Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder had happy news. Six months after he had asked ex-Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. to send back those public documents that Morgenthau had taken for his diary, Snyder had everything he needed.

Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, whose close attention to what interests Kansans has helped keep him in the Senate for 28 years, dutifully took to the air after some visiting farmers raved about the uses of the light plane (e.g., crop dusting). The Senator took his first flying lessons, at 82. He explained: "I think I ought to know more about these matters. . . ."

Connecticut Congressman John Davis Lodge's good-looking, exactress wife, Francesca Braggiotti, who has been teaching health-dancing to other Washington ladies (TIME, March 17) took a flier in another field, gave instructions to girl delegates to the American Legion School of Democracy. "My definition of character," said she, "is the ability to say no to yourself. Don't run your motor too hard, girls."

Ed Crump, snowcapped political boss of Tennessee, paused in a blast at Communism to explain himself: "I detest red . . . my hair was red for many years. I was kind to it, kept it trimmed and perfumed, slept with it, always had it on top. Yet, with all my kindness, love and affection for it, it deserted me--turned . . . traitor. It is now as white as the peaks of Mt. McKinley."

Dramaturgy

Greta Garbo surprised a lot of people by turning up in England, surprised almost nobody by telling the pressmen: "I had hoped I would get off the ship unobserved.

This is a terrible life being a film actress." Why was she there? "I just felt I wanted to see England again," said Garbo.

Cinemactress Janis Carter made an oldfashioned, hot-weather noise by applying for $1,000,000 worth of insurance on part of her person. She wanted to insure her eyes. The conscientious insurance man (said her pressagent) settled for $500,000 worth.

Irwin Shaw, 34, veteran promising-young-playwright (Bury the Dead, The Assassin), invited by the New Republic to be its new drama critic, won a scorchingwarm welcome to the New York Drama Critics' Circle. Wrote New York Daily News Critic John Chapman to Newcomer Shaw, who once carved the hides from the critics for criticizing his plays: "I will want to follow every syllable of Mr. Shaw's postmortems. ... I will be sitting at the foot of a master eager for the smallest drops of instruction. ... I shall read his every word, hoping ... to learn more about my occupation. . . . Welcome, stranger!"

Georgia Sothern, grand old (32, she says) lady of the U.S. striptease business, spiced up the hot spell by paying a surprise call on her husband at a Springfield, 111. hotel room. As surprised as Husband Harry Finkelstein was his companion of the moment, Sally Rand, grand old (43, she says) lady of the fandanglers. Finkelstein was just treating her for heat exhaustion, protested Miss Rand, but Mrs. Finkelstein had them both arrested for disorderly conduct. Miss Rand's valedictory to the press as the police closed in: "I have nothing to hide."

Shelter

Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten were happily assured a place they could call their own after their marriage in November. Father gave her a nice country home, Sunninghill Park, a vine-covered nest of 25 rooms, set in 300 acres near Windsor Castle.

Eleanor Roosevelt, 62, had an isolated mountain snuggery to look forward to, if she wanted to accept it. The will of a 71-year-old bachelor Tennessee preacher--a stranger, and a lonely Democrat in moun-tainy, Republican Greene County--left her his two-story farmhouse and most of his 247 acres, provided she raise a modest monument over his grave. But she would have to wait to move in. The preacher's niece, thirtyish, is to have the right to live there during her lifetime.

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