Girdled for War

When rattle-tongued Washington society columnist Mary ("Molly") Van Rensselaer Thayer fell in love with the Air Force, she made it plain that she expected plenty of reciprocation. Though Molly writes all her copy lying in bed, her enthusiasms sometimes stir her to enormous exertions. As a foreign correspondent, she fell in love with the Balkans so vigorously that Communist Chieftain Ana Pauker gave her four interviews. When she went to South America, she fell in love with it, too, and promptly took a trip up the Amazon.

But these were only minor loves; her affair with the Air Force had the quality of a grand passion, and Molly swooped down on it like an F-86 diving on a mallard. When she cried: "I never turn down an invitation!" the Air Force quickly extended her some. She was the first woman to ride in a jet; she traveled to Texas, to Hawaii, to Berlin in Air Force planes, shooting favorable publicity back to her newspapers with what was apparently a 75-mm. meringue gun.

The "Body Shop." Dazzled and obviously infatuated in its turn, the Air Force did something last week that Molly thought was even nicer than giving her free airplane rides. It commissioned her a lieutenant colonel in the WAF Reserve. This meant that Molly (with Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who was also recently commissioned a lieutenant colonel) was outranked by no woman in the WAF except Colonel Geraldine May, WAF commander.

According to the original, or stuffy, Air Force plans, Molly was to be commissioned in a Pentagon reception room known, colloquially, as the "body shop." But when Molly arrived, it became immediately apparent that such a background was out of the question.

"Christmas Blubber." With gay disregard of military protocol, Molly had drawn up a big guest list. It included Mrs. Hoyt Vandenberg, wife of the Air Force chief (who was off on an inspection tour in Korea); the formidable Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, a doyenne of Washington society; Mrs. Cyrus Ching; Mr. & Mrs. Leslie Biffle; Lord and Lady Tedder--and, of course--Colonel May. A few of the guests were missing, but surveying the crowd, Molly thought it best to move to General Vandenberg's own office.

Everyone did. Molly was duly sworn and forthwith broke out a batch of champagne. As the ladies sipped, the new officer let them in on a secret--she felt she was too fat and had decided to diet off her "Christmas blubber" before being measured for a uniform. But this, it became obvious, was only a technical delay. Her maid immediately began answering the telephone with the words: "Colonel Thayer's residence."

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