Favored to succeed Air Force Chief Thomas White, 59, who is planning to retire this summer, is Vice Chief Curtis LeMay, 54, the brambly former SAC commander. LeMay, a military "conservative," molds his thinking around here-and-now weapons rather than futuristic ones on the drawing board. Thus Air Force research and development leaders are still bucking his appointment.

Home in London after her eleven-day tour of Italy, Queen Elizabeth was still getting rave notices from her recent hosts. Even Rome's leftist weekly, L'Espresso, found it "almost a miracle" that she remained composed during her "inhumanly crowded sojourn." Elizabeth drew throngs everywhere: 100,000 cheered her in Naples, crowds called her to the balcony of

Rome's Quirinal Palace, Florentines broke through police lines three times to see her, Communist workers in Milan applauded her. But in Milan's La Scala opera house, things went to the other extreme. There the Queen accepted a bouquet from young dancers, joined Prince Philip and eight companions in the majestic isolation of the royal box, surrounded by 3,230 empty seats, as 200 singers and musicians staged a special, twelve-minute performance of the second-act finale of Lucia di Lammermoor.

"I run this place to make money, not to serve tramps," thundered Mrs. John T. Reges at the trio of drenched, mud-spattered hikers who led a march to her Old Anglers Inn near the Potomac last week and began unwrapping their homemade sandwiches. Singling out the mild-looking, silver-haired elder of the group, she barked: "Get off that rug! Get over there with the rest of the wet ones." When someone protested, she pointed at the puddles on the floor and demanded: "Well, is he going to clean up the mess?" Then she turned on the grinning youngster of the group and exploded: "You look like a bum! Get out!" He did. So did the others. When the innkeeper learned that she had just given the heave ho to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Senator Paul H. Douglas and Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall, she shrugged: "I'm not even sure if I care."

Careless of the intent crowd in Moscow's Variety Theater, Leningrad Grand Master Mikhail Botvinnik, 49, concentrated on the board in front of him, played with icy calmness to recapture the world chess championship from the man who took it away from him last year: nervous, chain-smoking Mikhail Tal, 24. For the aging Botvinnik, it was a triumph of selfdiscipline: all year he had stayed in training, sharpening his strategy while Tal was living it up in Europe. Botvinnik's endurance paid off in the grueling, three-day 20th game when Tal slumped wearily in his seat after the 121st move and settled for a stalemate. Two days later, calmly sipping hot coffee while Tal paced uneasily, the ex-champ finished off his youthful conqueror after 33 moves, won back his title, 13 games to 8.

"We went through that same sort of phase ourselves," well-liked U.S. Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer told 100 newsmen in Tokyo last week when the subject of Japan's current penchant for pacifism popped up. "In fact, I founded a peace society myself in college." But the Japan-born envoy, a hit with his hosts since he turned up with his credentials and began talking to them in their own language, did not let the subject drop. "My generation learned better," said he bluntly. "The people who taught us better were . . . Hitler on the one side and the Japanese militarists on the other."

Honored as "Companions of Literature," a newly created British order that will be limited to ten living members, were five already laureled octogenarians: Sir Winston (History of the English-Speaking Peoples) Churchill, 86, historian in the grand manner; Somerset (Of Human Bondage) Maugham, 87, prolific author of plays, novels and scores of short stories; John (Sea Fever) Masefield, 82, gentle poet laureate who has been writing verses to order for royal ceremonies since 1930; E. M. (A Passage to India) Forster, 82, urbane craftsman whose limited output of novels and criticism is belied by his far-reaching literary influence; George Macaulay (The English Revolution) Trevelyan, 85, popular chronicler of England's past. Of the five, who may now add "C. Lit." to the honors that follow their names, only Masefield and Maugham were hale enough to show up for their parchment scrolls, handed out by Home Secretary R. A. Butler, president of the Royal Society of Literature. Said Maugham, as he turned up the volume on his hearing aid: "I want to hear all the gossip."

Forty-five years after she opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, Margaret Sanger, dauntless, red-haired crusader for planned parenthood, was honored by leaders of a world population crisis conference for her "prophetic vision" that foresaw the perils of a runaway population. At 77, said she, "I'm not traveling as much as I did. I like to encourage others to get going, to teach, to get different circles moving. And the circles are moving: organizations, agencies and hospitals are taking over more and more; committees are spreading out internationally." Said Mrs. Sanger, as she modestly explained her own waning activity: "The personality dies, but the cause lives on."

Ill lay: Manhattan's Francis Cardinal Spellman, who underwent a delicate operation to repair a detached retina in his right eye. just five days after his 72nd birthday; Mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, 41, co-conqueror of 29,028-ft. Mt. Everest in 1953, who suffered a mild stroke in a Nepalese hill camp as he mapped an assault on another Himalayan cloudscraper, 27,790-ft. Mt. Makalu.

Clutching a document certifying him as the newly elected Member of Parliament for Bristol, S.E., Anthony Wedgwood Benn, otherwise known as Viscount Stansgate. approached Britain's House of Commons and found the entrance to the chamber barred. Principal Doorkeeper A. V. Stockley, a small, thickset figure clad in evening dress, advised Benn that as a peer he could not enter the chamber, would be kept out by force if necessary. Benn, who has tried unsuccessfully to renounce his title, trudged to the Strangers' Gallery and watched the M.P.s vote down a Labor motion to admit him, 250 to 177. Said Benn's American-born wife, Caroline: "It's all a tribal dance."

"Duchess of Windsor Buys American," burbled the New York Herald Tribune in a five-column headline celebrating the exciting news that the Baltimore girl who rose from pinched gentility to affluent nobility had forsaken her Paris stylists, at least temporarily, to confer her patronage on Jo Hughes's De Pinna Boutique in Manhattan. As a result of the article, which pictured five outfits the duchess had bought, Jo Hughes was swamped with orders from women rushing to buy identical garments.

Beaming with pleasure, visiting Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba stood bareheaded in an open car, blew finger-tip kisses to secretaries in office windows, and bowed to the applause of 200,000 New Yorkers who lined Broadway for his lunch-hour ticker-tape parade. "I am very much moved by this warm, cordial, brotherly welcome," said Bourguiba in French. "It strengthens my conviction that our two peoples must stand together."

In quest of a candidate for an honorary Doctorate of Letters, six-year-old Exeter University, one of Britain's newest red-bricks (TIME. April 21), managed to produce an academic surprise: popular Mystery Writer Agatha Christie, whose 65-odd thrillers have sold some 100 million copies. Awed by the pomp and ceremony, Miss Christie admitted: "I'm still a lowbrow." A pair of status-conscious undergraduates apparently agreed. As Miss Christie swept past them in cap and gown to receive her degree, they held up a placard that asked: "Whodunit?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.