People: The Specialist's Eye

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The Duke of Windsor, wearing a checkered topcoat, stooped to pet a Cuban Chihuahua while visiting the battleship Texas at Houston. The dog bit the Duke. "I think it must have been the coat," said the victim. "It's a bit noisy, you know." Later the Duke and Duchess stole the show at New Orleans' Mardi gras, especially at the carnival when the Duke bowed low and the Duchess curtsied to the floor (see cut) before King Rex and his Queen.

Sweden's King Gustaf V, 91, feeling better after a recent illness, was getting ready in Stockholm for a visit to the Riviera. Planning to accompany him on the three-day train journey: two nurses, his personal physician, his lord in waiting, his secretary, two valets.

Prince Hubertus of Prussia, grandson of the late Kaiser Wilhelm, landed in South Africa to begin a new life as a sheep farmer. "This is going to be a considerable change from my vineyards at Wiesbach on the Rhine," he told newsmen in Johannesburg, "but your country has a wonderful future. Germany today is not a very happy place."

Off to Paris: Pulitzer Prizewinning Playwright Thornton Wilder, to supervise a French production of his 1942 play, The Skin of Our Teeth.

Anxious to visit the U.S.: Artist Pablo Picasso, 68, a member of the Communist Party in France. He said in Paris that he would like to come to Washington and present a peace program to Congress.

Pausing briefly in Manhattan, Character Actor Charles Laughton explained why he was touring the country in one-night stands, giving two-hour readings of the Bible, Shakespeare, Dickens, Lincoln, Thomas Wolfe and James Thurber to enraptured audiences: "Where else could I get a job that enables me to play all of the roles? . . . Reading out loud is a friendly thing to do, don't you think? It's like a hot toddy or a warm glass of milk before bed. It brings everyone together as though they were rubbing their hands before a fire . . ."

Globetrotting Colonel Robert R. ("Bertie") McCormlck, publisher of "The World's Greatest Newspaper" (the Chicago Tribune) committed one of the season's greatest social blunders in Madrid. When his converted 6-17 landed at Barajas Airport, it was emblazoned with the red, yellow and purple flag of the late Spanish Republic. The official reception party representing Generalissimo Francisco Franco's Spain (a gold and red flag) stared in stunned silence as Colonel McCormick stepped confidently on to the airfield, beaming to right & left. The airfield commander finally whispered in the ear of Colonel McCormick's pilot, who explained that the flag had been painted on the B-17 in California, along with a Portuguese flag, and that nobody had noticed anything amiss. When told about the mistake, the Colonel ordered the Spanish Republican flag removed "and the right one painted on at once." To one of his aides he whispered hoarsely: "Be sure to get the name of that painter in California." A Spanish airport worker grabbed paint and brush and did a quick patchup job that made everybody breathe easier. Still struggling to regain his aplomb later in the day, Visitor McCormick made a little speech in which he referred to Franco as "the greatest European general of our times."

The Busy Heart