National Affairs: The Little Prince

As the captains and the kings paraded on and off the stage in official Washington last week, one little scene-stealer grabbed his own private spotlight and held it right down to the last curtain. He was solemn little Prince Mashhur ibn Saud. 3½, son of the Saudi Arabian King, who had only to blink his liquid brown eyes to evoke cooings and mental chin-chucks across the nation.

The little prince had no sooner been lodged in President Eisenhower's suite at Walter Reed Army Hospital, where Army doctors diagnosed his affliction—cerebral palsy—and prescribed special footwear and therapy (TIME, Feb. 11), than letters...