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After all, a man of my age should celebrate by doing nothing." In Fort Myers, Fla., baseball's venerable Connie Mack checked off birthday No. 90 with a sideline tip: "There's not a worry in the world worth worrying about. That helped me live longer than anything else I know." In Tokyo, Crown Prince Akihito marked his igth birthday with a family dinner and a diplomatic reception. In preparation for his first trip abroad—the coronation in London next June—the prince is passing up his usual winter skiing vacation to concentrate on his studies: European political history, French (in which he stands first in his class) and philosophy.
A selection of Henry Ford papers, which will be placed in the Ford archives in Dearborn, Mich, next spring, was exhibited in Washington. Among them was a letter written in the childish scrawl of his son, the late Edsel Ford, and dated 1901, two years before the first model T went into production: "Dear Santa Claus: I haven't had any Christmas tree in four years and I have broken my trim-ings [sic] and I want some roller skates and I want a book and I can't think of anything else. I want you to think of something else." Andre Marty, 65-year-old Marxist bullyboy of French Communism who has been slipping down the hierarchy of the party, reached the bottom rung. After being booted from a succession of top posts, his own local cell came to a decision: Marty is "no longer fit to be a member of the party." In Washington, Senator Joe McCarthy was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with four gold stars (accompanied by six citations signed by Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball) for "heroism and extraordinary achievement" as. a Marine intelligence officer in World War II.
—On her singing tour of Korea, Metropolitan Opera Soprano Helen Traubel was flabbergasted at the eager, enthusiastic response when she asked a G.I. audience in Seoul if she could give them "just one little Wagnerian aria." Said she: "I thought you'd prefer Betty Hutton, and I'm a far cry from that." Georgia's Governor Herman Talmadge, recently elected chairman of the Southern Governors Conference, announced that South Carolina's Governor James F. Byrnes would act as head of a conference group which will try to "present the Southern viewpoint to the nation." Said Talmadge: "Good public relations is something sorely needed by the South." The aim, he added, will be to "adequately present the South's viewpoint on radio, television, in committee hearings and in magazines."