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For those who raised eyebrows at the prominently lettered name on his office door in Kansas City's Federal Reserve Bank Building, Harry S. Truman had a frank and forthright explanation: he was tired of visitors wandering in under the impression that it was the men's room.
In Munich, the crimes of Use Koch, "Bitch of Buchenwald," were still catching up with her. Already serving a life sentence for concentration-camp atrocities, she was classified a major Nazi offender by a German de-Nazification court. Her sentence: two years in a work camp and confiscation of all her property.
At 4:30 a.m. in her London apartment, robbery-prone (three times in four years) Skating Star Sonja Henie woke with a scream, then dashed into the street in a barefoot, unsuccessful pursuit of thieves who had stripped her bedroom of an Aleutian mink coat ($18,000), an ermine coat ($7,000), a mink jacket ($3,500), two gold compacts, $840 in cash.
Even before it appeared on the stalls, a reminiscent book by a foreign author promised to be a Parisian bestseller. The book: Memoires. The author: Russia's Catherine the Great.
Opening night at the new Parisian-revue Voila glittered with bright stars of the international carriage trade. Trailing white satin, diamonds and lanky Hollywood Cowboy Gary Cooper, French Cinemactress Gisele Pascal showed up without her steady escort, Monaco's Prince Ranier III. Tubby ex-King Farouk shied at photographers ("Please, no pictures. I'm here incognito!"). Oldtime Singer Maurice Chevalier ogled the crowd, happily concluded, "Everybody, but everybody is here tonight!"
Talking for Collier's, the St. Louis Browns' ancient (somewhere between 45 and 55) Negro pitcher, "Satchel" Paige, gave his own rules for staying young:
"Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.
"If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
"Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
"Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain't restful.
"Avoid running at all times.
"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."
Only three years after he died insane and almost a pauper, the body of the great Russian Dancer Vaslav Nijislcy was quietly exhumed from an unmarked grave in London's Marylebone Cemetery to be reburied beside other artists in the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. The transfer was a tribute paid by Nijinsky's famous pupil, Dancer Serge Lifar.
Australian-born Explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins, 64, brown-bearded veteran of ten Arctic and Antarctic expeditions and a submarine trip that took him within 400 miles of the North Pole, was appointed a geographer in the Research and Development Division of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps.