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At the dedication of Washington's $110 million Dulles International Airport, some 50,000 people gathered to stare at the soaring lines of the Saarinen-designed terminal building and honor the memory of the man for whom the airport is named: onetime Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. President Kennedy was on hand and so was Ike, who described his old friend as "a man who spent most of his life serving the cause of his country and world peace."
Still lighting torches in what looks like a vain effort to convince the National Aeronautics and Space Agency that she should be the first woman in a space capsule, Aviatrix Jerrie Cobb, 31, told a Washington women's club that she was being given the runaround. The Russians, she said, may soon launch a Mongolian woman into orbit ("They are a small, hardy race used to high altitudes"), while the first space-bound U.S. female may be a chimpanzee. "There's a $1,000,000 budget for a place called Chimp College, New Mexico," said the angry Jerrie, "where at least one female, named Glenda, is taking astronaut training."
For everyone who was anyone along the Rome-New York social beat, the place to be last week was the Spoleto Ball at Manhattan's Hotel Plaza. The charity affair, to raise money for Composer Gian Carlo Menotti's annual Festival of Two Worlds in the medieval town north of Rome, was capped by a "Parade of the Zodiac" hat show. And there they came, trooping top-heavily across the stage: Actress Joan Fontaine as Aquarius, the Water Bearer; Mrs. Marion Javits, wife of New York Senator Jacob Javits, as Capricorn, the Goat; Justine and Lily Gushing, daughters of slick Ski Resort Operator Alexander Gushing, as Gemini, the twins in yellow silk sheaths and sequin-studded grey turbans. To be sure that the headgear crushed not a curl, Hairdresser Mr. Kenneth was backstage with teasing comb at the ready.
One of the most valuable and complete collections of U.S. coins in existence was stolen from the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., where it was being exhibited by its owner, H.S.T.'s onetime Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Snyder. Flying home from Manhattan to preside over the investigation, Truman had his own theory about who stole the $50,000 collection. "Professional thieves have been hired by some coin collector to come and get this collection," he fumed.
So very proper when she played the London Palladium for the Queen, Singer Eartha Kitt, 34, came back to earth in Bonn at the annual Presseball, which marks the opening of the West German capital's social season. Decked out in a slit gold lame gown, Eartha purred I Want to Be Evil with such wickedness that the high-ranking audience cheered and President Heinrich Lübke came up to congratulate her after the is-minute show. Lübke's wife Wilhelmine insisted on meeting her too.