"Of course we'll live off his income," insisted the bride-to-be. "He wouldn't think of it any other way." And another thing, Luci Baines Johnson, 18, pointed out in an interview with McCall's, those reports that she had to strong-arm Daddy into approving the match were just "hogwash." When she brought her beau, Pat Nugent, whose career plans are still up in the air, down to the ranch last October, the girl explained, "my father came to us and asked: 'What's all this I read in the newspapers?' " And that, said Luci, sticking out her jaw, "is when we sat down and reasoned together."
At first there was some doubt she would make it there at all. But then the stout Boy Scout commissioner and five other loyal subjects on the tiny British West Indian isle of Nevis pleaded that Queen Elizabeth II not ignore them on her month-long Caribbean tour. And so she came. As the royal yacht Britannia docked at the jetty, nearly all 13,000 Nevisians were dancing in the streets. Then with endless royal waves, Elizabeth and Prince Philip drove off through the cotton and sugarcane fields to pay a gracious call at the birthplace of one of the Crown's less loyal subjects—Alexander Hamilton.
It was the old mousetrap play. The U.S. Army captain and the Vietnamese airborne battalion, which he served as adviser, fought their way into a Viet Cong camp near Bong Son one night, only to find the place deserted. Then, at midnight, with the ammo running low, Captain Pete Dawkins, 27, had the V.C. red-dogging in on both flanks. After a quick firefight, Army's 1958 AllAmerica halfback huddled with his assistant, Lieut. Dick McDaniel, a former Nebraska end, and called for a "quick draw"—an artillery barrage from the nearby 1st Air Cavalry Division. That play scored fine, and afterward, as Dawkins and his unit rested in Saigon, Premier Nguyen Cao Ky awarded him and McDaniel South Viet Nam's second highest decoration, the Gallantry Cross.
After five weeks of arguments, Widow Mary Hemingway had her verdict. She had tried to stop publication of a book by A. E. Hotchner (TIME, Feb. 11), a friend and drinking pal of Ernest's during his last years, describing how the prideful lion sometimes fell into black and irrational moods before eventually shooting himself in 1961. In writing these reminiscences, argued "Miss Mary," Hotchner had used Papa's spoken words, which should be considered his property. But New York State Supreme Court Justice Harry Frank ruled that "spontaneous oral conversation with friends" cannot be considered subject to copyright. Random House will publish Papa Hemingway in April.
And wasn't it a long, fond wake the widow held? After Irish Playwright Brendan Behan died of "the gargle" two years ago, Beatrice Behan, 40, told Redbook in Dublin, "I spent a few months drinking around in the pubs where they knew him." After a while, said Beatrice, "I felt his personality slipping under my skin.. I imagined that everyone loved me, and I even sang those dreary I.R.A. songs that Brendan used to sing. But then I realized I was not being natural, so I drink but little now." Still, considering the mourning after, the great gargler's widow conceded: "I love the life of the pubs."