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WHILE THREE ARE HEADED FOR THE MOON, read the banner headline, A LOVER ASTRONAUT IS IN IZMIR TO SEE HIS SWEETHEART. Former Astronaut Scott Carpenter may have thought that he was paying a quiet visit to an attractive young painter he had met in the States. What he didn't know was that Umran Baradan, 24, had told reporters that they would marry when Carpenter's divorce becomes final next spring. Then the papers had them sharing a hotel room, had Umran's father suffering a paralyzing stroke at the prospect of the marriage, had her mother reacting with a nervous breakdown and an impassioned uncle threatening to dismember the lovers if they approached him. Umran backed down, Carpenter denied and denied, but there was no stopping Istanbul's Hiirriyet, Turkey's biggest daily. "No one in the world understands me better than my brunette Turkish sweetheart Umran," Hiirriyet quoted Scott as saying. "When I am divorced, I will come back and take her to Cape Kennedy. We will spend our honeymoon in a space capsule."
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"Have you seen it walking around?" the First Lady challenged newsmen. "Have you seen me in 65 new outfits?" Offended by a recent Associated Press story reporting that her 1969 wardrobe cost $19,000, Pat Nixon explained that she had some clothes "left over from before that people hadn't seen because we didn't live here." She also revealed a number of family economies that make life in the White House sound somewhat underprivileged. Julie, it seems, "hasn't bought any new skirts since she started college." Not only does the younger Nixon daughter hem up old models for the miniskirt look; she even makes do with hand-me-downs from Sister Tricia. Does the President ever check up on his ladies' fashion spending? "He doesn't check up on me," said Pat. "He knows how chintzy I am."
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Auto racing's Andy Granatelli, eminently successful businessman as president of STP Corp., went up to Harvard Business School to deliver a lecture on marketing concepts. But Cambridge's embryo tycoons were surprisingly curious about other things—like why the big congratulatory kiss Andy planted on Driver Mario Andretti after their Indianapolis victory this year? "What else could I do and still be an Italian?" the burly Granatelli replied. "I like to kiss people. After the meeting today, if you get in line, I'll kiss all of you. I suppose you think I like Mario because he's Italian, but that's not true. I like him because I'm Italian." There was laughter and warm applause, but no one rushed up to the podium for a peck from Andy.