People: Feb. 7, 1964

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He never was very robust, and now, at 64, he is growing noticeably pale and frail. But tiny (5 ft. 3 in.) Showman Billy Rose is still the oldtime dynamite. Traveling to Jerusalem for the seventh time in three years, he was overseeing construction of his greatest philanthropical production: a $500,000 garden to display his $1,000,000 collection of statuary as part of Israel's Bezalel National Museum. "The Guggenheim is nothing compared to what my museum is going to be," boasted Billy. And why was he giving away his collection? "After I'm gone I don't want all this stuff bought at auction by some thin-lipped banker for his home in Peekskill. Not that I don't like bankers. I do. I just don't like Peekskill."

With only two days remaining before the close of nominations, eight members of the Swedish Parliament recommended Martin Luther King Jr., 35, for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. The Southern leader of the U.S. Negro's drive for integration should be considered, said the legislators, because he "had succeeded in keeping his followers to the principle of nonviolence. Without King's confirmed conviction of the justification and effectiveness of this principle, demonstrations and marches could easily have become violent and ended with the spilling of blood."

Shortly after dawn, the party of twelve doughty adventurers donned life jackets, split into pairs and shoved off from shore on half a dozen rubber rafts. Mission: to shoot the rapids of the swirling Rio Grande as it passes through 1,900-ft.-deep Mariscal Canyon in Texas' Big Bend National Park. A jagged rock gashed one raft, temporarily putting it out of commission, but Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, 65, and his bride of six months negotiated the hair-raising 14 miles of pounding waves, treacherous turns and large rocks without a spill. First-Timer Joan Douglas, 23, dug it the most. "It was the thrill of a lifetime," she bubbled. "It's for me. I want to do some more.

You can't imagine." Her husband had done it all before. "Wonderful ride," said the cool old river man.

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