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The most influential man in Siam, namely its king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, 32, and his svelte, archfeminist queen, Sirikit, 27, dropped into Washington for a friendly visit. They were well received—what with some of the rebuffs that the personalized spearheads of U.S. foreign policy have suffered in the Far East lately. In fact, the capital was delighted with the wide-eyed couple and their unabashed liking for the U.S. At National Airport, Bhumibol, born in the environs of Harvard University, where his father studied medicine, paid tribute to his "two motherlands." That evening at the White House, the King swapped recipes with D wight Eisenhower for Thailand noodle soup and Ike's ice cream. While the cookery talk went on, the U.S. Marine Band orchestra accommodated its listeners with a Thai march, composed by His Majesty, who is a jazz buff. Not on the program: songs from the Thai-strung The King and I, disliked by Bhumibol because he regards the musical as a slur upon his lusty ancestor. Addressing a joint session of Congress next day, the King set a new high in expressing appreciation for U.S. foreign-assistance funds. Said he candidly: "We are grateful for American aid. But we intend one day to do without it."
In the 23 years that have rolled away since Aviatrix Amelia Earhart disappeared in the Pacific on a globe-girdling flight, many wild guesses have been made about where and how she vanished. Last week a CBS news team produced one of the most likely explanations yet of Amelia's fate. Clued in by two Japanese who were living on the Japanese-held island of Saipan in 1937, the newsmen went there, found many natives who recalled that a plane had ditched just offshore in that year. The wreckage of the plane was located, and parts of it are now being checked to determine if it was indeed Amelia's air craft. If so, intrepid Airlady Earhart was some frightful 1,500 miles off course—a real possibility because of her known knack of getting lost, especially likely in the vast loneliness of the western Pacific with the relatively primitive navigational aids of the day to guide her. After the ditching, what happened to Amelia and Navigator Fred Noonan? CBS's best guess is that they were executed by the Japanese, who wanted no travelers to tell tales of how they were heavily fortifying Saipan, contrary to existing treaties, four years before Pearl Harbor.