Geneva has many fine houses with many fine rooms, but the U.S. diplomats who travel to the city for those endless international conferences must find humbler lodgings in the overcrowded hotels. Hearing of the diplomats' lot from U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, Boston Socialite Mrs. Katharine McCormick, 89, widow of an heir to the International Harvester farm machine fortune, came to the rescue with a generous donation: her 238-year-old, $500,000 chateau in the nearby village of Prangins. The 40-room mansion will be renovated by the U.S. Government and will become the residence of United States U.N. European Ambassador Roger Tubby, who will keep a light burning for his visiting colleagues.
With fond memories of the jovial crown prince who spent the wartime years in the Highlands, rallying and training his exiled countrymen to fight the Nazis, the usually solemn Scots of Edinburgh gave visiting King Olav V of Norway, 59, a tumultuous welcome. King Olav's merry ways broke down all reserve. Stepping from his coach at Edinburgh's Princes Street station, he gallantly saluted Queen Elizabeth II, then bussed her on the cheek; in courtly succession, he kissed the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, the Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra. As he rode next to the Queen in a state landau drawn by six grey horses, a crowd of 100,000 lined the Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyroodhouse to cheer the sailor King. Then the King was admitted to Scotland's oldest order of chivalry: along with British Foreign Secretary Lord Home, he was dubbed a Knight of the Order of the Thistle.
To top off the Vienna premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream in the city's renowned Staatsoper, the Austrian government bestowed its highest musical tribute on the Connecticut-born beauty singing the leading role of Titania. She was Soprano Teresa Stich-Randall, 34, who for the past ten years has made Vienna home base and last year took her first bows at the Met. Her new title: Kammersängerin (chamber singer), the first time an American-born artist has ever received the award.
Buzzing onto the runway of Bombay's Juhu Airport, the single-engined de Havilland Leopard-Moth looked as if it might be powered by rubber bands. But the 1933-vintage monoplane was admirably airworthy. Out of the cockpit popped dapper Jehangir Ratan Dadabhoy Tata, 58, chairman of the country's flag-line Air-India, and India's foremost industrialist. Tata piloted the old flying machine over the 662-mile route from Karachi to Bombay to celebrate the 30th anniversary of India's first airmail flight, which he himself flew in a Puss Moth, the cousin of the Leopard. He had no trouble on the trip—except for a radio which conked out on the way. Grinned Tata: "It just goes to prove that technical progress has its disadvantages. Thirty years ago, this could not happen because there was no radio."