After considerable experience on the other side of an interview, Martha Mitchell last week took over the guest co-host spot on Washington's midday talk show Panorama. Martha, liberally divesting herself of opinions, condemned streaking, praised Governor Wallace, attacked the nation's schools for being overly psychoanalytical, and deplored conditions in veterans' hospitals. In between, she conducted a few interviews, asking ex-Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas how she felt about the Red-scare smear campaign that Richard Nixon used to defeat her in 1950. Said Douglas: "I woke up the next morning a free person and found that I had been sincere with myself." With ex-Housewife Pat Loud she discussed the lack of neighborliness in New York. The most stirring interview was when Martha came face to face with a tiger named Prince, who was under the eye of Animal Tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams Then she had a revelation of her own: "I talked my husband into becoming a Republican [in 1966]. He'd always been a Democrat. And the day I talked him out of calling the President Tricky Dick' —I could still shoot myself!"
After presiding over the Senate for four years as Vice President, Hubert Humphrey took on a real circus. Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey variety. In red sequined coat and black stovepipe hat ("I won't throw it into the ring, and that's the first time I've ever said that"), Senator Humphrey stepped into the spotlight before a packed audience of all ages at the Washington, D.C., armory. By longstanding tradition, the opening was billed as Congressional Night at the Circus. Seldom at a loss for words, Humphrey kept up an authentic ringmaster's patter for half an hour as North Dakota Senator Quentin Burdick and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens plus 14 Representatives dressed as clowns paraded around the ring on elephants before the regular show. Perhaps noting the lack of donkeys, Senator Henry Jackson was a no-show. Instead he went to Circus America, the rival big top now playing the capital.
By common agreement, the finest throwing arm in the history of the U.S. Military Academy belongs to Omar Nelson Bradley, Class of '15. After a distinguished career as outfielder for the West Point baseball team, Bradley went on to make a succession of spectacular martial catches: commander of the Twelfth Army in World War II, postwar Veterans Administrator, first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, at 81, the only living five-star General of the Army. Bradley returned last week to the ivied walls on the Hudson for the dedication of the Omar N. Bradley Library, which will contain his personal papers. With his uniform razor-creased and his eyes glistening as if they were spit-shined, Bradley told cadets: "Every time I return to West Point I visit my youth, my roots, my dreams. At this stage of my life I'm glad to be anywhere, but today I feel a special kind of fulfillment." "