Radio's Henry Morgan, who last month accused his straw-blonde wife Isobel of not only being a bad cook and a Communist but of lacking a sense of humor, publicly gasped with horror at himself after they reached an "understanding" in Manhattan. (She dropped her suit for $750-a-week support.) "I am ashamed," said he. "I guess I just don't have much sense. If I did, I'd probably be in another line of work. I'd quit radio and go straight, or something."

In Madrid, Carmencita Franco, gently curved daughter of the well-rounded Generalissimo, let it be known unofficially that she was keeping company with Dr. Cristobal Martinez Bordiu, that they would probably announce their engagement officially in the fall.

Hollywood's John Payne and Gloria DeHaven called off their second trial separation in 3 1/2 years, "because we love each other and . . . .our two children." Songstress Ginny Simms--because "we still love each other"--considered dropping her two-week-old divorce suit (their first in nearly three years) against her architect-husband Hyatt Dehn.

Lita Grey, tiger-eyed second of Charlie Chaplin's four wives, was having none of this backing & filling: she decided to sue third husband Arthur Day for divorce after ten years because her new career (as a peripatetic nightclub singer) made things impractical.

General Omar Bradley, the Army's versatile Chief of Staff, did a little low-level navigation outside his old home town of Moberly, Mo. Flying in from Washington through rain and poor visibility, the general peered out the window, spotted a few landmarks, guided the confused Army pilot safely to the airport.

The Los Angeles Presbytery finally took the bull by the horns: Dr. Stewart P. MacLennan, who married Lano & Bob Topping last April--an un-Presbyterian three days after Bob's divorce--would presently be subjected to a formal rebuke, decided the elders.

The Alabama divorcee who sued Governor Kissin' Jim Folsom as the father of her two-year-old-announced that she was now "tired of the whole mess," and asked permission to drop the suit. "Your petitioner has come to realize," she explained after a few months' thought, "that she has been . . . used as a political tool."*

Receiving reporters in a gay silk print dress, Margaret Truman hedged on politics (she was "flattered" at the suggestion that she run for Vice President), took a firm stand on a personal issue: "Anybody that calls me 'Maggie' will never get a date. I hate that name."

Just Deserts

Francis Scott (The Star-Spangled Banner) Key was finally about to take his place in distinguished company: Congress voted to build him a monument in Washington.

Harry Louder, 77, music-hall favorite till his retirement before World War II, prepared to participate in his own immortalization, and had plenty of time to prepare. He let it be known that he would go to Hollywood to play himself in his forthcoming cinebiography, a year from next August. === John Marin, 75, top-ranking watercolorist, got the sort of tribute that is closest to an artist's heart. At the WAA sale of State Department paintings that offended Congress (TIME, April 14, 1947), a Marin watercolor fetched $10,000 from St. Louis' City Art Museum.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's idea of the 23 most influential people in the U.S. was reported by Rene de Chambrun, who published in This Week a list the President had jotted down for him in 1940. Next-door neighbors on the list: Robert Taft and Henry Wallace. Among the missing: Harry Truman. Final name on the list: Mrs. F.D.R.

The Literary Life

Thornton Wilder, no matinee idol at 51, prepared-to play both ends from the middle this week: the male lead in a Berkshire Playhouse version of The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder.

Upton Sinclair's first play in nine years--Giant's Strength--had its 2 1/2-hour debut at the hands of a Claremont, Calif. community playhouse. The critics who attended gave it "mixed notices" and confused ones. Some thought it was a sort of cheerful Skin of Our Teeth. Playwright Sinclair, who had stayed away from the rehearsals, stayed away from the opening too.

William Saroyan, who has been rather uncommunicative since the prewar days when he dashed off short stories between breakfast and lunch, broke into the San Francisco Examiner with a sad short-short, among the real-estate-for-sale ads: "Approximately 30-year-old well-built ranchhouse . . . 30 acres . . . No garage, no barn . . . heating apparatus out of order . . . 12-party line . . . no bus . . . plenty of squirrels. Owner paid only $32,000 . . . He is keeping six or seven acres for himself as a monument to his real-estate sharpness. Will sell balance for $35,000. If interested have head examined, or telephone . . ."

*Two months after she filed the suit, Folsom was defeated as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

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