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Show I ?ffff m kfflM t Atom Scare in Washington Washington was frightened out oi its dreams the other night when the jjsl most violent thunder-and-lightning Vj itonn I've ever witnessed atomie'd the capital It broke about 2:18 s v a. m. and lasted several hours . . . It Next day wherever you went, from to&t the White House to Harvey's restau-rant, restau-rant, the people all said the same thing. "I thought Russia dropped v' an A-bomb on us" . . . The lightning 10 S just didn't stop and the boom-boom of a zillion rolling bass-drums made me wonder if that isn't exact-5 exact-5 f f ly what our men go through up front l $ during war ... A devoutly religious St 1 woman said: "Nobody can make me believe God didn't arrange It just that way right over Washington, D. C, so all the wicked men at the i Pentagon would be reminded of what war sounds like when it gets , close." f Sounds In the Night: At the Harem a comedian was bragging how he wowed 'em at Miami for two weeks ... "I wowed 'em in Chicago be-fore be-fore that," he added, "and I was a wow in Frisco, too!" . . . "You must h a v e," interrupted Wally Wanger, "the wowsiest act in show business!" ... At the Encore someone some-one was reading aloud the news that Hollywood publisher Billy Wilkerson led Lana Turner down the aisle for her fourth marriage ... To which i r Dot Kilgallen meow'd: "She shoulda been able to do it blindfolded!" Robert Merrill, the Met. star, was telling an opera critic one of E his first jobs was at Youngs Gap hotel (in the Catskills) serving meals. "Oh," said the critic, "In those days you were a singing waiter." "In those days," sighed Merrill, 'I was a waiting singer." !- Manhattan Murals: The elevator II! operator at 139 .E. 57th who still I wears his battered air corps hat up-and-downing his "plane" . . . The blood bank on 39th street for the Palestine wounded . . . The sign in "t the window of a 46th street Russian restaurant: "Dishes for Democratic gourmets" . . . The Columbus ave- nue delicatessen which advertises: I 4,The New Lox." Once a heckler caused the death ct a great star, to hear vaudevcts t argue it . . . Literally, not profes- sionally. It happened at the Palace in 1913 'J ... His name was Nat Wills, a beloved be-loved tramp comic . . . The head- liner was Sarah Bernhardt ... It i. was the opening matinee and Sarah went over big . . . The clapping kept on long after she took her last bow i? . . Wills made the boner of coming on stage. Tne audience broke into heavier applause and an usher, who waited too long, handed a huge bokay of posies over the footlights. They were lcr Sarah, of course . . . Wills motioned mo-tioned to her to come on stage end take them . . . He removed his hat In great respect to her. But a heckler yelled: "Give 'em to Wills. He's dying!" Two-a-dayers insist the cruel crack ruined the sensitive Wills. He was never the same after it. A few years later be died of carbon monoxide monox-ide poisoning in his garage . . . Broadway never stopped wondering. wonder-ing. Bernard Earuch, whose advict Is widely sought, is considered by many to be the smartest man in the country. He wears a hearing m aid. A well known politico, often seen with Baruch, was asked If Barney still had trouble with his h. hearing. ' "I really don't know," he re-"1 re-"1 plied, "when I'm with Baruch I ! Just listen." The Press Box: Simple to savvy the diplomatic scrambling if you remember re-member that the international crisis now has reached the stage where nations na-tions are more concerned with military mili-tary positions than moral standards . . . Sudden thawt: Appeasement can only give us a peace to end all peace "j ... The reports about the rooking J- Russian-dominated nations are tak j ing merely indicate that the Kremlin i drove out the Nazis in order to In-j In-j stall communistic slot machines. J In a Bronx haberdasher-shop a . patron was blowing his top about i, : the President. "Everything he does makes me mad!" he barked. "Don't get apoplexy," shrugged y the storekeeper, "ne can't help i It. It just doesn't happen to be his L, . line!" a 11 sj N. Y.-Washington Chitchat: One New York paper is preparing an expose that'll fracture the country, i It alleges that the head of a greatly i publicized congressional committee was a member of the Klan in 1925. I; (Under his real name) . . . How come editors haven't tried getting an interview with Frances Crane, heiress of the plumbing ' firm for-tune? for-tune? She's Jan Masaryk'a ex-wife, f reported "still bitter." . . . British officers say MacArthur "has more f military know-how than any man ; imce Napoleon." ii 1 t 1 |