Fast Fascist

Having skimmed Africa, spanned the Atlantic, looped South America, threaded the West Indies, Commander Francesco De Pinedo, swart Fascist ace, last week swooped into New Orleans with his two aides in their big seaplane. He had just shaved freshly out over the Gulf of Mexico, finished off his ship's last bottle of Chianti, played his phonograph. Voluble gentlemen, one of them enormously corpulent (Mayor O'Keefe), welcomed him to the U. S. Soon he was hopping again, to Galveston, to San Antonio. His four-continent itinerary called for flight across the desert southwest to the Pacific, north to Seattle, back (following lakes) to Chicago, New York, Boston, Newfoundland, the Azores, Portugal, Rome. He hoped to get home on April 21, anniversary of Rome's founding, certain of a prodigious "triumph." All Italy is placarded by Il Duce's aviation recruiting posters: "Don't YOU want to become a De Pinedo?"