1956/03/12 -- Cover photograph featuring Dwight D. Eisenhower is credited to Hank Walker

Contents of this issue are as follows:
THE WEEK'S EVENTS:

  • "After weeks of ... devoutly prayerful consideration," the drama of the President's yes
  • Children for 17 Lands pay Homage to Pope Pius XII on his 80th Birthday
  • A Look at the World's Week
  • Europe's Bad Winter is Cruel to the End
  • No Sign of Peace for Autherine
  • A Mystery Monster Causes SOme Ripples in Henley-on-Thames

    • EDITORIALS:

  • Three Imports of Ike's Decision
  • "Go slow, now"

    • PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS:

  • The Sands of the Desert Turn Gold - Well-Heeled Visitors in the Southwest Enrich Scottsdale, Arizona, as native styles are embellished - Photographed in color for LIFE by Nina Leen
  • A Memo to the Girls - LIFE Shows leap-year husband-seekers some eligible specimens of U.S. bacherlorhood and places where they abound, such as Caspar, Wyoming

    • ARTICLE:

  • Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief - Arthur Barry, great second-story man, looks back on a $10 million life in crime by Robert Wallace

    • MILITARY AFFAIRS:

  • Set to strike in the shadows: the U.S. Army trains a special corps of many-skilled men to operate behind enemy lines

    • SCIENCE:
    Tiny plastic lens is promising new solution for eye cataracts

    MODERN LIVING:

  • In colorful models Cleveland shows how a city fights decay

    • NATURE:

  • Horace the housebroken hare enjoys his Dublin house

    • SPORTS:

  • The world's biggest serve: smashing triumphs over Trabert prove Pancho Gonzalez is best in tennis

    • ART:

  • English sculptor uses menbers of his congregation as models for a church facade

    • THEATER:

  • Eugene O'Neill 's last tragedy, "Long Day's Journey Into Night," produced in Stockholm, tells the playwright's own family story

    • FASHION:

  • U.S. Men Gets Recapped: Slimmed-Down Sports Headgear Shows Up in Town

    • MUSIC:

  • A 23-year-old Canadian, Glenn Gould, looms as the Continent's most astonishing young pianist

    • PARTY:

  • Turnout for a top Italian - President Giovanni Gronchi whirls through four days in Washington

    • OTHER DEPARTMENTS:

  • Speaking of Pictures: Aerial Artistry by the Acre
  • Letters to the Editors
  • Miscellany: An Antigravity Goat