POPE PROTECTOR.(The Talk of the Town)(The Swiss Guard celebrates 500th anniversary)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 10-APR-06

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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

The chief of the world's oldest and smallest army, Comandante Elmar Theodor Maeder, arrived last week for a reception at the Union League Club, without the royal-blue-and-marigold-yellow striped knickers suit for which his regiment, the Papal Swiss Guard, is best known. (His hosts had asked him to wear the outfit, but he chose to leave it in Rome.) He wore a jacket and tie, with no hat or plumed helmet. A pin bearing the American and Vatican flags was affixed to his lapel. Maeder is a tall man with a sturdy chin and the countenance of a hockey player. When he says, with a sly grin, that his charges--halberdiers--are "not all choirboys," it is...

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