"JUST CALL ME ETHEL"

EVEN among the go-go-go Kennedys, Ethel Skakel Kennedy is real gone. At 32, she has seven boisterous children, is a tough touch-football player, a skilled skier, water-skier, swimmer, horsewoman, golfer and tennis player. She is also an enthusiastic twister who would dance the whole night through--if there were anyone else left around. Last week, taking her abundant energies onto the global road with Husband Bobby, Ethel set a stiff pace. And by week's end it seemed that she had at least half of Tokyo following her advice to everyone she met: "Just call me Ethel."

At 8:15 on her first morning in Tokyo, Ethel, wearing a red suit with black trim and matching hairbows, set off without Bobby from the U.S. embassy for a day of adventure on her own. Her first stop was the University of the Sacred Heart, whose superior, Mother Anne Stoepel, had been a teacher at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in Purchase, N.Y., when Ethel and her Kennedy sisters-in-law, Eunice Shriver and Jean Smith, were schoolgirls there. (Mother Stoepel was transferred to Japan by her religious order in 1959.) To the grey-uniformed girls of the upper school, Ethel delivered a little speech that was warmly applauded even though its train of thought was a bit hard to follow. Said she: "I always thought that the United States was more liberal than this country, but it's not true. At Manhattanville, in my day, we were very virtuous. I understand now that you are allowed to get married." Visiting the lower school, she noted that "over three generations of Kennedys have attended convents of the Sacred Heart all over the world. Over 30 members." A little later, looking up from her written text, she entered a laughing aside: "Gosh, this sounds like a terrible graduation address." Dropping by a class on flower arrangement, she was enthusiastic: "They ought to teach flower arrangement back home. It's terrific." And in a calligraphy class, she wrote three Japanese characters on the blackboard meaning "Japanese and American friendship." (Ethel had worked hard at learning a few phrases and characters on the plane to Japan; she generally mangled the language, but the Japanese seemed delighted with her efforts.)

After an hour at the convent, Ethel's eleven-car motorcade headed off for a visit to a hospital for crippled children, then back to the embassy, where Ethel changed into a green suit (with matching hairbows) before lunch at Tokyo's Zen Buddhist Temple of the Green Pines. There, Japanese Politician Yasuhiro Nakasone had arranged for a three-hour, 13-course, all-vegetable meal. Kneeling in the approved fashion on a grass mat before a low table, Ethel accepted a set of Munakata prints and a pair of bamboo stilts--one of seven pairs that will be sent to her children back home. "Oh," cried Ethel, "I can see a summer of broken legs and broken arms." Ethel was certainly the life of the luncheon. "Did I read," she asked, "that your cats have no tails?" Nobody could help her much on that one. Later, out of a clear sky, she asked: "Do the Japanese use snuff?" This produced a long, confused consultation among the Japanese. Finally Nakasone replied: "Well, we don't use snuff. We use incense. It's more civilized." Wearying of her kneeling posture, she turned to a Japanese woman: "Are your legs getting tired?" The reply: "No, are yours?" Said Ethel grimly: "I can do it as long as you can." She did, too.

Returning to the embassy, Ethel rested briefly, then appeared in a light yellow princess-style dress (with matching hairbows) at a hen party with 250 embassy women, including secretaries and wives of staffers. To the ladies, Ethel conveyed greetings from her sister-in-law Jacqueline, continued, "I'm so happy to see that you're all living out the President's inauguration speech and deepening American-Japanese relations. You've really gotten your lights out from under the barrel." After that, there were only a few more functions: a visit to the home of Japanese Businessman Yoshishiko Matsukata, an uncle of U.S. Ambassador Reischauer's Japanese wife Haru; an embassy reception attended by Prime Minister Ikeda and hundreds of other Japanese dignitaries (Ethel wore a white lace dress--with matching hair-bows) ; a dinner given by Japanese Foreign Minister Zentaro Kosaka; and an appearance on the Japanese television program What's My Secret?.

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