Still in mourning and bundled in a black mink coat, Jackie Kennedy, 34, for the first time dropped by her new office in the Old State Department Building to say thanks to the 25 volunteers who have been opening and organizing her 700,000 letters and telegrams of condolence. And that same day, still another bit of Kennediana came to light. On the mantel of the presidential bedroom in the White House there has long been a carved inscription: "In this room Abraham Lincoln slept during his occupancy of the White House as President of the United States. March 4, 1861--April 13, 1865." Now there is another inscription just below: "In this room lived John Fitzgerald Kennedy with his wife Jacqueline during the two years, ten months and two days he was President of the United States."

The word memoirs stems from the French for memory, and at 84, or almost, the Old Soldier has a more glory-filled one than most. On the 22nd anniversary of the Battle of Bataan, Long Island University draped the aqua-colored hood of a doctor of letters--his 17th honorary degree--on General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. "Sentiment has muddled many problems," said MacArthur, whose memoirs began in LIFE last week, "but has settled none. In the long advance of civilization, no facet has quite reached the importance of a full education."

Give her those good old European paparazzi any time. The Latin American version inspires sheer terror. Flying into Rio for a "rest" with her Brazilian playboy friend, Brigitte Bardot, 29, was met by 150 howling, straining newsmen who chased her clear up to his apartment. When all efforts to break in came to naught, the pack besieged the joint for four days, running their own beauty contest among the babes on Copacabana Beach and checking the trunks of all departing cars to make sure she wasn't smuggled out. Even a writ of habeas corpus failed to lift the siege. At last she emerged to meet the panting press. And what did BB think of Brazilian reporters? "I've never seen such savages," she snarled.

After his indictment as an unregistered agent for Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo, he lost his job as the New York Journal American's syndicated society gossip; his wife committed suicide; and his public relations firm collapsed. Even so, ruled a Washington, D.C., judge, the law is clear, and he sentenced Igor Cassini to six months on probation, fined him $10,000.

The unexpectedly savage 1919 demolition of Heavyweight Champion Jess Willard, now 82, by Jack Dempsey, now 68, has always been surrounded with muttered rumors of foul play. And now in his memoirs, Dempsey's late manager Jack ("Doc") Kearns has admitted as much. As Kearns tells the story, he first wrapped Dempsey's hands with bandages as prescribed, then wet the bandages and doused on "talcum," which, unbeknownst to the young Dempsey, was actually plaster of paris. It all came out in a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED excerpt of Kearns's forthcoming The Million Dollar Gate. "I'm glad Kearns finally was man enough to admit it," said Willard. "First time Dempsey hit me, I knew those gloves were loaded." But Jack still thinks otherwise. "Ridiculous!" he exploded. "I bandaged up my own hands." Then why did Doc lie? "I fired him as my manager. He was bitter to the end."

"We are led to believe that some of Robert Frost's library, perhaps in the end all his books, will come to us from his estate," announced Amherst President Calvin Plimpton, with pardonable pride, in his annual report. But he was led to believe wrong, for Frost's private 3,000-volume collection (including nearly 1,000 first editions by some of his friends) is going to New York University. The onetime Amherst poet-in-residence formally willed the books to his daughter, Mrs. Lesley Frost Ballantine, and she decided on N.Y.U. "It's my library to give where I want it to be," said she, "and I need to be happy with it. I have not myself been close to Amherst. I live right next door to N.Y.U." What's more, her professor husband works there.

At 6 ft. 4 in., he had a full foot on the other guy. But brawn was no use. John Wayne, 56, was playing chess. "I'm a nut about it," confessed the Duke between takes on the Madrid set of Circus World. Aha, said a reporter, that sort of jibes with rumors that he is anxious to change his image? "What s.o.b. said that?" mock-roared Wayne. "Who's trying to ruin me? The big tough boy on the side of right--that's me. If I stood up there and started the histrionics, the customer wouldn't believe it. Simple themes. Save me from nuances." Having cleared that up, Wayne turned back to the game and found he had been checkmated. "See what I mean?" he said.

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