Before his battle with the Kennedy family was joined over The Death of a President, Author William Manchester, 46, and his publishers, Harper & Row, pledged to deliver most of the book's profits to the John F. Kennedy Library, planned for construction at Harvard University. In the first installment toward an eventual contribution of $5,000,000, author and publisher presented the library with $750,000 in royalties from the more than 1,250,000 copies sold so far. Said Jacqueline Kennedy in accepting the gift: "All the pain of the book, and now this noble gesture of such generosity makes the circle come around and close with healing."

Quick with both his rhymes and rages, Soviet Poet Evgeny Evtushenlco, 34, had a few angry verses after he learned of Dr. Benjamin Spock's conviction for conspiracy to incite draft evasion. In a poem titled "Monologue to Dr. Spock," Evtushenko proclaimed that there is far more sense in the "eternally constant goo-goo of a child than in the whole generation of shameless politicians." A fine sentiment, though it lost a bit in the translation. Russian for "goo-goo" is "ary."

Consider that rogue Italo Bombolini, the shrewd, Machiavellian mayor who outwits half the German high command and successfully spirits 1,320,000 bottles of vintage vermouths and robust red wines from the Nazis in Robert Crichton's best-selling 1966 novel, The Secret of Santa Vittoria. Indeed a difficult part for an actor, calling for a subtle combination of gentle foolishness and hardheaded Italian moxie. So naturally Producer Stanley Kramer picked an Irishman, born in Mexico, who hails from Hollywood: Anthony Quinn, 52, who has been studiously preparing for his role as the rascally wine merchant by tippling Cinzano at his villa south of Rome and working it off with a fast set or two of tennis.

"This strike could last five years," growled Broadway Impresario David Merrick. 55, "and there'll be nothing left of the theater when it's over." By the second night of a strike by the Actors' Equity, Broadway was dark, and all 19 of its shows were closed. At that point, Mayor John Lindsay, an avid theater buff himself, made an entrance in answer to a union appeal, and hosted all-night negotiations at his Gracie Mansion residence. Finally, the surprise ending: settlement of the strike (terms: weekly wage increases of $15-$25, protection of U.S. actors against replacement by aliens) and reopening of all but three of Broadway's shows--which had been about to expire anyway. Explained Merrick: "Actors always have to be very dramatic, and they just wore me down during the negotiations. About 3 a.m., you begin to make concessions that you might not make when you're not that tired."

It might have been scripted by Alfred Hitchcock, but the absence of cameras and crew made the scene one of the scariest ever played by Actress Maureen O'Sullivan, 57. Alone in her bungalow in Weybridge, Surrey, after Daughter Mia Farrow, 23, had breezed off to London for the week, Maureen was asleep when two bandits burst into her bedroom, gagged and trussed her with nylon stockings, methodically ransacked the place, and escaped into the night with $13,200 worth of brooches, rings and necklaces. It took her half an hour to free herself and phone the police. Luckily, the thieves failed to find their apparent object: Mia's nine-carat, $84,000 diamond engagement ring, presented to her in happier days by Frank Sinatra, was in Los Angeles at the time.

Casting off from Casablanca last March 29, Delta Airlines Pilot Hugo Vihlen, 36, confidently squared away his six-foot sailboat, April Fool, and shaped a course for Miami Beach, 4,100 sea miles distant. For 84 days, Vihlen bobbed and tossed in the prevailing easterlies, subsisted on little else but bread and water, yet kept his sea legs and once happily waved greetings to a curious U.S. submarine. All he asked of the sub skipper was a slice of roast beef, but the galley was closed. For all his bold self-sufficiency, Vihlen's long journey came to a saddening landfall: though within sight of Miami, he was unable to buck the powerful northward flow of the Gulf Stream and the offshore westerly winds. He and April Fool had to finish the last 25 miles lashed to the side of a Coast Guard cutter--still setting a record for the smallest craft to sail the Atlantic, but leaving the bearded airman-turned-seaman "a little disappointed."

Messages from the media have bombarded Communicator Marshall McLuhan, 56, so rapidly that he hardly has time to translate them all into books. So he plans to publish a hot medium of his own -- a newsletter called McLuhan's Dewline. Says the Canadian scholar-turned-guru: "It's going to be a distant-early-warning system to give advance notice to anyone who'll listen." Planned articles: "Love Thy Label as Thyself," "The End of the Muddle Class," and "The Executive as a Dropout." Should some disciples worry that McLuhan might label himself an ordinary editor, he plans to mix his printed material with occasional recordings called, punnily enough, "plattertudes."

Not all Hollywood actors have star quality at the polls. Take Gary Merrill (Twelve O'Clock High, All About Eve), for 17 years a Maine resident, who decided to take a crack at what he called "raising a little hell in Congress." Running as a G.O.P. peace candidate in Maine's First Congressional District, Merrill, 52, attacked pollution and poverty, tried everything from sidewalk electioneering in a rocking chair to reading poetry before local Rotary Clubs. Maine's citizens, however, preferred that he keep his hell raising at home. The result: Merrill lost to State Senator Horace Hildreth Jr., 36, son of a former Maine Governor who ran on a platform of drug and gun control, by nearly 18,000 votes.

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