Washington gossips are wont to make unkind jokes about "Plastic Pat, the Wind-Up Doll." But Pat Nixon has paid them no heed. Pat, backed up by Daughters Tricia and Julie, made the rounds of wounded servicemen at Honolulu's Tripler General Hospital. She was completely relaxed with the G.I.s, who were as impressed with her as they were with Julie's interest and enthusiasm and Tricia's flowing golden tresses. The Nixon ladies then returned to Washington, but not for long. Pat leaves on a three-day trip to California and the Pacific Northwest this week, and Tricia is getting ready for a jaunt to Britain to represent her father at the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales.

One simply does not drop in out of the blue and demand an audience with a famous opera star--especially if the opera star is Maria Callas. The grand diva was in Uchisar, Turkey, for the filming of her first movie, Medea, and Turkish Information Minister Nihat Kursat made a special trip to pay his respects. Kursat walked into the lobby of her hotel, sent a message to Callas announcing his arrival, and quickly received a reply: "I am tired and I don't want to talk to you." Thoroughly humiliated, Kursat flew back to Ankara, where he assured reporters that he had not been snubbed. But he added that he would make no further attempt to see Madame Callas. Said she: "The man does not understand etiquette."

As the elderly gentleman climbed slowly out of his car, he gazed over the Hamilton College tennis courts, recalling the games he played there as an undergraduate. It was Poet Ezra Pound's first visit to his upstate New York alma mater in 30 years--and his first trip to the U.S. since 1958. One of the foremost poets of the '20s and '30s, Pound made propaganda broadcasts for the Italian government during World War II, and was charged with treason when he was returned to the U.S. He was then declared insane and committed to a mental hospital for 12 years, after which the indictment was dismissed and it was ultimately decided that he was sane after all. Pound has lived in Europe in self-imposed exile ever since. But the past was laid aside during Hamilton's commencement exercises as the poet, now 84, received well-wishers and autographed a copy of his Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVIL

The big day is not until June 28, but Ted Sorensen and Gillian Martin hardly expected their Eastern seaboard friends to show up at a wedding in

Grand Rapids at the height of the summer season. So they threw a splashy prenuptial bash at Manhattan's St. Regis Hotel to make sure the clan got its chance to toast the prospective bride and groom. There was Joan Kennedy in a black minishift and the George Plimptons chatting with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. All told, more than 200 guests dropped in to congratulate the lovestruck couple. Said the future Mrs. Sorensen: "We thought we ought to do something for our East Coast friends."

Pop fans were surprised to hear an unfamiliar voice chime in for a few bars in the Beatles' latest hit, Get Back. Turns out the voice belongs to Billy Preston 22, a Negro singer-organist who grew up in Los Angeles. Preston first met the Beatles years ago when he was playing the organ for the former rock wailer, Little Richard, in Liverpool. In January he dropped in on a Beatle recording session in London just to say hello, and the boys invited him to sit down at the electric piano. Within a month, he had become the first artist ever credited with joining the Beatles on a record. As Preston tells it: "I gave them a lift by just being me. Nothing was planned. It just happened. They liked my music. They recognized the God in me--and my good vibrations."

Despite his towering talents, Lew Alcindor may not be quite sturdy enough to stand up to the slam-bang world of professional basketball--or so some experts have suggested. The 7-ft. 1 1/2-in. former U.C.L.A. star has now dispelled any such reservations. During a pickup game in Los Angeles, Lew took umbrage at the way Dennis Grey, 6-ft. 8-in. center for the L.A. Stars, was roughing him up. Alcindor's response was a roundhouse right that broke Grey's jaw in two places. "It was just a case where I was provoked--and I reacted," said Alcindor. "I regret very much that I reacted the way I did." He may regret it even more. Grey's lawyers have filed suit for $1,000,000 in damages.

"Ours is a most beautiful friendship, and of course we have kept it a secret. It is best that way." That was Simone, Countess of Suffolk, explaining her relationship with Lord Harlech to London Daily Express Columnist William Hickey, which is the approximate equivalent of discussing a private amour on the Johnny Carson Show. Naturally the paper trumpeted the news: Simone, 40, beautiful former wife of the wealthy Earl of Suffolk, has been seeing Harlech almost daily since they met eight months ago. Harlech, who squired Jackie Kennedy regularly after his wife died in a car crash two years ago, had four words for the countess' rhapsodies: "It is not true." But Simone could not stop talking. "He is the most wonderful man in the whole world. I do hope we're in love."

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