The nation's most admired woman is hardly one of its most gregarious. But shortly before a Gallup poll showed Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 70, first in her countrymen's estimation, a camera caught her in unusually festive circumstances. Posed at a Georgetown party, Mamie wore a fringed shawl and floppy feathered hat to complement the Gay Nineties attire of Host Bob Gray, former secretary to the Eisenhower Cabinet, and Guest of Honor Mel Laird, Secretary of Defense.

A seven-pound jar of chocolate limes, labeled "Sweet Treat from Auntie Mame," was Singer Rogers' Christmas surprise for the orchestra. Surprise? "We were flabbergasted," said one of the 28 unhappy musicians in the London production of Mame. "It worked out to about four sweets each." Sour-noted another: "It's an insult." The musicians turned over the sweet treat to a London children's hospital.

He told reporters that he often dons a false mustache and beard to mingle incognito at love-ins and rock concerts. But at the under-attended Miami-Hollywood Rock Festival, Evangelist Billy Graham was very much himself. Wearing white bucks and a gold sports jacket, he was unfazed by the hippie who asked him to "thank God for good friends and good weed." Said the Rev. Billy knowingly: "You can also get high on Jesus."

A chorus of friends sang a boisterous "Happy Birthday" in English and Spanish as the maestro, feigning gravity, directed them with a silver cake knife. At 93, Cellist Pablo Casals is still capable of gaiety, but at the gathering in his San Juan home he chose to discuss the gloomy state of the world. "I feel happy today over all my friends have done for me," said the ageless musician, shaking his head, "but very sad for what is happening in the world. Is it possible to stop the war? Why the arms? We are all humans, all the same, like the leaves of a single tree."

"To be perfectly honest, I wasn't very happy about that seconding," New York City's candid First Lady told an NBC interviewer. Mary Lindsay was referring to husband John's seconding speech for Spiro Agnew at the 1968 Republican Convention in Miami. "Politics makes strange bedfellows," she mused. "And bedfellows," added Mayor Lindsay, "make strange politics."

Conservatives, smarting from the Haynsworth fiasco, are once again threatening to investigate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douqlas. The prospect did not spoil his Christmas. With a brand new battery in the electric pacemaker that regulates his heart, Douglas, 71, strolled along the snow-covered sidewalk in front of his Washington home smiling and waving at neighbors. Then a silver Rolls-Royce pulled into Douglas' driveway, bearing a visitor whom enemies might regard as his Ghost of Christmas Future: an old friend named Abe Fortas.

All of them are great-great-great-grandchildren of King Christian IX of Denmark, and four of them are his great-great-grandchildren as well. Every one could have called Kaiser Wilhelm or Czar Nicholas cousin, but more than one started life as miss or mister. Any good monarchist or earnest Anglophile could identify the lot as the youth and flower of Britain's royal family, assembled for a rare group photograph over the holidays at Windsor. From the left: James, Sarah, George, Helen, Charles, David, Andrew, Marina, Anne, Edward.

Lord Strathnaver, 23, heir to one of Scotland's largest estates, replete with 90-room castle, has completed his training at Hendon, and will now pound a London beat as Constable Alistair Sutherland, the only titled bobby in the realm. "I dislike crime." explained the young Oxford grad. His family motto: "Without Fear."

Astroflash, a New York computer programmed for astrological horoscopes, issued its forecasts for 1970. Richard Nixon will face--and win--a conflict with "a father-figure, some person of authority." Mao Tse-tung is warned to "beware of unleashing vital forces you might have trouble controlling." After an unsuccessful brush with passion, Gamal Abdel Nasser will "see a dream come true. You will assert yourself, push forward and conquer." No word on Israel's Golda Meir.

CBS, not always renowned for political audacity, was under attack for censoring two separate peace pleas taped by Carol Burnett and Elke Sommer for the network's late-night Merv Griffin Show. Both were emotional appeals for antiwar letters to be sent to Mrs. Martin Luther King, who planned to deliver them to the President as part of a movement called People for Peace. After Burnett's bitter protest, the network apologized, saluting her as "one of the great stars in the CBS family." Like the Smothers Brothers?

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