By E. Graydon Carter

Our story so far: Dick, the oldest, has just purchased new $ 1 million digs in the tony New Jersey suburb of Saddle River. He's now trying to unload, for $2.9 million, the East Side Manhattan town house he bought for $750,000 just two years ago. Jimmy, the youngest, is usually down home in Plains, Ga., watching his life pass before him on the video screen of his word processor. Last week the two took time out for trips abroad.

Jimmy Carter, 56, on a 1 1/2-week tour of China, dined with Premier Zhao Ziyang, cycled with commuters and displayed Sherpa-like stamina by scampering up and down the steeper sections of the Great Wall as Wife Rosalynn and former Press Secretary Jody Powell, 37, gasped for breath. At a tete-`a-tete with Deng Xiaoping, 77, in the Great Hall of the People, Carter told the Chinese Senior Vice Chairman, "If you had been my running mate in the last election, we would have won again." So much for Walter What's-His-Name.

Meanwhile, Richard Nixon, 68, spent the early part of his two weeks in Europe holed up with Friend Bebe Rebozo, 68, and Assistant Nick Ruwe at a Paris hotel. But there were side trips to Versailles and Rheims and a two-day stay in the Bordeaux wine country at the chateau of Friend Baron Elie Robert de Rothschild. Next: Lausanne, Switzerland, and then on to Vienna, Flensburg, West Germany, and Denmark with an entourage of 30 friends and aides.

As for the middle one, Jerry Ford, 68, was back at Rancho Mirage in California, excavating fairway divots and making final preparations for the Sept. 18 dedication of the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids. He too will then take a swing abroad, stopping off first in London for the Bob Hope British Classic golf tournament and then moving on to Sweden, Denmark and Finland. After that? Stay tuned.

A languorous beauty and a former Gibson Girl, Evelyn Nesbit was dubbed "the girl in the red velvet swing" But she swung a little too much, and her dalliance with Stanford White prompted her husband, Millionaire Socialite Harry K. Thaw, to murder the celebrated architect during a musical-comedy performance on the roof garden atop the White-designed old Madison Square Garden. For the film adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's fictive replay, Ragtime, Director Milos Forman, 49, interviewed hundreds for the part of Nesbit, then settled on Elizabeth McGovern, 20, after he saw her in Ordinary People. The young actress seems well outfitted for her new role. "There was nothing Evelyn Nesbit wouldn't have done," says Elizabeth. "It gave me a great sense of freedom."

Rumors that the Rolling Stones might hang up their mikes hit the rock pile last week when Mick Jagger, 37, announced that the group's upcoming U.S. tour will not, as had been speculated, be their last. During a press conference at Philadelphia's J.F.K. Stadium, where the 38-city tour will begin Sept. 25, Jagger made it clear that the Stones--still the best-known rock band in the world--would continue to roll and that Tattoo You, their just-released album, would not be a finale. "Performing is what we do as a living and a necessity," said Mick. "We will probably be making albums until we enter some sort of future senior-citizens facility."

--By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Jorge Luis Borges, 82, author, on why he writes: "So that I wouldn't have to spend my life correcting manuscripts."

Lieut. Colonel James Hunt, Army ROTC program coordinator, on recruitment: "A lot of these kids don't remember Viet Nam--that helps us a lot."

Edward Kennedy, 49, greeting Democrats at a fund-raising clambake in Hyannis Port: "About a year ago, we thought we would be holding this in the Rose Garden, but now welcome to Rose's garden."

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