On a visit to Paris, Mrs. Rose Kennedy, whose own daughter Rosemary is mentally retarded, stopped by to visit a small Paris school for retarded children. "These children can be trained to work and should be employed," she said, and went on to note that "such a person was employed for reupholstering work at the White House during my son's Administration." Meanwhile, in New York, plans were announced to break ground this week for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for Research in Mental Retardation, supported in part by a $1,450,000 Kennedy family donation.
Who's the latest avid Avis ad reader? None other than Russia's traveling poet and public relations man, Evgeny Ev-tushenlco, 33, who says he's going to use the auto-rental slogan as the title for a short novel on the U.S. inspired by his recent six-week tour. "I am calling it We Try Harder, because Americans work so hard," confided Evgeny, draining his fourth daiquiri in a bar in Beirut. What's more, he continued, he hoped the book would bring him some crisp U.S. greenbacks because he was flat broke, "like a little baby in the street."
For four generations Germany's acrobatic Flying Wallendas have been performing their spine-tingling act on the high wire, always without a net. Since the Wallenda family settled in the U.S. in the 1920s, four members have toppled to death, and a fifth was permanently paralyzed in a fall. Now Steve Wallenda, 17, the youngest male of the proud family, who could have revitalized the troupe, has called it quits —for a high flying career with the U.S. paratroops. "I just like heights—on our first jump we will be jumping from 1,200 ft.," said Steve. "The highest I ever got in the circus was 50 ft. above the ground."
Somewhat nostalgic and quite a bit pregnant, Mrs. Patrick Nugent, 19, was back home for the first time in five months visiting with her parents and Lynda at the White House. "It's nice to feel elegant again," she confessed, as she stole the show in an A-shaped apricot chiffon gown at the dinner honoring Turkey's President Cevdet Sunay. The baby is expected June 17 or thereabouts, and the Nugents are still grappling for a name. "Kimberly is my favorite name in the whole world," confided Luci. "But since I couldn't wait and named my dog that, I guess I shouldn't name a baby the same thing."
At the opening in Barcelona of Casals Conducts, a 15-minute documentary that won a 1965 Academy Award, the audience gave a standing ovation to the stooped old man whose image appeared on the screen. It was the first time that the Spanish government had permitted a movie to be shown of famed Cellist Pablo Casals, 90, who left his native land in bitter protest against Franco during the Spanish Civil War. There were indications, too, that the government would like to forgive and forget, would welcome him if he chose to return home. But Casals was ada mant. "There is no change in my attitude," said he from his exile home in San Juan, Puerto Rico.