The newspaper ad placed by Honeywell Inc. to attract computer technicians was a high-class bit of copy and featured drawings of those two great authors of Principia Mathematica, Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1967). The late Bertrand Russell? Hardly. At 96, he is very much alive at his home in Wales. And when he heard that Honeywell also makes anti-personnel bombs as well as computers, he was even more willing to carry out a lawsuit he had filed for unauthorized use of his name and picture. After dryly noting the "somewhat misleading legend" about his death, Russell finally settled for the ad agency's apology and a check for $400 made out to the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
What the young firebrand proposed was nothing less than a commando raid on the coast of England or Ireland. The invaders would capture "some ministerial Men of Consequence" and then exchange them for a captured American diplomat. The raid never materialized, but the war was won anyway and the plotter went on to triumphs in other fields. He was John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States, who in 1781, as a 35-year-old emissary to Spain, hatched the kidnaping scheme in a letter to a friend in France. Jay's daring plan remained virtually unknown for nearly two centuries until the letter was placed on exhibit at the John Jay Homestead in Katonah, N.Y.
On a trip undertaken in memory of her husband, Coretta King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., traveled to Rome for a private audience with Pope Paul VI. She then went on to New Delhi to accept the $13,300 Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, which was given to her husband posthumously. After accepting the honor from India's President Zakir Husain, Mrs. King listened to a group of students softly sing We Shall Overcome, and, in a gracious speech, said: "My heart is greatly warmed and my spirit is greatly lifted by this profound recognition. I accept it as a tribute to a well-fought fight in progress. To the great task ahead, I humbly rededicate my life."
In the mid-16th century, a slave picked an oyster from the sea off Panama's Pacific coast, and found inside a treasure of staggering size and beauty: a magnificent, 203.84-grain pear-shaped drop pearl. Over the years, La Peregrina (The Wanderer), as the gem came to be called, passed from Philip II of Spain to his English wife Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"), then on to the Bonapartes of France, and to England's Marquess of Abercorn. Last week La Peregrina turned up on the block at Manhattan's Parke-Bernet Galleries, and it was swiftly sold for $37,000. The buyer? Parke-Bernet was not saying, but reporters had an inkling. Less than a year ago, Richard Burton had bought the Krupp diamond for $305,000 at a similar sale. After a little prodding, Burton's lawyers explained that Liz's birthday is less than a month away, so Dickie had snapped up La Peregrina as his gift.