The Gay Life

Atlantic City was no bargain (see MODERN LIVING), and neither was the convention. But most Democrats had a good time, spending more time in canape-grabbing than in candidate picking.

There were parties everywhere. The Democratic National Committee hosted a "Salute to Women Doers," at which some 2,000 guests waited 90 minutes to hear bug-eyed Broadway Star Carol Channing belt out the official Democratic campaign song, Hello, Lyndon! Maine's delegation caucused around their motel-headquarters pool one morning, met again that night to whoop it up until the wee hours. The Texas delegation honored Governor John Connally with a Dior-and diamond-filled bash at Atlantic City's aging Haddon Hall, and the New Jersey host delegation gave cocktail parties on three successive afternoons in a penthouse suite overlooking the ocean.

Under Secretary of Commerce Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. borrowed .the biggest yacht in town--a 40-footer owned by New York Industrialist John Snyder--to throw a dockside luncheon. Junior later showed up at a cocktail buffet given by some Washington buddies who had, at $10 an hour, rented a donkey named Joey to liven things up. The President's Club, a collection of party faithful who have kicked in $1,000 or more to the campaign war chest, gave a beach clambake featuring 3,250 lobsters trucked down from Maine's Casco Bay the night before. While waiting in the food line, Maine's Senator Ed Muskie solemnly explained to Luci Baines Johnson about how to tell the difference between boy and girl lobsters.

But the hostess with the mostest in Atlantic City was none other than Perle Mesta, 73, back in style after a Kennedy Administration cold shoulder. Aside from a dinner dance for a scant 700 of "my most intimate friends" at the Claridge Hotel, Perle held nightly buffets in her rented twelve-room villa in nearby Ventnor.

Perle's guests got printed maps of the fastest routes to the villa. To get the folks back home, Perle provided a siren escorted shuttle service of minibuses, each marked PERLE'S PARTY LINE. The Mesta affairs were Atlantic City's top gate-crashing attractions--despite the fact that Perle herself was everlastingly vigilant, standing at the door with pencil and guest list in hand.

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