The evening began with Missouri Congressman James Symington quipping, "We have been brought together by the big enchilada of the Democratic Party." Some 750 Democrats, including Senators Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Ed Muskie and "Scoop" Jackson, paid $125 for dinner at Washington's Sheraton-Park Hotel to honor Elder Statesman Averell Harriman, 82, and raise money for party candidates. There was also a Republican maverick. Describing herself as "just an old, broken-down Bull Moose," Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 90, said the dinner was. her first-ever Democratic bash. Marking Harriman's 40-year career as a politician and diplomat under four Presidents were members of their families: Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Margaret Truman Daniel, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and a special friend, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, to whom he lent his Georgetown house after President Kennedy was killed. As the band played Auld Lang Syne, Jackie capped her first political appearance in Washington in eleven years with a rare speech. "It's wonderful to be back here tonight with so many of my old friends to honor someone unique in the history of our country," she said, "Who else has served us so long and so well?"

Biking with a friend to a tennis lesson in Manhattan's Central Park, John F. Kennedy Jr., 13, was mugged. A strapping youth, aged about 18, stepped into the boys' path, brandished a stick at John and said, "Get the hell off the bike." When John did not respond quickly enough, the thief knocked him to the ground, grabbed his tennis racket and sped off on his $145 ten-speed Bianchi racer. Secret Service men, who are charged with John's protection until his 16th birthday, were red-faced. Apparently John had passed up a ride in the Secret Service car, jumped on his bicycle and headed off on a path where the car could not follow. A New York City parks department official groaned, "Six million people in the park, and the mugger had to pick him."

The 45-year intimacy between French Philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre drew fire last week--from South Viet Nam. Beauvoir and Sartre, along with a group of fellow French intellectuals, appealed to the next French government to recognize the Viet Cong's Provisional Revolutionary Government and further to recognize the exiled Prince Sihanouk as the rightful ruler of neighboring Cambodia.

Miffed, South Viet Nam's spokesman Bui Bao True declared, "Mr. Sartre and Miss de Beauvoir have always had a reputation of demanding the legitimization of illegal acts, crimes and bad actions."

He added inaccurately, "They themselves have set an example of illegality by cohabiting as an illegal couple." In fact, the two great friends have separate apartments.

The Case of the Diamond and Emerald Parure seemed mired in confusion last week. In 1969, Prince Fahd, the brother of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, gave Pat Nixon an emerald and diamond necklace, bracelet, brooch, ring and earrings, unaware that according to a 1966 law, neither U.S. officials nor their relatives may accept personal gifts from "any King, Prince or foreign state." Apparently Pat did not want to hurt Fahd's feelings, so she accepted the gems and put them in her bedroom safe. What she should have done was hand them over to the White House Gifts Unit, which records gifts and stores them in the name of the American people. Instead, Pat wore the $52,400 set at state dinners and in 1970 had it appraised by Harry Winston. And she lent a pair of ruby and diamond earrings given her in 1971 by King Faisal to Daughter Tricia Cox, who wore them to a 1972 fund-raising dinner. Seven weeks ago, White House Counsel Fred Buzhardt advised the First Lady to transfer the gems to the Gifts Unit, along with three other diamond baubles for Pat and the Nixon daughters --all given by Saudi royalty. Deputy Press Secretary Gerald Warren declared that Pat had no intention of keeping the presents permanently, and that they were registered on receipt in the Gifts Unit--something impossible to prove, as the public is barred from its records. Disclosure, it seems, might embarrass the donors. Although Syndicated Columnist Maxine Cheshire, who broke the story, was shown in March a file card that revealed three gifts presented in 1972, they had been received in the Gifts Unit only the day before. As for Pat, she dismissed the whole matter, saying, "That's for the birds."

Four months ago, Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp, a sometime composer, had two of his patter songs about Watergate and the energy crisis recorded by a young Philadelphia singer on the Camp Hill label. The Governor's daughter, Joanne Shapp, 24, displays the family's musical talent differently. In a suburban Philadelphia restaurant, under the name of Yasmin, she made her debut as a belly dancer. Said Joanne: "My parents don't want me to make a full-time career of it, but I think it's just a fun thing." Indeed, she plans to become a family guidance counselor.

On the lam for nine years, Ronald Biggs, 44, who participated in Britain's $7.3 million Great Train Robbery of 1963, seemed last week to have a good chance of settling down on a Rio beach--a free man. The British and Brazilian governments having failed to agree on an extradition treaty, Ron was released from the Brasilia jail to which he had been taken in February when a London newspaper revealed his whereabouts. The Brazilians gave him 30 days to leave the country. If no nation will let him in, Biggs will be deported to Venezuela, where he is wanted for using a false passport, a charge that carries up to five years. That is considerably less than the 28 years he has still to serve in England. But Biggs has a trump card: his seven-months-pregnant girl friend Raimunda Nascimento de Castro, 26. A law that forbids expulsion of a foreigner with Brazilian children dependent on him has won Biggs more time until his case is heard in court. And in vintage Ealing-comedy-style, even Biggs' wife of 16 years is helping him out by offering him a divorce. Explained Ron: "The whole thing is rather complicated. Even now I love my wife." Then he continued his campaign of impressing his hosts. Sprucing up for a "Guest Criminal" appearance at the Rio de Janeiro police officers training school, he said hopefully: "I like Brazil."

An elderly San Ysidro resident reported aboard H.M.S. Jupiter when it docked in San Diego last March. And Charles, Prince of Wales, along with the other officers, witnessed the surrender of a 73-year-old deserter from the Royal Navy, Walter Talbot. Later, over a whisky with the ship's commander, a remorseful Talbot described how he had been a rating on the ship that escorted Charles's great-uncle David, then the Prince of Wales, to Montreal in 1919.

Talbot, aged 19 at the time, had jumped ship and fled to New York, where he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served for six years, re-enlisting for World War II.

Now, regardless of the consequences, all he wanted to do was see England before he died. Last week the Royal Navy granted him an honorable discharge, and the government prepared to issue him a British passport. Talbot, who is married and has three children, was a little disappointed. He had hoped to be arrested and given a free trip to England.

In a paradoxical master stroke as part of his French presidential campaign, right-of-center Candidate Valery Giscard d'Estaing, 48, imported his best gimmick from Communist Czechoslovakia. Partly to counter his austere image, Giscard's daughter Valerie-Anne was frequently photographed wearing a T shirt emblazoned Giscard a la Barre (Giscard at the Helm). More than 80,000 T shirts, imported from Czechoslovakia among other countries, were sold at $3 each, and Giscard's image was given a boost when Actress Brigitte Bardot, 39, was spotted sporting a Giscard shirt at St. Tropez. She was not actively campaigning for him, her agent said, because "wearing the shirt was quite enough."

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