The chiffon-bedecked ballroom of Manhattan's Astor Hotel glowed pink for femininity and glittered silver for elegance, and 49 debutantes from 15 countries at the Eighth International Debutante Ball did right by the decor. Leading the pedigreed parade was serenely lovely Serena Russell, 18, daughter of Vogue Magazine Editor Edwin F. Russell and Lady Sarah Spencer Churchill, herself daughter of the Duke of Marlborough. Also curtsying into young society was stunning blonde Patricia Ann Sterling, 18, daughter of Actress Ann Sothern; Pamela Georgea Zauderer, 18, daughter of Realtor-Hotelman George Zauderer; and Irene Marguerite Slocum, 18, daughter of Cairo Cultural Attache John J. Slocum. It was all tres chic, but there was change, change, change. Necklines were almost barren of egg-sized diamonds; only a sprinkling of lorgnette-wearing dowagers were on hand; and the Presentation was televised by Manhattan's newsy WPIX.

"It's just about too much for one man to get at Christmastime," said convicted Swindler John ("Jake the Barber") Factor, 70, recipient of a Yuletide presidential pardon that canceled proceedings to deport him back to England for a 1943 mail fraud case. Had Factor, now a millionaire Beverly Hills real estate man, helped his cause along by his $20,000 contribution to the Kennedy-Johnson campaign in 1960? The White House was mum, but Factor was annoyed. "Politics had nothing to do with my pardon," he said, waving a $5,000 check made out to the Friends for Nixon and Lodge.

A bitter squabble between the United States Track and Field Federation and the Amateur Athletic Union over eligibility of U.S. athletes for competition in meets at home and abroad defied all mediation attempts--even by such negotiators as Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The repercussions of the battle threaten U.S. participation in the 1964 Olympic Games, so President Kennedy brought in an arbitrator who commanded attention: General Douglas MacArthur, 82, who once before provided the solution to a wrangle between the two organizations just before the 1928 Amsterdam games.

In 1777, a pair of Noel Coward-type poltergeists took up residence in an Elizabethan mansion called Sutton Place, in Surrey about 30 miles from London, happily haunted the place until expatriate Billionaire L Paul Getty, 70, moved in 2 1/2 years ago and spent more than $500,000 to restore and modernize the 70-room manse. Since then not a ghost has stirred all through the house--until recently, when two butlers were polishing the floor in the east wing and an invisible hand, ever so stealthily, tipped over a chair, scaring the servants half to death. J. Paul was not at all spooked. "A neighbor who is reputed to have several ghosts assures me they keep their manifestations for visitors and staff," he confided. "They never appear before the owner of the house."

The private secretary of the late multimillionaire Arthur Vining Davis, to whom he left $1,000,000 in cash, a guaranteed income, his Miami mansion, announced that she will marry a man who can handle all that dough--a banker. Evelyn Mitchell, fiftyish, said that she and Terry Campbell, a former trust consultant for the First National Bank of Miami Beach, will "slip off and get married and tell everyone about it afterwards."

For Joshua Moses Javits, 13, it was an auspicious entrance into Jewish manhood. He was in Israel for his bar mitzvah, and his proud papa, New York Senator Jacob Javits, 58, made sure that it was a memorable event. First young Joshua was whisked to a Negev Desert kibbutz to meet Premier David Ben-Gurion, who administered an impromptu Biblical quiz. Next it was a session with Israeli President Itzhak Ben-Zvi, who nodded approvingly as Joshua recited from the Torah. On the big day, in Jerusalem's cavernous Yeshurun synagogue, Joshua marked his confirmation by intoning in near flawless Hebrew Verses 40 through 50, Chapter VII of First Kings, later received warm congratulations at a 100-guest luncheon in his honor at the King David Hotel.

If U.S. Open Golf Champion Jack Nicklaus, 22, does not shake a leg on the links, predicted oldtime Pro Gene Sarazen, 60, his future as a top-ranking golfer will be shorter than a duffer's drive.

"Nicklaus is the slowest player I've ever seen," Sarazen, a two-time Open champ (1922, 1932), told a group of scholarship-winning caddies in Boston. "Slow play becomes a disease. My most vivid memories of slow players are that they vanish quickly from the scene." Sarazen said that he and an 80-year-old partner can still go 18 holes in 2 1/2 hours; Nicklaus has been known to take a good deal longer.

"My daughter never gave a rap about me," snorted craggy old Author W. Somerset Maugham, 88, and now the feeling was mutual. In a Nice court, Maugham filed a petition to disinherit Elizabeth Mary Maugham, 47, and recover some $2,000,000 worth of gifts he lavished on her since she was born. His penny-novel grounds: Elizabeth is not his legitimate daughter because she was conceived while her mother was still married to another man. He also cited Article 955 of the French Civil Code, which permits the recovery of gifts if the beneficiary is not properly grateful, and Elizabeth, said Maugham, was surely an ingrate when she sued him for $648,900 for selling nine paintings that she claimed as hers. Said Elizabeth: "It all makes me very sad."

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