NBC-TV covering a society ball? "Oh, I think it is a wonderful idea," gushed Rose Kennedy. And the 1,200 guests ($150 a head) at Manhattan's April in Paris Ball politely went along with it. But it wasn't wonderful at all. It was a disaster. Glaring klieg lights wrecked the party mood. Camera cables crisscrossed the floor, making dancing treacherous. And faulty equipment on the six cameras made a hack of the schedule. The soup and salad courses never got out of the kitchen, and the entertainment by such as Jacqueline Franc,ois and Frank Sinatra Jr. finally ended at 5:15 a.m., five hours late. By that time hardly anyone was left. Rose didn't last through dessert.

His poems, said the committee, had "unique thought and style and beauty of language." And so last week, Giorgos Seferiades (pen name: George Seferis), 63, became the first Greek to win the $51,000 Nobel Prize for literature. A diplomat (until last year Ambassador to Britain) as well as a poet for more than 30 years, his eyes filled with tears as he called the award an honor for Greece "for which so many generations have struggled, striving to maintain what is still alive in its long tradition." Indeed, it was true, as in Seferiades' Memory II, of two friends talking amid Grecian seaside ruins:

And I asked him "Will they ever be full again?"

And he replied "Perhaps, at the hour of death" . . .

And the silence stood around us hard as rock,

Making no trace upon the glass of the blue.

Old soldiers never die, and Marlene Dietrich, 58, hardly fades at all. So when 5,000 veterans of Viscount Montgomery's El Alamein campaign got together in London for a reunion, who better to entertain the troops than the old desert queen herself? Flying in from rainswept Paris, Marlene left reporters gaping as she appeared in a fawn-hued raincoat, tall black boots with giant handbag to match--and a slouch-brimmed sou'wester. Having carried that off, she later headed for the show rehearsal in wrist-to-ankle blue jeans. But no need to fret, chaps. By show time she was in uniform--a clinging, flesh-colored gown, and when she huskily intoned Lili Marlene, you could have heard a tear drop.

At first, no one was exactly sure why Wernher von Braun, 51, was visiting Argentina. His several lectures on the U.S. moon program were in such German-accented English that even Argentines who hablan ingles could hardly a word begreifen. But as it turned out, Wernher was there to listen, not talk. Argentine military and scientific brass had asked him down to hear all about South America's leading space program. Proudly, they explained that right now a mess of mice were being given extensive psychological and physiological tests so that the perfect 4-oz. moustronaut could be selected for the first 50-mile launch atop an Argentine-made rocket some time next year.

When he showed up to meet 200 Russians at Moscow's Foreign Literature Library, Author John Steinbeck, 61, hoped to ask a few questions himself. "But we want to hear you. We don't want to argue," protested a Russian girl. With a sigh, the touring novelist settled back for the onslaught. Would he talk about Steinbeck? "I'd rather die." J. D. Salinger? "He had an appalling effect on my children." Is there any hope for the U.S.? "If I didn't believe in America, I'd cut my throat tonight." Finally Steinbeck exploded: "Is there any way I can pry the tops off your heads to see what you are thinking?"

There wasn't, and after 108 questions in 1 1/2 hours, he gave up and ended the one-way interview.

"The annual pool of young Negroes who are prepared to meet the educational standards of universities like Princeton is depressingly small," said Princeton President Robert F. Goheen, 44, in an interview on New York's WABC-TV. "And because there are so few, the competition among universities to enroll them is, nowadays, intense." More intense than the competition to get good football players? "Much more intense. There are literally thousands of well-qualified football players to divide up among first-rate colleges. In comparison, there are only a handful of qualified Negroes. It is these whom we are really out for. Our great national problem is to increase the pool."

After Hearst's a.m. New York Mirror sank without a burble, most of the columnists swam over to Hearst's p.m. Journal-American. But there was a bit of a problem for Society Snippet Suzy (Mrs. Aileen Mehle). The J-A already had Cholly Knickerbocker, and there are just so many tales one paper can tattle. Solution: Cholly walks the plank, Suzy gets full command of the society poop deck, and this week starts a combined column under the new nom de guerre of Suzy Knickerbocker.

"It is difficult to see why a bank would want an astronaut as director for other than promotional reasons," said a NASA memo on the subject. But Commander Alan Shepard, 39, saw no difficulty, announced that he and two Texas businessmen were putting up $1,300,000 for 1,800 (of 2,000) shares in the First National Bank of Baytown, Texas, near the abuilding Manned Spacecraft Center. NASA officials finally gave Shepard permission to go ahead, but stopped plans for the other astronauts to get in on the deal. Shepard's name, added NASA, could not be used in connection with the bank except on the business letterhead.

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