Last December, Mrs. Carl Rowan, wife of the former ambassador to Finland, was elected to membership at the Indian Spring Country Club near Washington. Soon after she was invited to become a member of her club's "B" tennis team, the Chevy Chase Club, the Columbia Country Club and the Washington Golf and Country Club decided that none of them could any longer put together a "B" team for interclub matches. Though the clubs deny it, the word around Washington is that some of their members do not relish the possibility of having to play on the same court with Mrs. Rowan, who happens to be a Negro. Says Mrs. Rowan: "Playing tennis at the Chevy Chase Club has never been one of my life's great desires." Said the Washington Post of the clubs: "They have injured themselves, their fellow members, the decent neighbors and their country. That's quite a package of damage to be achieved by one piece of petty parochialism, narrow racism, middle-class snobbery and blind prejudice."

The London boutique had never been so busy--or boasted so attractive a sales staff. Senta Berger was minding the store while a gaggle of tourists poked through the merchandise. But next day, both Senta and her customers were gone. They were all players in David Wolper's new film, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, which travels across Europe by bus, flashing past such scenic beauties as Miss Berger, Virna Lisi, Anita Ekberg, Catherine Spaak, Joan Collins and Elsa Martinelli. All in all, quite a package for the tour.

Out on the end of the fishing boat's pulpit stood the intrepid harpooner, dart-tipped pole in hand. Down flashed the steel into a huge sperm whale. After that came a battle off Cape Finisterre that lasted several hours, reported Madrid's daily ABC, and when all the thrashing and splashing were over, Spain's Francisco Franco, 75, had landed himself a 48,000-lb. trophy. Franco's favorite finny prey is salmon, but this was far from his first whale. Over the years he has snagged more than 20 of the leviathans, and he has the pictures to prove it decorating the cabins of his boat.

It was a long way from the football field and his days as star quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants, but there was Y. A. Tittle, 41, agile as ever, weaving through the crush at suburban San Francisco's Palo Alto Hills Country Club. Wearing white tie and tails as proudly as he once wore helmet and shoulder pads, Y.A., now an insurance executive, waltzed his 18-year-old daughter Dianne through the first dance at her debut into Peninsula society.

Let it not be thought that Johnny Carson is too cheap to buy water skis. It's just that his producers thought the gimmick of using two guys instead of two skis was too good to pass up. Which explains what Johnny was doing skimming around on the rib cages of two skiing champs, Dave Dershimer and Joe Powroznik, while filming his first TV special, "Johnny Carson Discovers Cypress Gardens." The great Carsoni, who has not been water-skiing for nearly twelve years, even did his opening monologue riding around the lake on the shoulders of two skiers before they dumped him unceremoniously on the beach. Said Johnny: "The ride wasn't too bad, but you guys really oughta practice your landing."

When Britain's Prince Charles visited Wales two months ago, a 17-year-old girl standing in the crowd cried "Wales forever!" and tossed a smoke bomb his way. Hauled off to a magistrate, she was fined -L-5 and called a "silly girl." Silly or not, there are likely to be more such incidents before Charles' investiture as the Prince of Wales next July. There is a small but violently nationalistic minority in Wales that regards the Prince as a symbol of English oppression. Concerned for his safety, the Queen recently spoke to Prime Minister Wilson, and Scotland Yard has assigned a team of five officers to investigate all activities in Wales that might threaten Charles. In addition, his personal bodyguard will probably be increased from one to three or more for the investiture itself.

When the Czech film The Shop on Main Street was released in 1966, Ida Kaminska, 68, long a distinguished member of the Yiddish theater in her native Poland, became a familiar figure on the western side of the Iron Curtain. Now Miss Kaminska has decided she likes the West as much as the West likes her. Along with four members of her family, she flew from Poland to Vienna. Next stop is Israel, where she will be a guest of the government for a few weeks. She plans to come to the U.S. later this year and remain for good. Although she reports she herself was always treated with respect in her native land, she says her departure is a protest against the current wave of anti-Semitism in Poland.

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