Perhaps it was only a threat, but the tears were certainly authentic. Joe Willie Namath, quarterback of professional football's world-champion New York Jets, insisted that he meant business when he announced at a news conference that he was "retiring reluctantly" from the game--and taking Teammates George Sauer, Pete Lammons and Jim Hudson with him. The 26-year-old superstar, whose high-velocity passes carried the Jets to a startling 16-7 upset over the National Football League's powerful Baltimore Colts earlier this year, gave as his reason the latest in a long series of off-the-field scraps. This time the quarrel was with N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who had demanded that Joe relinquish his one-third interest in Bachelors III, a Manhattan watering place said to have become a gamblers' hangout. "Rozelle told me I must get out of the restaurant business or be suspended," Joe said. "I don't think it's right, so I'm getting out of football." Might the differences be resolved? "I hope so," he replied. "The last thing I want to do is quit."

For Astronaut James McDivitt, it all started with a big night at Paris' plush Lido, where he got the VIP treatment from the club's showgirls. The next morning McDivitt hustled out to the Air Show, where he and fellow Apollo 9 Crewmen David Scott and Russell Schweiclcart showed Cosmonauts Vladimir Shakalov and Alexei Yeliseyev around the American exhibit. The proceedings started somewhat stiffly; then a bottle of bonded bourbon was broken out and things began to loosen up. By the time the revelers reached the Russian exhibit with its plentiful stock of vodka, they were saluting everything from Snoopy to space medicine. Toasted to a light crisp, the space travelers finally piled onto their Vespas and scooted back to the American pavilion--two hours late for their ensuing engagement.

Many a politician has livened his campaign by touring an Indian reservation, posing for photographers in a feathered headdress, then stowing the war bonnet in a closet. Arizona's Senator Barry Go Id water is a more astute politician than that. He proudly answers to the tribal name of Barry Sun Dust, also speaks Navajo with near-fluency. Just to cement his tribal connections, he has now hired as his Washington receptionist Yazzie Leonard, 20, a beautiful, full-blooded Navajo who majored in dramatic arts at Phoenix College. Barry interviewed Yazzie for more than an hour in her native tongue, then gave her the job on the spot.

The printed word is not en route to oblivion. That reassuring information comes from Dr. Marshall McLuhan, who has been prophesying the demise of reading for years (and doing his best to hurry it into an early grave by writing some of the most perishable prose in memory). "The book is a very special form of communication," McLuhan told the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association in Washington. "It is unique and it will persist." As the nation's leading exponent of electronic communication, however, McLuhan could not resist at least one dig at the reading public, which he says is made up of "print freaks." The United States, he said, "is the only country founded on literacy--on the Gutenberg press. Therefore, it is having the hardest time adapting to the electronic age."

It has been quite a few years, after all, and a fellow can forget. When the Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrived in New York City for a holiday, the duke made arrangements to fly to Akron to visit an old friend, Industrialist Nathan Cummings. Regrettably, the day he chose turned out to be his 32nd wedding anniversary. Still, appointments must be kept, so the duke flew off as scheduled to tour Cummings' Lawson Milk plant and address a luncheon gathering at Silver Lake Country Club. Said he, ruefully, "The duchess took a dim view of my leaving her alone on this special day." Then he hurried back to Manhattan with a gift of atonement: 32 containers of Lawson's ice cream, each a different flavor.

From Merle Oberon to Vanessa Redgrave, a host of splendid British actresses have portrayed Anne Boleyn. Now a French Canadian, Genevieve Bujold, 26, who starred in the critically acclaimed movie Isabel, is getting a crack at the coveted part. In London for the filming of the latest version of Anne of the Thousand Days, Genevieve won generous praise from her leading man, Richard Burton. "She seems to me like a very pert tart--in the proper sense," he said. "I have no doubt she will steal all the notices." King Richard also indicated that playing Henry VIII might be the capstone of his movie career, which should cheer those who think his talents are wasted in films. "Much of acting is tedium for me now," he reflected. "I've suddenly realized that doing nothing is marvelous. What I'd like to do is appear in two plays--Sartre's The Devil and King Lear--and then just disappear from view."

Arkansas celebrates its 150th anniversary as a U.S. territory this year, and Lily Peter, a wealthy, plantation-owning spinster, decided that a musical tribute would be just the thing to mark the occasion. Trouble is, she conceded, "we are as far removed from the great world of music as if we lived on the rings of Saturn." So Miss Peter, 73, persuaded Composer Norman Dello Joio to write a special work for the sesquicentennial, then hired Eugene Ormandy and his Philadelphia Orchestra to come to Little Rock to play it. She mortgaged a small portion of her land to foot the $60,000 bill, meticulously planned the concert to the last detail (even making sure that none of the musicians was allergic to magnolias). Last week the orchestra performed Dello Joio's suite, Homage to Haydn, and Ormandy himself embraced Miss Peter onstage. She is, said Ormandy, "a new lady in my life, but very close to my heart already."

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