Jittery after a jostling by crowds in Europe, Mrs. Jacqueline Onassis avoided last year's gala opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington and the world premiere of Mass, the work she had asked Leonard Bernstein to write for the occasion. But when Mass was presented again in Washington, she came, smiled brightly through a standing ovation and pronounced the center "beautiful, just beautiful." Next day, on the fourth anniversary of the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, she made the painful trip to Arlington National Cemetery and stood with tears in her eyes while Kennedy family members took part in a memorial service at the grave. The Kennedys then walked slowly up the hill to the spot where John Kennedy is buried; his daughter Caroline, now 14, laid a rose on the granite tombstone.

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"If he goes on welfare or gets a job, we'll bounce him," promised a Canadian immigration official. Small chance that wandering Billionaire Howard Hughes will do either. Hughes therefore won a visitor's permit to stay in Canada until June 2, 1973, without even making the required trip to the Immigration Service for an interview. Instead, an official of the agency visited the recluse at his Vancouver hotel. When asked how Hughes likes life in Canada, the immigration agent replied, "How did he like it in Las Vegas? How did he like it in the Bahamas? How did he like it in Nicaragua? How should he know? He never goes outside."

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"Oh," bubbled Alexis Smith to Lana Turner, "it's so sentimental and sweet. Just like the days of the Hollywood Canteen." With one exception, perhaps. At the World War II canteen, movie stars used to serve coffee and dance with G.I.s on leave, but now, Bette Davis remarked, "men don't dance any more." That said, Bette spent most of the evening on the dance floor, explaining, "I just dance. I don't know what the dance is, but then I've never known." Jane Russell knew: she led a lurching conga line through Manhattan's Roseland Dance City. It was a benefit for Phoenix House, a New York drug rehabilitation center, which earned more than $35,000 from the affair. "It's thrilling to see that drug addiction has become so chic," said Comic Alan King. Then a celebrity-sprinkled crowd of 1,500, some in costumes of the '40s, applauded a constellation of stars who were the '40s: Ruby Keeler, Myrna Lay, Jane Withers, Patsy Kelly, Joan Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Arlene Francis, Lena Home. "Didn't they all look great?" asked ex-Hoofer Dan Dailey. "Mind you, there was a lot of mileage up there."

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In Washington for a booksellers' convention, the Oakland Raiders' middle-aging (44) Quarterback George Blanda plugged his ghosted biography, Blanda, Alive and Kicking, with a few kicks at other players. On Joe Namath and his $250,000 salary demand: "Nobody's worth that much. He hasn't played for the past two years." On former Teammate Chip Oliver, who quit the pro game to join a hippie commune: "He claims he once kicked a 75-yard field goal while high on mescaline. Hell, I punted a ball 86 yards against Tennessee--at the time I was high on Polish sausage."

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Where was Frank Sinatra? The House Select Committee on Crime wanted to ask him some questions about his part-ownership of the Berkshire Downs race track in Massachusetts during the early 1960s, when other part-owners included two Mafia leaders. But when the committee tried to serve a subpoena on Sinatra, it couldn't find the fast-moving horseman, who turned up in London--to attend some races. He was seen at dinner with Composer Frederick Loewe (My Fair Lady), but then checked out of his hotel for points unknown. Said a hotel spokesman: "Frank Sinatra is not here physically, mentally, spiritually or in any other way."

"I've always wanted to be up there in front of the audience," admitted Playwright Tennessee Williams, 61. He got his chance last week, when the role of the hard-drinking doctor in Williams' Small Craft Warnings fell vacant for three evenings in an off-Broadway production. Nothing daunted, the author donned grease paint and made his stage debut. Later, he turned up onstage again for a question-and-answer session with the audience. "Could you hear me back there?" he asked worriedly. "Sometimes," was the consensus. Williams' verdict: "It was excruciating. I never want to do it again."

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Emperor Hirohito of Japan had never seen anything quite like it. Before him stood Seiji Ozawa, 36, peripatetic conductor of the Japan Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, and next year the Boston Symphony--dressed in turtleneck shirt, black pants, beaded necklace and a pair of dark butterfly glasses (to conceal a bad case of hives). Ozawa accepted an award from the Japanese Academy of Arts, then turned to the Emperor and pleaded: "Your Majesty, please help the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. My orchestra is on the verge of being driven out of existence because of financial difficulties." Before World War II such an act of lese-majeste was punishable by death. The Emperor only nodded slightly and said nothing.

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