By E. Graydon Carter

The invitation from Kansai Television of Osaka spoke of appearing, for a fee, at a series of "international forums." Former President Gerald R. Ford, 69, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 59, and their wives, Betty, 64, and Nancy, 48, accepted with high expectations of talking the grand talk of global politics before a new audience. The first entry on their schedule, however, was the local Welcome to Osaka morning TV program, and wives were very much included. "We thought that was a little bit unusual," recalls Nancy. Arriving at the studio, :he honored guests were informed that the topic of discussion would be not politics, t health food. Somewhat stunned, the Fords and the Kissingers were seated at a table for a spare vegetarian meal served in Buddhist temples, known as Shojinryori. Though meat eaters of some girth and standing, the two men diplomatically picked their way through the offerings. Says Nancy: "I thought the President and Henry would go through the floor."

It has been little more than a month since the Rover 3500 driven by Princess Grace of Monaco plunged over the edge of the Moyenne Corniche, the mountain road near her home in Monte Carlo. During that time, Princess Stephanie, 17, has remained a virtual recluse. Last week the princess, moving rigidly in a neck brace, was glimpsed for the first time in public since the accident. Still suffering from a lesion of the seventh vertebra, she attended a memorial Mass for her mother. Though Stephanie had originally planned to begin a course in fashion design this fall in Paris, she will probably join the class early next year after her injuries have fully healed.

He was a rawboned Sac-and-Fox Indian from the flatlands of Oklahoma who was blessed with an incandescent athletic prowess that placed him in the halls of fame of three major fields of sport: college football, pro football and track and field. When Jim Thorpe won the pentathlon and the decathlon at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden's King Gustav V, presenting the gold medals, proclaimed him "the finest athlete in the world." Said Thorpe in response: "Thanks, King." Six months later the medals were taken back and his feats expunged from the record books when it was discovered that Thorpe had earned $15 a week during two summers as a minor league outfielder, thus forfeiting his amateur status. The loss of the gold medals he had fairly won bothered Thorpe until his death, penniless and crippled by alcohol, in 1953. Last week, after a lifelong battle waged by his daughter, Charlotte Thorpe, 63, the International Olympic Committee announced that it would reinstate Thorpe's medals. "My next push," says Charlotte, "is to get Dad's remains [now in Jim Thorpe, Pa.] back to Oklahoma so his soul can rest."

To the blue-haired matrons who spill into the mink-lined caverns of Las Vegas, Liberace, 63, is more than just an entertainer, he is the rhinestone-encrusted embodiment of big-glitter show business. To Scott Thorson, 23, his 6-ft. 2-in. companion/chauffeur/ bodyguard for the past few years, the star was also more than just an employer. Or so claims Thorson in a $113 million "palimony" suit filed last week. Thorson contends that a "personal services contract" he had with the pianist entitles him to equity in real estate holdings plus a salary of $7,000 a month in return for entering what he says was "an exclusive nonmarital relationship." The entertainer, who has always denied being homosexual, contends that the charges were made up by "a disgruntled former employee who was fired because of erratic behavior, excessive drinking, the use of drugs and the carrying of firearms, among other reasons." --By E. Graydon Carter

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