The night temperature dropped below freezing, and 14,000-ft. Mount Rainier loomed above like a grim shadow. But not even a badly bruised ankle could keep Defense Secretary Robert McNamara down. So he pulled on his sturdy wool knickers, taped his ankle, kissed his wife Margaret goodbye, and set out from the 10,000-ft.-high base camp an hour after midnight. There were eleven in the party, including 16-year-old Son Craig and 22-year-old Daughter Kathleen. By dawn they were on the peak, admiring the panorama of Washington's Cascade Range stretched out below. "For a man who spends his life behind a desk, it was a splendid performance," said Mount Everest Hero Jim Whittaker. "If he hadn't injured his ankle, we would have had trouble keeping up with him."

His grandfather was West Point, class of '15, his dad, class of '44; now David Eisenhower, 18, is putting a hitch in the family's military pitch. An honor graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Ike's only grandson will enter Amherst College this fall, instead of the Military Academy. "His parents felt that the decision should be David's alone," said Grandma Mamie in a McCall's interview. "And it was."

"On formal occasions she wears hatty hats, motherly dressmaker suits, and for a handbag--a majestic holdall." The pussycats of London's fashion press were helping Britain's Princess Anne celebrate her 16th birthday with some swipes at her clothes. "All those conventions of British royal dress have been decanted on her," complained the London Sunday Express's writer, though conceding that Anne does have "the young idea when she's off duty." Well, did that mean miniskirts? Not at all. In Jamaica with Prince Charles for the Commonwealth Games, she made the scene in a pair of good-looking hip-huggers and a Dutch-boy cap. What's more, says Anne, after boarding school she wants to go to Sussex University, one of Britain's new non-snob colleges.

To borrow a cricket term, it was a very sticky wicket. There was the visiting Westhampton (L.I.) Mallet Club, unrivaled at home, ignominiously defeated eight straight times by London's Hurlingham Croquet Club. "Do you need a coach?" inquired the British captain. "We need a coach-and-four," groaned a U.S. player. But the colonials have just begun to fight. Back home, plans were already afoot to form a kind of U.S. Olympic team of malleteers, including all the croquet greats: Composer Richard Rodgers, Actors David Wayne and Gig Young, and as spiritual leader, a man described as "a living croquet legend in his lifetime," Ambassador W. Averell Harriman.

She's been deskbound in Washington for years, but now Career Girl Carol Laise, 48, is outward bound. L.B.J. tapped her last week to be U.S. Ambassador to Nepal. And it wasn't a political sop either. Carol has spent eleven years in the Foreign Service and is one of the State Department's top Asia experts. More than that, she's made four trips to the remote, Himalayan-crowned kingdom. Which makes just about everybody happy: the Nepalese because they get a plenipotentiary who knows their problems, and Carol because, as she said, "I won't have to do my own cooking any more."

It's easy to know that white marlin, those denizens of the deep, don't eat rabbits. But do the marlin know it? Hosting, the Second Annual Governors Invitational Marlin Tournament at Ocean City, Maryland's pixyish Governor J. Millard Tawes, 72, arrived with a "secret weapon"--a lure made from a rabbit's foot with a hook in it. Presto! Barely five minutes after Tawes got out to the fishing grounds, a 7-ft. 4-in. marlin hurled itself at his line. "My goodness!" exclaimed Tawes, and pumped in the prize. No one else got even a sniff from a fish until just before the 3 p.m. quitting time. And then Delaware's Governor Charles L. Terry hauled in a 7-ft. 7-in. marlin to edge out Tawes. Ah well, Delaware's state bird is the blue hen chicken, and that's surely better than hasenpfeffer.

A. & P. Heir Huntington Hartford simply won't take no for an answer. For six years now he's been trying to give New York City $500,000 for an outdoor cafe in Central Park. And the city keeps bouncing his scheme. A couple of weeks ago, he even offered $1,000,000 to build public swimming pools in Negro areas if City Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving would accept the cafe. "Irresponsible philanthropy!" roared Hoving. "Hartford is trying to manipulate potentially dangerous areas for his own end, but he has failed." With a rap like that, Hunt had to promise "a substantial sum" for the pools anyway. Meanwhile, he found another tin cup for his cash. Barely minutes before demolition was to begin, he anted up $100,000 to keep the wreckers away from the old Metropolitan Opera House for six months.

"When we started playing, man, they forgot all about Viet Nam." It was Jazz Pianist Earl ("Fatha") Mines crooning as he and his cool, cool sextet finished up a six-week gig around Russia. After inviting them, the Soviet government did everything it could think of to mash the smash--even going so far as to cancel scheduled performances in Moscow and Leningrad. Hines and his boys found plenty of cats in the boondocks, playing to S.R.O. crowds. "Jazz is happiness," grinned Fatha. "I know the Russians don't have much to smile about, but after they heard us they were smiling."

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