Progeny of the official presidential family were converging on the altar at such a great rate that L.B.J. threw a White House dinner for the whole brood: Veep Hubert Humphrey's son Robert, 22, and Fiancee Donna Erickson, 21; Defense Secretary Robert Mc-Namara's daughter Margaret, 24, and Fiance Barry Carter, 24; and Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz's son Richard, 27, and Fiancee Margaret Ann Hickman. Before the week was out, Bob Humphrey, a senior at Minnesota's Mankato State College, and Donna, a former Miss Hastings, Minn., proceeded to the next step. Amid pealing bells and the fond smiles of 675 guests, the couple were wed at St. Olaf's Roman Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Neither Uncle L.B.J. nor Auntie L.B.J. could make it, but they sent their best wishes and a nice wedding present.

It can't be easy being Luci Johnson Nugent's brother-in-law, it can't be easy being a front-line Marine officer in Viet Nam, and it must be doubled in spades being both at the same time. Nevertheless, 1st Lieut. Gerard Nugent, 24, apparently has the situation very well in hand. Commanding Echo Company of the 2nd Battalion 3rd Marine Division, he led his men in a frontal assault on a Communist training camp 20 miles from Danang that killed about 70 Viet Cong, then moved on to silence a sniper nest in high trees near Battalion H.Q. before calling in helicopters to evacuate his wounded. Verdict from Captain R. T. Sheridan, Nugent's battalion-operations officer: "Crackerjack."

It was a decade ago when Actor William Holden mused aloud: "I really don't know why, but danger has always been an important thing--to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could drive without cracking up." This summer he found an all too tangible answer: his $11,000 Ferrari, whining along at a reported 110 m.p.h. on a limit-free Italian autostrada, crunched into a tiny Fiat, killing a Florentine businessman. Although the actor's driving record has been safe at any speed, an Italian magistrate ruled last week that there was sufficient evidence of recklessness to justify an indictment for manslaughter. Penalty for conviction: one to five years, though a suspended sentence is the rule in auto cases if the defendant has a clean record.

She may have the world's most photographed figure, but the publicity about Raquel Welch, 24, goes only skin-deep. Though she has two children, Damon, 5, and Tahnee, 4, in school in England, Raquel has flatly refused to confirm that she has ever been married or even that the tykes are hers. Milan's weekly magazine Gente did its bit by publishing photostats of Raquel's license to marry one James Wesley Welch in Clark County, Nev., on May 8, 1959. It was a minor coup. What Raquel-watchers really pine to know is whether she's currently married to Patrick Curtis, 31, her agent, business partner and steady house guest. "I neither deny nor confirm the report that we are married," said Curtis, adding darkly: "Nobody will be able to come up with a photostat of a marriage or anything like that."

Even if they know in their hearts that no one will ever match Calvin Coolidge in Indian headdress, the politicians can't help trying. New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller, running hard for reelection, had already made one dashing appearance aboard an elephant named Sheba when he turned up at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, N.Y. Now dressed in the Rockefeller racing silks (grey business suit, white shirt, dark tie and black leather shoes), he eased himself into a sulky and spent 15 photogenic minutes tooling around the track at the fair behind a twelve-year-old pacer named Charity Song. It was worth a horselaugh anyway.

Oh Dad, Poor Dad got hung up in the can, and they're feelin' so sad. The $3.5 million film version of Playwright Arthur Kopit's comical absurdity has languished for 13 months in the vaults at Paramount Studios with no release in sight. Preview audiences seemed baffled by the movie, the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures threatened a C (for Condemned) rating, and that made Producer Ray Stark nervous. In a virtually unprecedented rescue operation, Stark announced plans to dismantle the completed film, breathe life into Jonathan Winters' "starring" role (he plays a corpse), attach a brand-new musical score, and attempt to edit the results in such a way as to get the Catholic office's B rating ("morally objectionable in part for all").

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