PEOPLE

While Charles de Gaulle kept the rest of the country under his thumb, French Premier Georges Pompidou, supposedly on holiday, put his big toe to work (below) and pensively dribbled a soccer ball through the Breton surf under chill and leaden skies. It had to mean something, but what? Best guess from on-the-spot analysts: since France had exited ignominiously from the just-finished World Cup matches, here was the country's secret weapon for the 1970 competition already in the works.

Never having finished high school, Kansas City Infielder Edwin Douglas Charles, a poet at heart, spent 12 seasons in professional baseball but finally got back to studies two years ago at Central Missouri State College. "His early work in English composition struck me as being more like greeting-card verse than poetry," says a former instructor, "but Ed has since become less dogmatic and preachy, and his imagery has improved. He has a long way to go, but he'll get there because of his drive to do so." That's what Charles himself was thinking the other day when he revealed he is currently putting together a collection of his works which he soon hopes to publish.

"In the beginning I was a very good member—I did my homework and contributed the way I was supposed to. But in the last few months it got to be a little more than I could handle." So saying, Actress Janet Leigh, outdoorsy and politics-minded, stepped down as one of California's recreation commissioners after two years. "I accepted her resignation with regret," said Governor Pat Brown. "She was an excellent commissioner."

Himself an old canvasback knocked silly seven times in 17 bantamweight bouts, Movie Toughie George Raft was signed on to rasp a between-rounds commentary of the Clay-London heavyweight championship for closed-circuit TV in the British Isles. Though Raft felt bound to report with impartiality, he had to admit that he and Brian London were not cut from the same cloth. "All I know about Brian," said the man who nowadays is the resident host of a chi-chi den of gambling and booze in London, "is that he's a clean-living boy who goes to bed at 9:30 every night."

"I'll take that, sir," said the Delta Airline stewardess to Pittsburgh Baseball Broadcaster Bob Prince. "Nothing doing," said Prince, tugging back on his tape recorder. "I handle this thing more carefully than a bomb." Ulp! Here came the police and the FBI, off went the plane with everybody else, and for two hours Prince, ordinarily pretty handy with words, sought to explain himself. How had it gone? Lamely. "I told them I use the word 'bomb' on the air all the time—'bomb the other club,' that sort of thing," he said later. "I guess the stewardess did the right thing."

The winning image he hoped to create, said patrician Gentleman Farmer Raymond R. Guest (right) when appointed Ambassador to Ireland, was that of "the kind of American you would like to see in your country." Whatever else may be entailed in that vague ideal, Guest made good progress toward its fulfillment last week when, to the satisfaction of the horse-fancying Irish, he honorably earned a first prize in the demanding Royal Dublin Society horse show. Longtime poloist that he is, Guest had not ridden competitively in more than 25 years and had spent only three weeks brushing up. But he was making no plans to follow the circuit. Rather, he and Shaun, his Irish-bred gray with whom he had won, would merely remain together at the embassy in the interest of mutual exercise.

Considering that the fescue sod on the practice field had been transplanted from a nearby pasture owned by Billy Graham (purchase price: free and best wishes), it was only natural for neighbor Graham to drop in on Coach Norb Hecker at the Atlanta Falcons' summer training camp in Black Mountain, N.C. And while all those head-knockers were being careful to hold their tongues, the evangelist, remembering that a preacher's presence is indeed an inhibiting thing, recalled a golf game in which he and Industrialist Billy Reynolds played then President-elect John Kennedy and Senator George Smathers. "On the 18th," said Billy, "I sank a 40-foot putt—the longest putt I've ever made—to win the match. Just as the ball dropped in, Reynolds shouted: 'I won $40 on that putt!' " With that, said Graham, loser Kennedy stepped up to him and manfully explained: "Of course, Mr. Reynolds is putting the $40 in the collection plate on Sunday."

To tradition-minded, live-alone-and-like-it regulars of Martha's Vineyard, last week's news was nearly perfect. An experimental hydrofoil ferry had gone on the fritz and was out of service, and a proposed bridge to connect the resort island to the Massachusetts mainland had been roundly assaulted by vacationing Stewart Udall. "An island should be an island!" declared the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to happy applause. "I can't think of anything that would destroy Martha's Vineyard more than a bridge, so let's have no more such talk!" he concluded, and carried the day.

TWO PHOTOS