Of all people, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, took up a Christian cudgel in defense of Nikita Khrushchev. Speaking to members of the British Council of Churches (representing many Protestant denominations), the archbishop decried the fact that no eminent Christian group has endorsed Khrushchev's total disarmament proposals at the U.N. (TIME, Sept. 28). Declared His Grace: "No Christian could possibly have put forward a better plan than this. Mr. Khrushchev could not more effectively have read the New Testament!"

Gazing into his crystal ball in Raleigh, N.C., New York's ex-Democratic Governor W. Averell Harriman, 67, no longer a presidential candidate, predicted with no ifs or buts that Vice President Richard Nixon will be next year's Republican nominee: "He's going to get nominated, because he expresses the Republican philosophy." In definition of that philosophy, Multimillionaire Harriman cordially damned the G.O.P. Administration's "ruling class of big businessmen," added that its political ascendancy has hurt the U.S. at home and abroad, because "you've got to be a good neighbor at home to be a good neighbor around the world." Where did this leave the front runner who beat Harriman in New York's gubernatorial election last year? According to Honest Ave, Republican Nelson Rockefeller is actually an "independent Democrat," who does not mix well with the "coldblooded, hardboiled" G.O.P. signal callers.

A London auctioneer this week will hawk some love letters written by England's King George IV, most of them quilled to Maria Anne Fitzherbert, a widow six years his senior, who became his morganatic wife. Aside from their slushiness, the romantic epistles are historically interesting in graphically demonstrating the young prince's fickle ways. A few of the letters are addressed to "my own, own, own Isabella," a lady named Pigot, who happened to be Widow Fitz-herbert's companion. Where the salutation is hazy, it is impossible to know which woman young George was wooing at the time. But in one letter he cheerfully lyricized to the transient target of his affection: "Hand locked in hand/ they both shall win their way/ To blissful regions/ of eternal day."

In her role as one of Britain's most influential style setters, Princess Margaret set stylish maids and matrons agog by a radical change of hairdo. Almost flapperish, the new do features tight rolls by the ears, an arcing lock of hair across the forehead. Making one of her first public appearances in her changed coiffure, Margaret, 29, went stomping at London's Savoy Hotel with Bachelor Farmer Alan Godsal, 33, who carries the title of High Sheriff of Berkshire. After losing an open-toe slipper on the dance floor, Margaret smiled impishly while Godsal, crimson with embarrassment, retrieved it for replacement on the royal foot.

The Swedish Academy dug way down in the literary barrel for this year's Nobel Prizewinner in literature: Sicilian-born Poet Salvatore Quasimodo, 58, onetime Communist and longtime friend of Red causes, a versifier whose intricate Italian style and deeply personal themes make him incomprehensible to most Italians. Quipped one Italian writer, mystified by

Quasimodo's sudden celebrity: "I'm sure his works have been translated only into Swiss!" In Milan, where he teaches literature at the Giuseppe Verdi Music Conservatory, Quasimodo was quite pleased by the honor (value: $42,606) that shocked Italy's literary world. But even in his hour of triumph, he found a moment to demean the merit of Soviet Author Boris (Doctor Zhiuago) Pasternak, reluctant rejecter of last year's Nobel award. Huffed Nobelman Quasimodo: "Pasternak is as far from this generation as the moon is from us." Quasimodo is an expert of sorts on lunar matters: after the U.S.S.R. launched its first satellite in 1957, he turned out an ode titled The New Moon for Italy's Communist daily L'Unita.

The Oxford, Miss. Eagle published a public notice in turgid prose. Text: "The posted woods on my property inside the city limits of Oxford contain several tame squirrels. Any hunter who feels himself too lacking in woodcraft and marksmanship to approach a dangerous wild squirrel, might feel safe with these. These woods are a part of the pasture used by my horses and milk cow; also, the late arrival will find them already full of other hunters. He is kindly requested not to shoot either of these." The advertiser: Oxford's own, only Nobel Prizewinning Author William Faulkner.

A life-size statue of England's gallant Sir Walter Raleigh was slated for unveiling in London's Whitehall Park this week. But same day, Britain's National Society of Non-Smokers plans to celebrate the 341st anniversary of Explorer Raleigh's beheading by a royal ax-swinger. Reason: taking a leaf from the pipe of Virginia's Indians, Sir Walter is accused of being the villain who introduced tobacco into England.

After informing a rapt audience that "I am the first honest man Mr. Khrushchev has ever met," Britain's ripsnorting Field Marshal Lord Montgomery announced that he will undertake a new, one-man peace mission in January. His new quarry: India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Monty's forthright plan of approach: "I am going to talk to him and say to him, '.What is going on out here in Asia? What is it all about?' "

Any lingering doubt as to why the late Philanthropist Vincent Astor cut his half brother, sometime Playboy John Jacob Astor, out of his will was cleared up by Vincent's widow, Brooke Russell Astor. Testifying in an examination preceding the trial in which J. J. will strive to get a slice of Vincent's estimated $120 million fortune, Brooke Astor told of Vincent's deep feeling for J. J.: "Nothing but contempt." Captain Astor, a Navy officer in both World Wars, regarded J. J., said Brooke Astor, daughter of a Marine Corps general, as "the most useless and worthless member of society, and he despised him because he was a slacker and a draft evader."

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