A half-century after Rough Rider Theodore Roosevelt made a year-long safari through Kenya and Uganda, Teddy's grandson Kermit, 44, a vice president of Gulf Oil Corp., set out with two of his sons to retrace some of the route. Kermit Roosevelt will carry the same .405 big-game rifle that his grandfather lugged from Mombasa to Khartoum, but the present-day Roosevelt's safari will last only 25 days, be a much less lavish expedition than Teddy's. Aside from the hunting. Kermit, also a writing man, will take notes and pictures for a contemplated book and magazine articles.

In Rome, where he is starring in a beef-and-brawn movie for United Artists. Bob Mathias, 29, the 1948 and 1952 Olympic decathlon champion, heaved a shot at the U.S. Amateur Athletic Union, which has barred him from further amateur competition because he is now a professional actor. "We can't catch the Russians in sports until the A.A.U. changes its rules on amateurs.'' said he. Mathias' flat prediction on this year's Olympic games: "The Russians will win."

After a month's visit to the U.S., Sicily's Red-leaning Poet Salvatore Quasimodo, 58, winner of last year's Nobel Prize for literature, returned home convinced that the U.S. deserves more sympathy than it has ever gotten from him. What surprised Quasimodo most was that, amidst all the U.S'.s material wealth, poets seem to sprout "everywhere."' But he still believes that the U.S. neglects its poets' social security. Said Quasimodo, whose poetry will get its first sizable English rendition in a book that will be published in the U.S. next month: "The United States, in spite of its riches, does not think well enough of its poets to take care of them when they are too old to write." In a morning-long ceremony at St.

Peter's in Rome. Pope John XXIII consecrated 14 missionary bishops, under scored the Vatican's aim to proselytize the world's youngest nations. Among seven African Negroes elevated was Poreku Dery, Ghana's new Bishop of Wa. Others came from countries that are antiquating most maps of Africa-- Ruanda-Urundi, the Voltaic, Ivory Coast and Malagasy republics. With a prayerful eye on this week's summit talks, His Holiness said: "The attention of millions is directed with deep anxiety on the words, actions, appearances of the highest representatives of the great nations on whose consciences lie, in great measure, the building up or the shattering of the peace of the world."

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Air Force General Lauris Norstad, 53, was bedded in Munich's U.S. Army hospital after suffering a "very slight coronary occlusion" while golfing in Bavaria.

Entering into retirement after almost 30 years at Columbia University, Sociologist Robert Staughton Lynd, 67, received flowers from students, expressed surprise that so many were present at his last class session. Said Lynd, who with his wife Helen in 1929 published Middletown, a classic sociological case study of U.S. community life: "I hadn't expected there would be any last class as such, but I find that there is. I had expected that I would walk out of Fayerweather Hall, down the steps, out the engine room as I always had, and on to Amsterdam Avenue and take the bus home. I had thought I would dust myself off a little, and that would be retirement."

When New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary, co-conqueror of Mount Everest, quests for the Abominable Snowman in the high Himalaya next winter, there is an outside chance that he will bump into his wife: Lady Hillary announced last week that she and a female friend will take a mountain stroll on their own this February, trek some 170 miles from Katmandu to Thyangboche over some rugged territory. Discussing her project as casually as if it were a Girl Scout hike, Louise Hillary said: "We intend to climb a ridge or two and have a look at the view."

Returning to Manhattan from his jungle clinic in northern Laos, Dr. Thomas Dooley, 33, cofounder of MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), issued a glowing report that the program is now rolling strong in ten countries: "Local governments put up the hospitals and we are simply the people who run them." Asked about recent criticism that he is a publicity seeker, Dr. Tom quoted from "an old Chinese proverb": "When one lift head above crowd, bound to receive rotten fruit." Then Tom Dooley entered a Manhattan hospital to continue his own personal fight against disease, got a complete checkup on his progress since removal of a chest cancer last summer. His prognosis will be reported to him soon.

In a 20th Century-Fox movie titled High Time, Crooner Bing Crosby, 56, plays the role of a middle-aged restaurateur who hankers for a college education. After matriculating in a Southern institution, Crosby has to survive a fraternity initiation requiring him to crash a cotillion ball as a belle. All trigged up in a blonde wig, false eyelashes, lipstick, rouge and falsies, Crosby volunteered: "No wonder the ladies of the day got the vapors and fainted. I feel like a barrel with the staves too tight.''

For many a year Yalemen have carried on an ivyish debate about whether one of Yale's better-known alumni, Composer Cole Porter ('13), deserves an honorary degree, despite the fact that his accomplishments are more acoustic than academic. University officials stayed silent on the subject last week, but word leaked out that Porter, on the eve of his 67th birthday next month, will get an honorary degree (best guess: Doctor of Music) at his apartment in Manhattan's Waldorf Towers. Reason for the honor in absentia: Tunesmith Porter, injured badly in a 1937 spill from a horse, had his right leg amputated two years ago, is too frail to under go the ceremonies in New Haven. At week's end, Yaleman Porter got an accolade at the Metropolitan Opera House. A dozen composers and other talent presented "A Salute to Cole Porter" in a charity powwow whose best seats sold at $62.50 a head.

Although he is regarded as a real spell binder in his home territory, Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Gaylord Anton Nelson, 43, has brooded of late over his relative obscurity as an orator to most of the Democratic powers in Washington.

Nelson has a special reason for concern: he wants to be the keynote speaker at July's Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Last week he took direct action, sent excerpts from his speeches to several score influential Washington Democrats on a long-play record titled Around Wisconsin with Gaylord Nelson. With the record came a plea: "Any word you might drop at Democratic national headquarters could be a real help.''

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