Russian-born Hearst Society Gossipist Igor Cassini (Cholly Knickerbocker to his readers), charged with "willfully" failing to register as an agent for Rafael Trujillo's Dominican Republic, cut a rueful figure in court as he pleaded nolo contendere and awaited the judge's sentencing. Short on money for a defense and hopeful of avoiding adverse publicity for his designer-brother Oleg, whom he now works for and lives with, the onetime jet-set traffic dispatcher seemed to have lost his soaring spirits. Says a friend: "His whole life has collapsed. He lost his column. He lost his business, and his wife's death left him with three children on his hands."

He rendered unto Caesar much less than is Caesar's, at least so say the Internal Revenue folk who figure that from 1954 to 1960 Comedian Sid Caesar, 41, missed out on paying more than a quarter of a million dollars in taxes. The way I.R.S. adds it, Sid failed to declare quite a bit of dividend dough and allowed himself about $64,000 worth of expenses that were nondeductible. Sid's lawyers, understandably indignant, have asked that the Government's $262,694 claim be thrown out as erroneous.

With every Mediterranean ripple, jumpy wire service editors cabled their Athens correspondents to find out where Jackie Kennedy and the Onassis yacht Christina were. No one could say. Only the White House was able to keep tabs with a special microwave hookup. Culture-conscious Jackie was charting her own Odyssey, over to Lesbos for a look at the island where the poet Sappho was supposed to have thrown herself into the sea. Then on to Crete for a session with Sister Lee Radziwill, clambering around labyrinthian Minoan ruins. The last stop was at Delphi, where, intent on the guide's words, she stumbled into a pothole. The First Lady quickly scrambled up and went on for a look at the site of the omniscient Oracle of Apollo, but demurely declined to pose a question.

La nouvelle vogue in Paris is lean 'n' leggy Jane Fonda, 25, daughter of the indestructible Henry, who ever since she started a film with French Star Alain Delon, has been spitting truffles at reporters and making the Gauls gaggle with delight. "I will undoubtedly fall in love with Delon," said obliging Jane. "I can only play love scenes well when I am in love with my partner." More? "I sent a check to my father recently. He spent a lot of money on me, and it's only natural that I should help him out." Such gems now sparkle all over the French press, nicely complemented by pictures of La Fonda in her man's-shirt peejays or high-riding skirt or skin-clinger slacks. It all suggested the supreme accolade, and she has been duly dubbed la B.B. Americaine.

In 1954 Dr. Linus Pauling, 62, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and promptly began lending his new fame to all manner of peace schemes. His biggest broadsides were blurted at nuclear testing and fallout, which, he said, endangered "our yet unborn children." Some found his talk woolly; others found it wonderful. Last week the Norwegian Nobel committee, which never discusses its deliberations, named him winner of the $51,000 1962 Peace Prize.* The award did not stay the critics. Norway's conservative Morgenbladet called it a "slap in the face" to such responsible test ban proponents as Macmillan and Kennedy. The New York Herald Tribune held that the prize's esteem had slipped through association with "a placarding peacenik." As for Pauling, who got the news at his Big Sur, Calif., retreat, he remembered that the test ban had that morning gone into effect. "I thought," said he quietly, "that it was a nice day for the committee to make the announcement."

As it must to all new Cabinet mem bers, a press conference came last week to Postmaster General John Gronouski. He showed himself to be an amiable fellow with a ready wit. Asked what he thought of third-class mail, he replied: "It doesn't send me most of the time." Gronouski, it turned out, was just trying to be funny, but soon the Post Office Department was swamped with protests. Gronouski was taken into a huddle by his public relations adviser, and his sense of humor has now been stamped HANDLE WITH CARE.

Toots Shor, 58, enjoys a little snort now and now, and then so does his buddy Frank Sinatra, 47. This time the two wound up their nip-tucking session at a West Side Manhattan joint. 'Long about 2 a.m. "Sinat" suddenly awarded his 240-lb. pal a few friendly shoulder smacks and a greeting: "Hi ya, Blub." Silence. Then, slowly, The Blub toppled backwards off his perch. "I don't really remember what happened," confesses Toots. But his right wrist broke the fall, then broke itself. Though plastered into a cast for six weeks (complete with evening scarf sling), Toots stiffly states: "Booze is beautiful--with either hand."

* Making him the first person ever to win two entire Nobel Prizes. Radium Co-Discoverer Marie Curie won one in 1911 for chemistry, earlier shared one in 1903 for physics.

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