There was a time not too long ago when Pablo Picasso, 84, was known as something of a terror with women. Now he sounds somewhat terrified himself. In the past, he told an old photographer friend in an interview for Paris' Figaro Litteraire, "the model was nude, without defense. We could paint her, draw her or do anything else with her. But today there exists a new race of women, and you don't know what to make of them." With that, Pablo pointed to a magazine photograph of a battalion of Israeli women soldiers marching with rifles. "What do you do with such Amazons?" he said. "Fantastic! Terrifying! Man is completely at a loss." . . .

Now that she can speak clearly and unhaltingly again and walk almost without a limp, Actress Patricia Neal, 40, suggested in London that she may soon go back to work, in a British television play, for the first time since she suffered the three massive strokes that nearly killed her 21 months ago.

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The morning after the premiere party in Manhattan, the New York Daily News front-paged a foto, as they call it, of "Anne Ford, with her husband Giancarlo Uzielli." That must have come as a surprise to the Wall Street brokerage house where he works, after he'd been telling everybody he was in the hospital with a slipped disc. The thing is, he was. With Gianni bedridden, Anne, 23, now six months pregnant, dressed up in a silver and white minitent and trooped off to the benefit premiere of Hawaii, organized by her mother. Anne's escort: TV Producer Michael Santangelo, a friend of Gianni's who looks enough like him to fool any photographer.

No sooner had the World Series cheering faded than the Baltimore Orioles' Frank Robinson, 31, set off to make some noises of his own. In Manhattan with his wife Barbara to pick up the Corvette Sting Ray that Sport magazine gave him for being the Series' standout, Frank began exercising his vocal cords for the winter's after-dinner speaking circuit, which will keep him busy describing how he won batting's Triple Crown and then went on to wreck the Los Angeles Dodgers with two more homers in the Series. Frank, who stands to collect about $35,000 in speaking fees, will have some remarks for the Orioles as well. Last season they paid him $62,500, but when a reporter asked Frank if he would be embarrassed to ask for a $100,000 salary next year, he grinned: "Embarrassed? That's where we'll start."

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Midst laurels stood: former President Harry Truman, 82, honored with the George C. Marshall Medal of the Association of the United States Army for "selfless service to the United States" and, among other things, implementation of the Marshall Plan; Polaroid Corp. President Edwin H. Land, 57, named to receive the Case Institute of Technology's $5,000 Michelson Award; Lyndon Johnson, named to receive the first Margaret Sanger Award in World Leadership of the Planned Parenthood Federation for "contributions to world understanding of population planning."

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The Sarah Lawrence girl is turning into a wonderful rug merchant. After she married Sikkim's King Palden Thondup Namgyal, the former Hope Cooke winced at the garish mats that some of the Sikkimese weavers were making with aniline dyes, decided that they must go back to traditional vegetable dyes to give their ancient dragon patterns a softer tint. The King had helped to establish a handicrafts training center in his tiny Himalayan kingdom, and flew to New York with his queen in time to watch the first shipment of rugs go on sale (prices: up to $500). But Sikkim's weavers are still constantly taking time off for festivals and dancing, explained Hope. "That is one of our production problems."

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After 50 years as a priest--27 of them as Archbishop of New York-New York's Francis Cardinal Spellman, 77, might have welcomed a rest. So when Pope Paul VI suggested that bishops over age 75 retire to allow younger men to take over their responsibilities, Cardinal Spellman "humbly and willingly" offered his resignation. Although the cardinal has already turned over many duties to his six auxiliary bishops, the Pope asked him to carry on. "I accept this decision," said the cardinal, "as God's will for me."

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"I just love big families," Ethel Kennedy, 38, is fond of saying. That is fortunate. She and Bobby are expecting their tenth child in the spring.

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Another nun at Belgium's Ficher-mont Convent once said of Sister Luc-Gabrielle: "She's well adapted to the Dominican life." So it seemed as she puttered around the convent farm, ignoring the outside world, where her Singing Nun album (originally recorded as a souvenir for girls who came on retreats) competed with the platters of Bobby Darin and Paul Anka. But at some point she decided that her vocation may be secular after all. The convent announced that she has left to live outside Brussels, where, now 38, she will resume her former name of Janine Deckers and pursue a musical career.

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