Yet another Kennedy book is in the works. Bobby Kennedy Jr., 13, the clan's Clyde Beatty, is collaborating with his brother Michael, 8, on The Great Slaughter, a treatise on man's inhumanity to beast. Young Bobby already knows most of the basics about wildlife just from watching his own private animal kingdom at home in Mc-Lean, Va., where he tenderly harbors a scaly tegu named Thor, an iguana, two hawks, six chickens, two geese, six golden pheasants and assorted turtles and frogs, to say nothing of the family's five dogs and four horses. He used to have a fierce, 31-ft. Oriental dragon. "But the dragon ate the chameleons, and then one day he was eaten by a turtle," said the lad. "Animals do eat each other, you know."

"I think he has served his apprenticeship in baseball," said St. Louis Cardinals Owner August Busch Jr. Well, yes, Gussie, and it was quite a training period. Before Outfielder Stan Musial, 46, quit the playing field in 1963 after 22 years with the Cards, he had broken eleven National League records, earned a lifetime batting average of .331, and poled 475 home runs. Stan the Man has been patrolling the Cardinals' front office as a vice president, and doing such a good job of it that Busch thinks it is time for a promotion. Last week Musial became the Cards' general manager at $35,000 a year.

At the age of 45, Charles de Gaulle was a mere lieutenant colonel in the army. For his only son, the promotions have come quicker. Philippe Henri Xavier Antoine de Gaulle, 45, a 6-ft. 3-in. naval officer who is a sort of dejd vu copy of his father, has been commissioned a capitaine de vaisseau (the naval equivalent of full colonel). The change in grade may mean that the capitaine's handsome wife Henriette will get to the Paris Opera less often. This week he takes command of the guided-missile frigate Suffren, based in .the Mediterranean port of Toulon. In their first joint venture as producer and star, Mel Ferrer and his wife Audrey Hepburn, 37, braved the streets of Greenwich Village for a few location shots for Wait Until Dark, a melo- dramatic mystery that has her playing a blind girl terrorized by a couple of murderous junkies. On hand to lend civic punctilio to the occasion was New York's Mayor John Lindsay, 45, with his wife Mary. And since he'd left the keys to the city back at the office, His Honor gave Audrey a kiss on the cheek, while Mary Lindsay said placidly: "I think anything Audrey does is great." Alfie, the jolly Cockney philanderer, had a fairly exotic collection of birds. So did the Cockney star of the movie, Michael Caine, 33, who has played the field with nearly every available actress and model in the show-business aviary. Now he has found a rara avis indeed: Swedish Starlet Camilla Sparv, 23. Caine turned up with Camilla in London's Leicester Square Theater for the premiere of Murderers' Row. They've been dating for four months now, but when a reporter innocently asked if he would be getting married, Caine blanched. "She's my girl friend," he sniffed. "Any talk of marriage is way out." Being one of Mississippi's better-known citizens, Byron De La Beckwith, 46, is thinking of taking a crack at state politics. After all, a lot of folks remember "Delay" right well from his two trials for the murder of Negro Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers in 1962. Both times his peers failed to reach a verdict. Now the gun collector from Greenwood has been scattering publicity shots around the state, will likely announce his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor in next spring's Democratic primary.

The 2,200 sports at the annual dinner of Washington's Touchdown Club were having too high a time to sit still for speeches. So they hoped that Illinois Freshman Senator Charles Percy, 47, would keep it crisp when he rose to deliver an encomium to Everett McKinley Dirksen, who was the club's honored guest. Like a Big Ten cheer leader, Percy waved flash cards bearing each letter of Dirksen's full name. " 'E' is for Effectiveness," he began, and proceeded to expatiate on how effective Ev is. Then: " 'V is for Valor." By the time he got through all 22 cards to the final "N," the audience was howling that the game had gone on much too long. "This is the worst I've ever seen a public official treated," winced one guest. The next speaker might have faced sudden death if he'd gone into overtime. "My name is Hubert Horatio Humphrey," grinned the Vice President. " 'H,' " he explained, as the Bronx cheers erupted, "is for HELP!"

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