With its usual combination of chic and cheek, Women's Wear Daily floated the most elegant rumor of the year --that Jacqueline Kennedy, 38, would announce her engagement to Britain's David Ormsby Gore, Lord Harlech, 49, former British Ambassador to the U.S., a 13-year friend of the Kennedys, and a widower since his wife was killed in a car crash last May. His lordship, in Washington at the beginning of a lecture tour, put down the report as having "no foundation," and Jackie denied it through her secretary. At week's end Lord Harlech, house-guesting at Robert Kennedy's Virginia estate, admitted that he has been invited to join Jackie and friends in a trip to Cambodia next month and would like to go along. sbsbsb Five thousand miles from home, having just played a concert at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Artur Rubinstein, 78, was greeting visitors in his dressing room. Among them was a tall fellow who walked up and said: "Permit me to introduce myself. I am your partner." "My partner?" asked the pianist in bewilderment. "Of course," replied the fellow. "I'm Sheldon Cohen, U.S. Commissioner of Internal Revenue." Rubinstein thought fast: "Hah! This time you've made a mistake. Right now I don't have a penny on me!" And with that, Artur turned his pockets inside out. sbsbsb

"Then, in a smiling way, I said to her: 'I can't concentrate on my gin rummy with your flapping mouth.' That really started something." Wow, did it ever. Judy Garland, 45, had barely finished that bit of smile talk when she got a face full of brandy tossed at her by Sherwin Filiberti, 28, wife of one of Judy's business partners and a companion on what was supposed to be a convivial Pan Am flight to London. The drink throwing was followed, Judy claimed, by a screaming three-hour family-type argument between the Filibertis--all of which upset the sensitive singer so much that she took the very next flight back to New York. "How high were you?" asked a reporter at Kennedy Airport. "Thirty-seven thousand feet," replied Judy sweetly. sbsbsb Lady Bird Johnson, 54, was only promoting her national beautifications program, but 46 Williams College undergraduates decided that a Johnson is a Johnson and walked out in protest against her husband's prosecution of the Viet Nam war. Unfazed by their departure, the First Lady spoke for 25 minutes about conservation, accepted an honorary Litt.D. degree for her "concern for the natural beauty of this country." Next day at Yale, Lady Bird boosted her program again despite a silent "vigil" by 1,000 Yalies. The university came across with no honorary degree, but the Political Union did contribute a baby gift for Grandson Lyn Nugent --a stuffed musical bulldog that plays Boola-Boola. sbsbsb

Antarctica's Mount Herschel doesn't ring in the ear with quite the glory of an Everest, but the direction is up, and that's good enough for New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary, 48. Hillary is leading a team of seven New Zealanders and an Aussie in an assault on the unclimbed 11,700-ft. peak, will then do a bit of "adventuring" in his first trip to the Antarctic since his journey to the South Pole in 1958. "I will be fit enough to chug about," said Everest's conqueror, "but I certainly won't be one of the bullets of the party." sbsbsb

Simple, o'erbubbling girlish exuberance led Lynda Bird Johnson, 23, to her mama's bedroom door at three o'clock that August morning. When Mama wasn't there, she crept into her daddy's bedroom. "Who is it?" asked Lady Bird, waking up with a start, and in a moment the President woke up too. Then, as they guessed what Lynda Bird was driving at, the Johnsons hauled their eldest daughter into bed with them and listened to her tell the news of her decision to marry Chuck Robb. Now the story has been broken in all its homey detail by the Washington Post, which pirated Lynda Bird's own account of the episode from the still-unreleased November issue of McCall's. sbsbsb

On the sound theory that it would never do to appear bareheaded at her coronation, Iran's Empress-to-be Farah Diba, 28, invited five of the world's premier jewelers to design a headpiece for this month's solemnification. Some 50 original designs were winnowed to three, of which Farah Diba selected one created by Pierre Arpels, 47, managing director of the Paris branch of Van Cleef & Arpels. Feeling like a man loose "amongst the treasures of The Thousand and One Nights," Arpels chose 1,469 diamonds, 36 rubies, 36 emeralds and 105 pearls from the royal jewels in Iran's Central Bank, spent six months fashioning them into a crown that is literally priceless--though one sporty Iranian banker has put an unofficial figure of $15 million on the Empress' lovely headpiece. sbsbsb

In his new posture as all-round team player, gigantic Bounceballer Wilt Chamberlain, 31, no longer scores more points than all the rest of the Philadelphia 76ers put together. He out-salaries the whole bunch of them, though. Fresh off his success in leading the 76ers to the National Basketball Association title last season--his first team championship in eight years in the league--Chamberlain held out until eight days before the season began, finally accepted a $50,000 pay boost, to $250,000--wages about double those of any other regularly employed U.S. athlete and slightly higher than those paid the erstwhile money champ, Brazilian Soccer Player Pele.

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