Winding up his visit to Russia, Astronaut Neil Armstrong delighted Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with gifts from America--a small Russian flag that was carried on Apollo 11 and some chips of moon rock mounted in Lucite. Later, touring the Kremlin Armory museum with Cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy, he joked that there had been no fair exchange. Beregovoy indicated the museum's display of czarist crown jewels. "Pick one," he said. Armstrong pointed. "Fine," said the Russian. "That will cost you $300 million." Replied Armstrong: "I think I'll wait until they sell it at half price."

"It's embarrassing," admits Yippie Abbie Hoffman. "You try to overthrow the Government and end up on the bestseller list." Helped by the substantial sum of $75,000 that his Revolution for the Hell of It and Woodstock Nation have netted him in royalties and film rights, Hoffman has been able to overcome his embarrassment enough to start two more books. When Publisher Bennett Cerf of Random House took a lady visitor to meet his son, Editor Christopher Cerf, he sauntered unannounced into Christopher's office to find Hoffman slouched shirtless at the desk, scribbling away. "That's not my son!" exclaimed Cerf hastily. Said Hoffman, "Hi, Dad."

After her tax accountant, one Norman Egenberg, was indicted on charges of bribing IRS agents, the U.S. income tax records of Italian Diva Renata Tebaldi became public property. A deduction labeled "claque" in the 1964 and 1965 returns cast doubts on the spontaneity of some of the opera star's standing ovations. In fact, at $2,400 and $2,500 per annum, it seemed as if she had some pretty high-priced talent in her rooting section. On the witness stand at Egenberg's trial, the imperious Tebaldi denied all: "I never paid a claque in my life."

Lili Smith, London's favorite dance-hall entertainer, is the seductive idol of the British soldiers on leave from World War I. Secretly, she is a German spy named Schmidt. She flirts across the movie screen in sheer tights and ruffles, a rose between her teeth, gaiety masking her embittered spirit. The role seems precisely tailored for Dietrich. Instead it will be played by Mary Poppins. Julie Andrews has in fact gone the English dance-hall route before--and flopped miserably--in one of Hollywood's most expensive bombs. a multimillion-dollar loser called Star. On looks, anyway, Darling Lili figures to do better.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller wouldn't think of accepting--not in such company--but he couldn't help laughing when he heard the proposition. His political rival, New York City Mayor John Lindsay, broke up a Manhattan luncheon for the Apollo 13 astronauts by suggesting that he and Rocky fly to the moon together. "The combined effect," said Lindsay, "ought to make millions of people very happy."

Since her husband David Harris was imprisoned for draft evasion, said Folk Singer Joan Baez, she has made a career of all the causes--peace, civil rights, ecology. All, that is, except women's liberation. "I can't take it seriously," explained Joan. "I mean, if I'm carrying my guitar and my baby, and my husband's in jail, I'm not going to yell at some guy who holds the door open for me."

The British visitor to the White House was "shaken" to learn that her compatriots had burned the place down during the War of 1812. "I'd heard of 1812, but I thought it was an overture by Tchaikovsky," said Mrs. Edward Armitage, wife of Britain's Controller General of the Patent Office. Turning to Pat Nixon, she added, "I'm sorry they did it. It was nothing between you and me." Soothed Pat: "I know you wouldn't do it."

Bill Woestendiek, the newsman fired by Washington's WETA-TV because his wife was hired to flack for Martha Mitchell, has a new job as editor-publisher of the Colorado Springs Sun. Wife Kay will join him as women's editor, leaving Martha in the lurch. That will hardly bother the Woes-tendieks' new boss, Vegas-based Publisher Hank Greenspun. After Mrs. Mitchell's famous call asking the Arkansas Gazette to "crucify" Senator Fulbright for his Carswell vote, Greenspun wrote an editorial suggesting that she made the call after "toasting the ill health of every Communist-liberal Senator who voted against Carswell."

On the day that Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven's Fidelio in Vienna, a son was born to U.S. Soprano Olive Moorefield of Vienna's Volksoper and her husband, Dr. Kurt Mach. "Love and congratulations," Bernstein wired, "for Oliver Kurt Fidelio." The parents were delighted and added Fidelio to the boy's name. "Think of the poor baby's fate," mused an Austrian TV commentator, "if Lenny had conducted Die Meistersinger von Nੜrnberg that evening."

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