"I feel that an American citizen should not bow to foreign monarchs," wrote Martha Mitchell in the Ladles' Home Journal, explaining her own stiff-legged presentation to Queen Elizabeth II at a garden party last July. Protocol-wise, curtsying is optional for non-subjects, but Scotland's 70-year-old Earl of Lindsay, a member of the Queen's Body Guard for Scotland, was fit to be tied. He fired off a letter to Martha ("I take it that it is your considered opinion that I should remain seated during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner") and followed it up with a statement to the press: "I feel she had to be put in her place. There is always hope she may learn some manners. She is a stupid woman. If she is going to shout her mouth off like that, she is bound to get shouted at." In reply, Mrs. Mitchell took her cue from Jimmy Durante. She said: "He just probably wanted to get in on the act."

In Israel to help celebrate German Culture Week, West German Novelist Glinter Grass maintained his reputation for spade-calling by attacking the militant Jewish Defense League and the Betar organization for trying to disrupt the week's lectures, theatrical performances and concerts. This "irrational militancy" would be a serious problem for Israel, said Grass, if it were to be directed against the Arabs in Israel "with whom you are going to have to live." As for the idea that it is still too soon for the Israelis to get to know the Germans, he declared: "I don't want to wait until the last old people who were in the concentration camps have died. And I don't like the Bible mentality that says the second and third generations must carry on the burden for the early generations."

The wages of sin have been marked PAID for John Profumo. The British War Minister, who was forced to resign in disgrace from Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's Cabinet in 1963 for having lied to Parliament about his affair with Party Girl Christine Keeler, was greeted warmly by Queen Elizabeth II. The occasion: the opening of Attlee House, an extension of London's famed Toynbee Hall, a rehabilitation center in the East End where Profumo has been working full time helping alcoholics, drug addicts, parolees and ex-convicts. Said Social Worker Profumo afterward: "It has been a wonderful day, all very exciting."

Out of their ever-ready acid bath, the gossiphilic editors of Women's Wear Daily have pulled a new version of the venerable In-and-Out game to stir up the animals in Manhattan's social zoo. The key people in New York, whispers WWD, are the "Cat Pack." When its members walk into a room, "there's more than a ripple. There's a wave. They know everything about what's going on. And when they meet, there's that secret kiss on each cheek." Money and fame are not enough to make the Cat Pack--Johnny Carson, Ted Kennedy and John Lindsay are out of it, so is Nelson Rockefeller, though his brothers David and Laurence are in. Some husbands are in while their wives are not (Cat Lord Snowdon and Non-Feline Princess Margaret), and vice versa (rich and social Manhattan Councilman Carter Burden, out, and his pretty wife Amanda, in). Among the 67 on the list --which includes five dress designers and three interior decorators--Richard M. Nixon is nowhere to be found, but No. 67 is Chou Enlai.

The southpaw sensation of the 1971 baseball season, Pitcher Vida Blue of the Oakland Athletics, has just been named the Most Valuable Player in the American League by the Baseball Writers Association. It made a double for the 22-year-old after only one full season in the major leagues. Last month he won the Cy Young Award as the year's outstanding pitcher.

When a couple of heavyweights get together, something's got to give. In Houston, it was Phyllis Diller as well as Buster Mathis who landed on the canvas --though ex-Champ Muhammad Ali hardly seemed to notice. He might have been expected to express a little gratitude. Even flat on her back, Phyllis was the only other person who lent a little life to the well-publicized put-on.

Federal District Judge Julius J. Hoffman, 76, who will go down in the annals of law for his handling of the "Chicago Seven" conspiracy trial, is planning to retire and ask the President to place him on senior status, which would continue his $40,000 salary. "I could have retired six years ago at full pay," he hastened to explain. "But I decided that the Lord had been good to me, and I wanted to give the public the benefit of my experience." He has no plans to accept the invitations he has received to speak about the Chicago Seven trial. Still, "I could do some rip-roaring speeches--though they might not pay me as much as they pay [Defense Attorney] William Kunstler."

The "Desert Fox" may not have been so foxy after all. According to an impressive roster of military experts appearing on West German TV, World War II Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was far from the brave and brilliant commander Hitler had cracked him up to be. Rommel's understanding of strategy was "slight," said General Ulrich de Maiziere, the Bundeswehr's chief of staff. After studying the archives, the program's director said: "He couldn't work with large bodies, and he panicked when faced with great tasks." Rommel's appeal to Hitler, suggested General Wolf von Baudissin, was that, like the Fiihrer himself, "he was no snob and no intellectual."

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