"I came here not to negotiate but to learn," said Senator Edward Kennedy, arriving in Russia. One of the first lessons he learned was not to poll his hosts on sensitive issues. Speaking at Moscow University, Ted asked his audience how much they thought the Soviet Union should spend on defense. His interpreter announced abruptly that the Senator was feeling ill. "I'm perfectly all right," protested Ted. Later, after a four-hour talk with Premier Leonid Brezhnev, Kennedy, with Wife Joan, Daughter Kara, 14, and Son Teddy Jr., 12, went out to meet the people, American style, at a wedding party in a Moscow restaurant and at a Leningrad factory, where Teddy Jr. was toasted. Said Joan: "It's just like being in Fitchburg, Mass., during the last week of the campaign."

How did Actress Monique Van Vooren, 41, land the starring role of Frankenstein's sister in Andy Warhol's movie of that name? Says Writer/Director Paul Morrissey, "She has fiendish beauty." Then he described Monique's role. "She gets loved to death. Monique makes love to the monster, and he embraces her so passionately that he crushes her backbone. It's all in 3-D." Dimensions intact, Monique turned up at Rudolf Nureyev's opening night with the National Ballet Company of Canada in Manhattan last week on the arm of Warhol. Hugging them both, but not enough to crush their backbones, she declared, "I love Rudolf," then added, "I love Andy too, but in a different way."

Doctors at Tokyo's First National Hospital have discovered one way to prevent middle-age spread: jungle living. They ran some 200 tests on ex-Lieut. Hiroo Onoda, 52, the diehard loyalist who returned home triumphantly after nearly 30 years in a Philippines jungle, where he had continued fighting World War II. The findings: Onoda is healthier than most of his contemporaries who live off the fat of the land. His body is supple, his muscle tone is good and his animal instincts are honed: his eyes move constantly, he hears clothing brush against skin, and he wakes fully alert at the slightest noise.

For a few terrible weeks in 1971, Walter Annenberg, U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, must have felt like the young Louis XIV when peasants burst into his Palais Royal bedroom demanding bread. At the gates of Annenberg's 220-acre estate in Palm Springs, Calif, were 15 noisy pickets throwing beer cans into the shrubbery and indulging in a few well-chosen oaths. The greensmen hired to tend Annenberg's 18-hole golf course were demanding a pay hike. Annenberg took them to court for violating his right to privacy. Last week the California appellate court reversed a trial court's decision for Annenberg in favor of an appeal by the AFL-CIO, which claimed that domestic employees have the right to strike. The court found that Annenberg's mansion was set so far back from the public road that his privacy was ensured. The decision came too late for the original strikers, all of whom have long since left the ambassador's employ.

After being insulted by the crowd, Golfer Lee Elder vowed that he never again would play in the Monsanto Open at Pensacola, Fla. "I'm tired of being called 'nigger,' " he said. That was five years ago. Last week Elder, 38, had the crowd with him all the way when he broke his vow at the request of the tournament sponsors, winning his first P.G.A. tournament to become the first black ever to qualify for the nation's most prestigious competition, the Masters, next April. Hoping other black golfers would manage to qualify too, he mused, "I think it would be great for two or three of us to go. Then people would have to say, 'They were the first blacks to play.'"

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