People: Dec. 9, 1966

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Will Junior abide by Dad's decisions?

"You bet I will," said Earl Warren Jr., 36. As a matter of fact, young Earl had nothing but praise for the sort of decisions that have been made by his father's U.S. Supreme Court in recent years. "They are recognizing the laws as they originally were intended to be," he explained. Now Junior will be able to make a few decisions of his own. California's outgoing Governor Pat Brown, an old family friend, has named Earl, a lawyer and registered Democrat, as a Sacramento municipal-court judge.

Judging from the lad's hard-charging form at halfback, England's World Cup champion soccer team will have a good prospect in another dozen years. One day a week, Britain's Prince Andrew, 6, motors out from Buckingham Palace with his nanny and his detective to mix it up with some of the local stars at the public playground in Cale Street, Chelsea. Andrew tears around the blacktop like a pale Pelé, but he does seem to be more careful than his big brother. At Scotland's Gordonstoun School a couple of months ago, Bonny Prince Charlie emerged from a game of rugby with a broken nose.

The 1839 Stranger's Guide to the City of Washington advises: "You will neither chew tobacco in the lady's drawing room nor swallow the warm water contained in the finger bowls." Well that doesn't hardly happen any more. Still, the Woman's National Democratic Club decided that it was time for a new primer for capital hostesses and published Party Diary: Planning Ahead and the "Fete" Accompli, a 100-page guidebook anthologizing social notes and comments from the city's experts. "To be a success in Washington, you need comfortable shoes," advises outdoorsy Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. Hostess Gwen Cafritz purrs modestly: "With my little dinners I like to feel I am helping to save Western civilization." And Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, had her motto for a lively party embroidered on a sofa pillow: "If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me."

All week rumors buzzed that the phantom was dying. As usual, Multimillionaire Industrialist Howard Hughes, 60, remained shrouded in a private world, expensively and almost pathologically guarded from outsiders. The stories said that Hughes, suffering from emphysema and Addison's disease, went to Boston for treatment four months ago, ensconced himself in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where he rented the entire fifth floor and posted armed guards to keep newsmen away. Was the tenant really Hughes? Reporters picked up a trail when they heard that Hughes was spirited off by private train to Las Vegas and carried on a stretcher at 4 a.m. to a penthouse bastion at the Desert Inn. The hotel doesn't even show that he is registered, and a spokesman put out the word: "He's never been in better health." But then how would the spokesman know?