People, Nov. 10, 1975

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No, that's not Madame Butterfly in a fur coat. The fashion plate is Dewi Sukarno, 35, widowed fourth wife of former Indonesian President Sukarno, and she just dropped by Paris' House of Dior to sample a new furry creation. Now a Parisienne, Dewi has been working on a book about the Sukarno regime and its overthrow by the army in 1967. "No social life, no parties for me until the end of the year," claimed Dewi. "I'm just concentrating on the book." Well, during the day perhaps. At night the former first lady is still seen at Paris night spots observing the "hustle-bump" in the company of the Duke de Sabran-Ponteves, 32, a real estate promoter and one of her several current admirers. -

The man placing the phone call looked suspiciously like a refugee from a one-dollar bill. Passing New Yorkers, though, did not seem to notice. "Why should they?" asked Actor Richard Base-hart, who had dressed himself up as George Washington to rehearse a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV special titled Valley Forge. "In New York you can walk around in a monkey suit and people just say, 'Oh, there's another one.' " -

His tour of the U.S. had been a source of historical satisfaction to many Japanese, but last week, after he had returned home to Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito delivered an astonishing opinion that outraged many of his countrymen. During an unprecedented open press conference, Hirohito was asked his opinion of the U.S. use of atomic bombs in 1945. The Emperor paused, then replied: "I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima, but the bombing could not be helped, as the war at that time was going on." That extraordinary remark understandably touched sensitive nerves throughout Japan. Said one official of the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs: "It is exactly this kind of thinking that will eventually lead humanity to its total destruction."

That mumbling, groping way that Don Corleone talked in The Godfather may not have been due entirely to the Stanislavsky method. "I found it helpful," said Marlon Brando on a Mike Douglas Show to be broadcast this week, "not to know one single line and to have lines written on the boards ..." "And on the pocket and the body of another actor," interrupted Godfather Director Francis Ford Coppola. On one occasion, Coppola added, he wondered why Brando was handling a melon in such a strange, reflective way. "Then I saw," he said, "that some of Brando's dialogue had been written on the melon."

Remember Nguyen Cao Ky? He of the purple ascot and the praises for Adolf Hitler? The former South Vietnamese Premier, who fled to the U.S. last May, is working the college lecture circuit these days. His standard lecture, delivered last week at the University of Florida, includes a proposal that the U.S. send troops to Viet Nam to protect refugees who want to return home. The students greeted Ky's talk with boos, jeers and a sign that said: OUT OF VIET NAM FOREVER. When it came to question time, the first questioner asked about Ky's rumored involvement with the | heroin trade. Ky's response was to walk offstage, under heavy police guard.

Does he or doesn't he?