RSVP / THE SOCIAL CITY : Tribute to Nixon Had Everything--Except the Salad

It was to be an elegant six-course dinner--five glasses, four forks, four knives for the Colorado Mountain smoked trout with cheese pastry bow-ties, the velvety sorrel soup, the California pink grapefruit sorbet, the stuffed veal with saffron rice pilaf and artichoke nicoise, then the garden greens before the orange mousse with the chocolate presidential seal.

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The salad was tossed--out: As the evening progressed at the black-tie Architect of Peace Tribute at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in honor of the late President, it became apparent that for keynoter Sen. Robert Dole to make his plane (he flew in for the event, was whisked to the library by helicopter and flew back to Washington in almost one smooth swoop), a course might have to go. Said event co-chairman George Argyros, “We’re tossing the salad.”

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Never at the White House: The missing salad was enough to take the starch out of Henry Haller’s hat. The White House chef for 20 years had labored all day, but at dinner he sat next to Dolores Hope (with Bob, too) and that’s enough to keep anyone happy.

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Peace in Yorba Linda: Nearly 150 had cocktails on the green, strolled past the graves of Pat and Richard Nixon, then sat for dinner on terrazo surrounded by American flags fringed with gold braid. Tributes to Nixon were nonstop: from library director John H. Taylor, Arco Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook (dinner chairman), Gov. Pete Wilson, former Nixon henchman Maurice H. Stans (a painting of him was undraped to salute the $131 million he has raised for the library), Dole, Argyros and Nixon’s personal friend Jack Drown. As Dole rose to speak, he joked, “The more time I spend in presidential libraries, the more I wonder how one would look in Russell, Kan.” He joked also that Nixon’s golf balls “spent more time in trees than most squirrels.” But he turned serious in his tribute: “The legacy of peace Nixon left is going to be around a long time.”

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Champagne Finale: The Schramsberg bubbles arrived just as Dole left, but most of the prominent crowd stayed to indulge in the champagne and dessert: Judie Argyros with Roy and Lila Ash at the Dole table, honorary chairwoman Caroline Ahmanson, Nixon’s brother Edward, Edward and Nadine Carson, Suzanne Cummings, Gene and Jackie Autry, Frank Ulf, Richard and Marjorie Stegemeier, Ed and Ruth Shannon, Dr. John Lungren, Walter and Speedy Beran, Gavin Herbert Jr., Dr. William and Rose Narva, Betsy and Ted Bartscherer, Dewey and Dee Henley, John and Maureen Nunn, and Steve Clemons.

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Postscript: The evening raised $350,000 for the library.

Elsewhere on the Social Circuit

* When autumn leaves fall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic celebrates two major events. On Oct. 24 it marks its 75th birthday and lays the cornerstone for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Philharmonic’s new home rising at 1st Street and Grand Avenue.

But, first, Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the orchestra tour the European summer festivals. Recently, Finnish Consul General Tapio Saarela hosted a reception in his Bel-Air home to welcome members of the L.A. Philharmonic Patrons Tour.

From Aug. 25 to Sept. 3, Patrons will attend concerts at the Helsinki Festival (with a sail around Helsinki’s archipelago and luncheon at historic Suomenlinna Fortress), London’s famed Proms (at Royal Albert Hall on Sept. 1 with a black-tie dinner at Spencer House near Picadilly) and the Flanders Festival in historic Ghent Cathedral. The Helskini concert will be Salonen’s first with the Philharmonic in his hometown.

* Tributes were nonstop for Joanne Kozberg at her 50th birthday party, hosted by husband Roger, son Anthony and daughter Lindsey at Hillcrest Country Club. The Blue Ribbon Belles stole the show. Joanne, now secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency in Sacramento, is former president of the Music Center Blue Ribbon.

Thus Nancy Livingston inveigled good pals Sandy Ausman, Ann Johnson, Doreen McElvany, Patti Skouras, Judi Davidson and Phyllis Hennigan to song and dance shenanigans that would never make the Music Center stages. But, they were sincere in their lyrics: “Joanne, you’re such a wonder.” Andrea Van de Kamp referred to her as sunshine, Gov. Wilson said she was “a woman guided by principle,” and Gayle Wilson called her a mensch .

Prominent in the crowd were Kozberg’s parents, Dr. Eliot and Marian Corday. Dancing late into the night to Ernie Hernandez’s band: Stuart and Carrie Ketchum, Don and Arletta Tronstein, Joni and Clark Smith, Jean Smith and Ross Barrett, Janet and Bruce Karatz, Shelby and Shelley Sloan, Nancy and Dick Call, and Jimmy Galanos and Iris Cantor.

* Selwa (Lucky) Roosevelt, chief of protocol under former President Ronald Reagan, was honored by Kacey and Peter McCoy (Nancy Reagan’s White House administrative assistant) at a sumptuous alfresco dinner in Beverly Hills. The McCoy garden is adrift in masses of English lavender and fragrant with hillside flowers.

When Roosevelt (she got the nickname “Lucky” at Vassar, where she played bridge brilliantly) decided to attend “Encore! The Three Tenors” concert, the McCoys insisted on entertaining.

The widow of Archibald Roosevelt (a CIA spy and grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt), Lucky Roosevelt has written her autobiography, but is now, she says, obsessed with opera and is planning a book on it.

She’s off to England for the opera at Glyndebourne first. Chatting in the twilight before dinner at yellow-clothed tables around the pool was a genial mass: Pat and Patty Doheny; Patrick Doheny Jr.; Ned Doheny; Brazilian Ambassador Paolo Tarso de Lima and his wife, Lucia Flecha de Lima; Tom and Margaret Larkin; Guillermo Martinez; Susy and Michael Niven; Will and Libby Doheny; Frank Bolling; Mike and Hailey Dart; Norm and Susie Barker; Arden and Nancy Day, and Dick (home from China) and Gail Barrett.