Seems the Nixon Library Is Solidly Booked

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will be named the 1996 Architect of Peace at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation award gala April 22 at the Century Plaza. Honorary chairs Pete and Gayle Wilson will join last year’s recipient duo of Architects of Peace--former Ambassador to England Walter H. Annenberg and his wife Lee--in the festivities. David and Julie Eisenhower and Patricia and Edward Cox are expected to attend.

At the library, activities have been nonstop. There have been speeches from Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes and Sen. Robert Dole. Wednesday, designer Arnold Scaasi lectures on “Dressing the First Lady.” (Ones he’s dressed include Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson and Barbara Bush.) And on May 8, fashion celebrity Albert Capraro will continue the first lady fashion luncheon series. He’s a Betty Ford favorite. Herbert Kasper lectures May 21 and bridal designer Priscilla Kidder on June 12. Other visitors: Marilyn Quayle spoke on her new book and former Vice President Dan Quayle will appear June 13. Whew!

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Fluctuating: With its last breath, First Interstate underwrote the Blue Ribbon financial seminar to be held Tuesday at the Music Center. Planned by Blue Ribbon President Phyllis Hennigan and co-chairwomen Susie Barker and Carrie Ketchum, the program will feature a panel of financial planners, management and investment experts will tell all on issues pertinent to women--securities markets, researching the stock market, mutual funds, investment strategies. Speakers will include Donnalisa Barnum, vice president of Capital Guardian Trust Co.; Annemarie Eckhardt, director of Nasdaq Market Services; Leslie Vermut, president, Weinberger Asset Management Inc.; and Alison Winter, president and CEO of Northern Trust Bank of California. KABC-TV’s Lisa McRee will be keynoter. Laura Siart and Gretchen Willison, whose husbands were president and executive vice president of First Interstate before its demise, are both on the committee.

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It’s Spring: The Floriade IV at Banning Residence Museum is guaranteed to be a four-day (April 24-27) floral experience of unparalleled designs--a flower show with lectures and speakers considering the importance of conservation and preservation in Southern California’s fragile environment. Lyn Miller heads the event. Lynn Brengel is planning the gala preview. Nationwide gardening authorities are booked.

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Circle Red: Public Counsel will honor former Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee with its William O. Douglas Award at a dinner Thursday at the Century Plaza. Previous recipients have included U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, California Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk, the late author Alex Haley, and Morris Dees, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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Laureates: This is the 70th year of the Caltech Associates (who raised more than $10 million last year), and the group certainly has fewer problems finding top-notch speakers than most others we know. That’s because Caltech is fortunate to have 23 Nobel Prize winners. The latest recipient, Professor Edward B. Lewis, took the Nobel “throne” recently at the Associates’ always-interesting evening and discussed his field, genetics, and his fruit fly studies. He showed a video of the prize ceremony in Stockholm, where he was accompanied by his wife, Pamela.

Caltech President Tom Everhart and his wife, Doris, were at the helm at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington with Bill and Inez Pickering. (He won the Japan Prize last year and has donated most of it to Caltech for scholarships.) Also there were Associates President Carl Larson and his wife, Shirley, Amnon Yariv and his wife, Fran. He is the electrical engineering and applied physics professor known as the father of fiber optics. He shared the Harvey Prize in Israel last year with Mikhail Gorbachev--Yariv for science, Gorbachev for peace.

Attentive listeners included George and Marilyn Brumder, Norman Clement, Henry Keck, Ron and Jane Olson, Roy Tolles, James Ludlam and Frank Whiting.

Elsewhere on the Social Circuit

Isn’t it OK for our busy mayor to take a few days of choice R&R;? Mayor Richard Riordan and Nancy Daly went to Sun Valley and took ice skating lessons from professionals Anita Hartog and Frank Sweiding.

* California First Lady Gayle Wilson will speak at the UCLA Medical Center Auxiliary’s spring luncheon April 30. Proceeds will help children with heart ailments attend Catalina Island’s Camp Del Corazon.

* American-born Nan Legeai, chairwoman and CEO of the French fashion house Celine, was star of the celebration of Celine’s new boutique on Rodeo Drive. Later she hosted dinner at L’Orangerie to salute the Princess Grace Foundation, USA and foundation trustees Bernard Combemale and Barbara Cohen, who attended with husband Richard. Among notables: Dina Merrill Hartley and her husband, Ted, Nancy and Thomas Vreeland, Tova Borgnine, Toni Webb, Dona and Dwight Kendall, Frederika Roeder, Narcissa Vanderlip, Joni and Clark Smith, Juli and John Miller and the boutique manager Elyse Reichman . . . Kathleen Verratti and Marilyn Rudley chaired the National Arts Assn. Neiman Marcus luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel . . . Nordstrom at Glendale Galleria hosted the elegant evening to kick off the 70th anniversary year of Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center. Co-chairing: Debbie Borini, Patricia Crouch, Judee Kendall and Lina Seaver . . . South Bay Panhellenic Assn. raised “Dollars for Scholars” at its 29th annual benefit luncheon in San Pedro.

* More than 1,300 supporters of the Latin Business Assn. celebrated a milestone 20th anniversary at a black-tie gala at the Century Plaza. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros was keynote speaker. The event headed by Hector Barreto netted more than $400,000.

* More plaudits: To Alain Teitelbaum, appointed president of Comite Colbert by Dominique Heriard Dubreuil, worldwide chairman of the prominent French luxury products industry group . . . To John W. Weekly, recipient of the John Wayne Cancer Institute Auxiliary’s “Duke” Award at the Odyssey Ball at the Century Plaza . . . To Friends of Child Advocates, raising $120,000 at a gala attended by 425 and chaired by Jacquie Dolan and Joan MacLaughlin.

* Mary Lou Loper’s column is published Sundays.