Daily News from New York, New York • 39

78 SUNDAY NEWS, MAY 13, 197S 1 Society Where But Rock Center For GOP Govs? By KIKI LEVATHES THERE WERE NO SPEECHES and no solicitations. And yet, when there are 15 governors in the same room, it becomes more than just a pleasant social gathering. The governors and their wives, here for the three-day Republican Governors Conference, were feted Thursday night at a dinner given by the New York State Governor's Club at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. Like Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's dinner Wednesday for the group at his Fifth Ave.

apartment and Friday night's dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the evening was clearly labeled "relaxation time." But for the governors there was no play. Image-building doesn't stop after 5. And, particularly for Rockefeller, this was an 18-hour day. The governors, for example, arrived for cocktails In the Rainbow Grill precisely at 7:15 pan. as if it were a business meeting.

They stumbled all over each other to be first in the receiving line, The other 300 guests, whom Gov. Linwood Holton introduced -later in the evening as a "representative group of New Yorkers involved In sports, business, theater, and communications," drifted In In the next hour. More ginger ale than Scotch was poured because, explained one politician, "you just can't drink at these political dinners. You never know what you might let slip or if youH be called upon to speak. I've seen a good career go out the window with a blithering, incoherent little dinner Som? did drink, but like gov.

Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, they were careful to hide their glasses in their laps if a photographer was around. THE WATERGATE SCANDAL was tha most undiscussed topic. After a day of practicing dodging reporters' question the governors and their wives were masters at changing the subject. Two of the evening's favorites were: "It's too bad it is so foggy tonight, I hear the view from here is lovely and "You know.

I'm so impressed with the group that is here tonight, I've met It was such a sensitive subject that Art Llnkletter and comedian Joey Adams, who spoke briefly after dinner, had a difficult time making the group laugh about it. "I got a call three weeks ago from the Governor's Club," said Linkletter, "and the first thing someone told me was that all the Republican governors are having an affair in New York City. "I said, 'Isn't the party in enough trouble There were just a few scattered laughs. After Adams' joke that "a statesman is a politician who hasn't gotten caught" didn't go over too well, he directed his barbs at his host. Gov.

Rockefeller. "The governor ha3 always treated little Nelson Jr. like a normal kid." said Adams. "For hi3 last birthday he got a set of blocks 51st 52d St, 53d St. As actress Julie Newmar and actor Dick Shawn discovered, there were mere applet than people at the first annual Big Apple Ball in the Four Seasons restaurant.

Charity Balls Are Alive and Well Many of the same people Jane Murchi-son, the Donald Stralems, the Charles Revsons, the William Fines, the Thomas Kempners reappeared at the Spring Dance for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on Wednesday at the Plaza for the benefit Thursday for Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. A reciprocal I'll support-your charity if you support mine arrangement works here. But, the biggest blow to our rumor monger who hopes for the demise of the charity balls was the flop of the first annual Big Apple Ball, an anticharity ball for the benefit of the New York Public Library, held Monday night at the Four Seasons restaurant. It was conceived by promoter Frank Crow-ther as a "giggle" a laugh at the traditional charity balls and its sponsors included such unorthodox benefactors as Richard Aurelio, Jules Feiffer, and restauranteur-philosopher Elaine Kaufman. There were, however, more apples floating in the pool In the main dinning room than people standing around it scarcely 50 third-string radical chic who looked doubtful that there should or ever would be a second annual Big Apple Ball.

Kiki Levathes SOMEONE STARTED A RUMOR last fall that charity balls had had it and that, like many of the debutante balls that have faded from the social scene, they would barely be able to pay for themselves this year. Last week, whoever it was, was surely eating his words. Four of the most prestigious balls were held and attendance and profits were never better. The Japanese Gala held Monday night at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, raised a staggering quarter of a million dollars for the Walde-mar Medical Research Foundation. Eleven hundred guests attended, and there were still 700 of New York's finest left to go to a Gala Evening With Bobby Short for the benefit of the Hospital for Special Surgery the same night at the Plaza.

SECRET SERVICE MEN are the new status symbol of charity balls and the Bobby Short evening had an entire dinner table full of them to look after Mamie Eisenhower and Govs. Charles Percy and Ronald Regan. The gala also had an unusually large contingent from Washington, including National Gallery Director Carter Brown and his wife, Connie, and Angler and Robin Biddle Duke. CI Elizabeth Weekes Wed to Henry Burden Weddings John Underwood, an early settler of ELIZABETH BLAX CHARD -1 FUTURE BRIDES MR. AND MRS.

JAMES T. BALDWIN of Old Brookville, L.I., have announced the engagement of their daughter, Barbara Brooke Baldwin, to John Francis Dowd, son of Dr. and Mrs. Robert J. Dowd of Hamden, Conn.

The future bride is a graduate student in marine biology at the Univer sity of Maine. She graduated from Mist Porter's School, Pine Manor Junior College and, in 1971, from Barnard College. She made her debut in 1967 at a dinner dance given in her honor by her parents at their home and was a mem-ber of the New York Junior Assemblies the same year. She is a member of the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York and is tha granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs.

George C. Heck and the late Mr. and Mrs. James Clark Tileston Baldwin. Her father is a retired Captain in the United States Naval Reserve.

Mr. Dowd has served in the Army i as a Special Forces captain and as an American adviser in Vietnam. He ex-! pects to graduate in June from the University of Maine with a degree in forestry science. His father is professor of psychology at Southern Connecticut State College. A June wedding is planned.

the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a distant relative of the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She Is the granddaughter of Mrs. David Dean Ranken of Wilmington, and the late Mr. Ranken and the late Mr. and Mrs.

Arthur Delano Weekes. Her father is with the investment firm of W.E. Hut-ton member of the New York Stock Exchange. Mrs. Burden graduated from the Westover School in Middlebury, and in 1971 from Colorado College.

She made her debut in 1968 at a dinner dance given by her parents at the Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley and was a member of the New York Junior Assemblies the same year. Mr. Burden is the great grandson of Henry Clay Frick, the steel manufacturer and art collector who established the Frick Museum here. He Is the grandson of the late Mr. and Mrs.

Childs Frick and the late Mr. and Mrs. I. Townsend Burden. His father is in the private investment business.

He attended the Green Yale School in Glen Head, L.I. and graduated from Portsmouth Priory Abbey in 1967 and from Colorado College in 1971. The couple will live in Indiana. WEEKES, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.

Townsend Underhill Weekes of Oyster Bay, L.I., and Henry Sheedy Burden, son of I. Townsend Burden of Locust Valley, L.I. and the late Mrs. Burden, were married yesterday afternoon on Long Island. The ceremony, at Christ Church In Oyster Bay, was performed by the Rev.

Hilary Martin assisted by the Rev. Robert Hollett. A reception followed at the home of the bride's parents. The bride wore her mother's ivory satin dress and her grandmother's rose-point lace veil. She was attended by Mrs.

Gregory Banus, who was the matron of honor; Frances Dixon Burden, of the bridegroom; Mrs. Townsend Burden 3d, sister-in-law of the bridegroom; Sarita R. Weekes and M. Tucker Ranken, cousins of the bride; Mrs. Jotham Traf-ton, cousin of the bridegroom, and Cornelia W.

Ritchie, Eugenia C. Sontag, and Sharon A. Griffith. Winthrop C. Lockwood was the best man.

Mrs. Burden is a descendant of Capt. 1 tn Si v- IP vi 5 i Mrs. Henry Burden former Elizabeth Weekec.