Above the clink of crystal goblets and the beat of a twist tune wafted
shreds and snippets of conversation. “Looks like Pierre made a party on
the way.” “No, darling, these models don't have a thing on underneath.
They don't have anything to hide.” “Look at Ethel go! Where does she
get the energy?” “Look, McCone is actually smiling!” “I would love to
see Allen Dulles twist.” Floating among the crowd of 300
smartly-dressed people was the hostess, a tawny blonde, her hair
bouffant, her gown a new Cardin, her perfume by Dior. At 1:30 a.m. her
husband, Herv Alphand, 56, the French Ambassador to the U.S.,
disappeared into an elevator on his way to bed. By 3:30 a.m. the last
guests had departed, and Nicole Alphand, surveying all the bereft
buffet trays and empty champagne bottles, smiled. It had been a good
party. The Merry-Go-Round. Giving good, and sometimes superb, parties is the
most important thing in Nicole Alphand's life. It sounds like a
frivolous occupation, but her husband often gets more done in ten
minutes of quiet conversation at one of Nicole's dinners than in a day
of shuffling papers. For in Washington the dinner table is merely an
after-hours extension of the office desk, and at 5 p.m., when the
lights wink off in thousands of offices all over town, the working day
is only half over. Then the Senators and socialites, the diplomats and
department heads begin to flow in a river of limousines toward the
mansions on Foxhall Road, the shuttered houses of Georgetown and the
row of embassies along Massachusetts Avenue. From September to May, there are roughly 200 official parties a month in
Washington, perhaps 20 times as many private ones. “During this
season,” says one diplomat, “there is hardly time between gulps of
champagne and mouthfuls of canapes to think of anything but your feet,
your stomach and your head” —and all three ache. Keeping the merry-go-round whirling are the city's hostesses. There are
dozens of them, ranging from the First Lady down to the newest Texas
millionairess, who figures all she needs to succeed is a wad of money
and a big house, just like Dolly Harrison in Advise and Consent. But on
the New Frontier, where talent and power are the most negotiable
currency, the moneyed matrons are out and the “official” hostesses—the
wives of ambassadors and Administration officials—are in. Short of a
summons to dinner at the White House, few invitations are treasured as
highly as those to 2221 Kalorama Road, N.W., site of the grey stone,
Tudor-style French embassy and home of Nicole Alphand. The Power Play. She is, says one New Frontiersman, “a truly amazing
woman, one of the rare hostesses who know how to combine fun with the
power play.” At 46, her skin has been lightly bronzed by the sun of Bar
Harbor summers and Palm Beach winters. She is 5 ft. 8 in., scarcely an
inch shorter than her husband. Her hair, rinsed a soft honey blonde,
frames an angular face with high cheekbones. Long, curling lashes
fringe blue eyes with just a touch of green in them. Her mouth is
wide—too wide—but when she smiles or contorts it in the often losing
battle with an English phrase, it is her most arresting feature.
