Throat Cancer

The confirmation came Tuesday, the day before the NBA draft. Walt Williams Sr. Throat cancer. "I was like, 'Oh my god,' " Theresa Williams was saying Wednesday night. "But then they explained it to me. It didn't sound as bad." The doctors got most of the tumor. Chemotherapy should take care of the rest. Walt Sr. will survive, but on the biggest night of his son's life, he was lying in a hospital bed.

Two men, both held hostage in Lebanon. Two men, now free, dealing with their ordeal in different ways. Robert Polhill, released after three years, hasn't lost his sense of humor, despite his battle with throat cancer. Frank Reed, held 44 months in blindfolds and bonds, is trying to find his place in the world. For both men, life is starting over. If ever a man has had his sense of humor put to the test, it's Robert Polhill.

Singer Mary Wells, best known for such exhilarating '60s Motown hits as "My Guy" and "The One Who Really Loves You," was seething with frustration because she's having trouble getting her point across--once again. Communicating is now difficult for the veteran performer because a recent tracheotomy robbed her--at least temporarily--of her power of speech.

Mao Tse-tung's widow, Jiang Qing, has throat cancer but is refusing an operation because it would leave her voiceless, a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong reported Saturday. Jiang, 74, was last seen in public Jan. 25, 1981, when a show trial ended and she was removed screaming from a Beijing courtroom, shouting revolutionary slogans and cursing her judges and China's current leaders as "fascists, renegades, traitors."

A deadly form of throat cancer that afflicts people in southern China may be caused in part by two types of plants commonly used in herbal folk medicines, scientists say. The disease, nasopharyngeal cancer, is known to be associated with the Epstein-Barr virus. But scientists said last week that there is new research indicating that chemicals found in both types of plants promote the growth of the deadly tumors.

A government official Wednesday denied a report in a provincial newspaper this week that the imprisoned widow of Mao Tse-tung is seriously ill. "The story that Jiang Qing has contracted throat cancer and she is in critical condition is unfounded," said Wang Jingrong, spokesman for the Public Security Ministry. "She is still serving her term and is in normal health, although owing to old age she is weak."

President Reagan hailed the late Rudy Vallee on Friday as "an American institution." "A talented and creative pioneer in music, he delighted us all with his trademark raccoon coat and megaphone," Reagan said in a statement issued by White House spokesman Larry Speakes. Vallee died Thursday night in Hollywood at age 84. He had been ill with throat cancer and had suffered a slight stroke when in the hospital.

They will call it the Amyx Collection someday. That is what Raleigh DeGeer Amyx--collector, salesman and seeker of a niche in history--hopes, anyway. They will pass quietly from showcase to showcase, pausing at John F. Kennedy's eyeglasses, their stems slightly chewed at the tips. They will step to the framed display of John John's monogrammed silk baby shorts. They will strain to see the golf shoe cleat marks in the piece of tile from Ike's Oval Office.