Plus for Pierre

In Saigon last week, Pierre Salinger was chatting affably with South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Khanh. Jack Kennedy's press secretary, now California's Democratic candidate for the Senate, was making an 18-nation world tour, courtesy of Look Magazine, and he was having a Look-see around Viet Nam. Suddenly an aide burst into the room to tell Pierre that Washington was calling. "It was the hot line from the White House," said Salinger afterward, telling him that California's Democratic Senator Clair Engle, 52, was dead of a cancerous brain tumor. Immediately Salinger broke off his visit and flew home.

The news itself was no shock; it had been expected. Engle had been bedridden much of the time since he under went surgery last August. The onetime cowpoke, amateur boxer and licensed pilot had served eight terms as Congressman from California's huge (53,-400 sq. mi.) Second District, had walloped ex-Governor Goodwin Knight by 600,000 votes in the 1958 race for the Senate, but had withdrawn this year because of his illness. That cleared the way for Salinger to make his successful primary bid.

This week Governor Pat Brown planned to appoint Salinger to fill the remaining five months of Engle's term. This would provide Pierre with a significant head start over G.O.P. Opponent George Murphy, the retired movie-man, and Pierre can use the help. Though he is still the heavy favorite, Salinger has identified himself as a champion of the controversial antidiscrimination Rumford Fair Housing Act. A current battle to repeal it has stirred such soaring passion in Califor nia that he could conceivably become the victim of a white protest vote. At any rate, Pierre would now be able to campaign as the incumbent, with three months of seniority to lay before the voters.

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