Twasn't the first time that a man got off a plane in Washington while his baggage flew on some place else, but in this case Van Cliburn, 33, had a concert to play. Having arrived too late to rent any formal duds, Cliburn phoned Lady Bird's press secretary Liz Carpenter, whose husband Leslie matches Cliburn's 6-ft. 4-in. height. Sorry, said Liz, Leslie's tails were at the tailors. "But I've just been talking to a tall man," she added. "If you can come to the White House you can have the best we have." The string-beany pianist zipped over and with the aid of L.BJ.'s valet found the more-than-ample presidential tails. "They look fine," said L.B.J. as Cliburn stopped by to thank him--and everybody at Constitution Hall thought so too.

"There just aren't any maharajahs left," sighed New York Diamond Merchant Harry Winston, 71. "I'm afraid there isn't a market for enormous diamonds." Winston has bought the 601-carat Lesotho diamond, the seventh-largest gem-quality diamond known, which was found last May on a tiny claim owned by Petrus Ramoboa, 38, in the South African kingdom of Lesotho. Ramoboa carried his stone 110 miles to the capital of Maseru, with government help sold it for $302,400 to a South African merchant. Winston, the third owner, called the Lesotho diamond "practically perfect," said he will cut it into about 20 stones selling for more than $1,000,000. As for Petrus Ramoboa, he has already gone out and bought himself a suit, three frying pans, and two new wives.

Summoned from her villa in Switzerland by a phone call from the Point Pleasant, N.J., chief of police, Oona O'Neill Chaplin, 42, returned to the U.S. to the bedside of her mother, Agnes Boulton O'Neill Kaufman, 76, who had been admitted to a hospital suffering from malnutrition. It was Oona's first trip home since she renounced her citizenship 15 years ago, after Charlie ran into visa trouble with the Attorney General on "moral" grounds. Denounced and disinherited by her late father, Playwright Eugene O'Neill, for marrying the 54-year-old Chaplin when she was 18, Oona has also been estranged from her mother, who was married to O'Neill from 1918 to 1928.

Detroit's Democratic Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, 39, is not having such a good year. Overwhelmed by last summer's race trouble, denounced as a public souse and womanizer, sued for separation by the mother of his eight children, Hizzoner has most recently been hit with a $100,000 damage suit by Mrs. Ruth O. Martin, 47, wife of his wife's brother. According to Mrs. Martin, she was visiting the mayoral mansion last July when Cavanagh "kicked and knocked the plaintiff against the furniture and onto the floor." Cavanagh's attorney said that the mayor "flatly, absolutely and categorically denied" roughing up his sister-in-law, pointed out thoughtfully that the mayor had fired Mrs. Martin's husband last June from a $14,203-a-year city job.

She was just a barefoot girl on Madison Avenue, yearning for her own ad agency, when she sweetied Braniff Airways into handing over its $6,500,000 advertising account in 1966. Since then, Mary Wells, 39, chief flag raiser at Wells, Rich, Greene, Inc., has zapped the buying public with a campaign for Braniff's rainbow-colored planes and Pucci-pantsed stewardesses, lured such other clients to her lair as Alka Seltzer, Benson & Hedges and American Motors. But most of all she wowed Braniff President Harding Lawrence, 47, who offered his hand to Mary after withdrawing it last year from his wife. Divorcee Wells has accepted, and the couple will be married next month.

It has been 16 years since Professional Gadfly William F. Buckley Jr., 41, wrote God and Man at Yale, and at last he has disclosed his choice for one of the parts. Buckley announced that he will run next spring as a petition candidate for the 18-man Yale Corporation, the university's governing body, in opposition to the corporation's own slate of candidates. "Somebody's got to protest the almost total absence of conservatives on the faculty," said Buckley, who ran as a Conservative for mayor of New York City in 1965. If he wins, Buckley will become the corporation's first elected Catholic and the only petition candidate to succeed other than New Haven Banker William Horowitz, 60, the corporation's only elected Jew, who won in 1965.

Front teeth newly recapped and visible behind a more or less constant smile, Frank Sinatra, 51, returned to the sidewalks of New York as . . . as a cop, for goodness' sake. All just pretend, of course, as affable Frank lazed around the 19th Precinct station house in pursuit of the title role of a movie called The Detective. Sinatra also made his first appearance as chairman of the American Italian Anti-Defamation League, which seeks to remove the stigma of gangsterism from the land that produced Dante, Michelangelo, Columbus, Mussolini and Capone. Nearly 20,000 fans turned out at Madison Square Garden for the Anti-Def rally, and the chairman played it with his usual style. He arrived in time to miss all the speeches, sang six old Italian ballads (I've Got You Under My Skin, Moonlight in Vermont), and beat it.

Competition for the America's Cup usually is a two-flag duel, with a lone challenger rising to face the U.S. every three years. Next time around, in 1970, the lineup for the right to challenge may resemble All the World's Fighting Fleets. Britain, France and Greece have already signaled battle, and now Australia's Sir Frank Packer, 60, has run up his flag, recommending that there be an elimination series of races among all challengers in Cup waters off Newport, R.I. The defending New York Yacht Club could do worse than take Sir Frank at his suggestion--and then stand back to watch the fun.

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