In his new style as the real Lyndon Johnson, the President of the U.S. stood up again last week at a Washington dinner, where Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen was presented with the William J. Donovan Medal by veterans of the wartime Office of Strategic Services. "I heard that many members of Congress would be here tonight," Lyndon deadpanned, "and I thought I would honor an old OSS tradition by dropping in behind the enemy lines. The man you honor tonight is often accused of being my fifth column on the Hill. I want all of you to know that Everett Dirksen is the only column I haven't complained about all year long." Then he took an ingratiating shot at himself: "The OSS was a very small and inconspicuous and incredibly brave elite. They remind me very much of my own followers."

Frank Sinatra, 51, met Sammy Davis Jr., 41, for a few drinks at Frascati's Restaurant in Beverly Hills, and the boys got to talking about their unhappy marriages. Before the week was out, their pressagents were jawing about it too: Frank and Mia Farrow, 22, are separating after 16 months of childless marriage; Sammy and May Britt, 31, are washed up after seven years and three children, two of them adopted.

Every dancer needs a claque, and Rudolf Nureyev, 29, commands a classier grade of palm beater than most. For the opening in Stockholm of the Swedish Royal Opera Company's Nutcracker Suite, which he choreographed, Rudi invited Lee Radziwill, 34, to fly over from London to admire his work. She applauded so well that he spirited her off to Monaco for a gala chez Princess Grace. Not content with two performances at the Monte Carlo Opera, Rudi fetched Lee onto the floor at the Black Jack Club for what was probably his first pas de deux anywhere in a fur Mao Tse-tung jacket. "Rudolf dances almost as well in private as he does onstage," Lee marveled.

That odd bit of sculpture in the corner--does it look sort of like a mashed motorcycle? Could be, if it's the work of Washington's newest artistic giant, Karl Hess, 44. Only three years ago, Hess was expressing himself in a different medium as Barry Goldwater's chief speechwriter. After the campaign, though, he fell into such malodor that he could not land a job even as a Capitol Hill elevator operator. He took up motorcycle racing as a diversion, then began studying welding so that he could repair his own wrecked bikes. Sculpture being what it is these days, it was just a few twists from the machine shop to an eye-riveting exhibition of welded sculpture at Georgetown's Volta Place Gallery, where Hess sold a dozen pieces opening week at prices ranging from $75 to $1,500. "It's really bailing me out," said the artist. "I seem to be pretty much unemployable."

White thatch bobbing like an anchor buoy, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, 69, strode off into the middle of another conservation fight--this one to save Kentucky's Red River Gorge from the Army Corps of Engineers, which proposed to dam up the river at that point. The Justice led 300 lung-sprung hikers on a brisk five-mile walk through the superscenic gorge, which he called "one of the great wonders of America." Only marcher not left pooped in Douglas' wake was his 24-year-old fourth wife Cathy, who skipped on ahead explaining "I used to be a tomboy before I came to Washington and became a lady." Not to be outmaneuvered, hundreds of local residents met the Justice with a sign-waving, DAM-the-gorge demonstration of their own, arguing that the Red River's visual splendor was small consolation for the havoc of its yearly flooding.

Hobie Landrith, the only big-league catcher to get clouted by a bat three times in one year; Choo Choo Coleman, second worst catcher in baseball; and Marvelous Marv Throneberry, who did his first-base fielding with his feet: these are the sorts of names that ring bells for the spelunkers who follow the fortunes of the subterranean New York Mets. Just once in the club's eight-year history has a Met been voted onto the National League All-Star team's starting lineup, and he--Second Baseman Ron Hunt--was traded away two seasons later. Now the shmoos of Shea Stadium have another bona fide hero to contend with: Pitcher Tom Seaver, 23, a muscular righthander who has been selected the league's Rookie of the Year after winning 16 games, losing 13, finishing 18 complete games, striking out 170, and, like a good Met, serving up 19 home-run balls.

"The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion," said Abe Lincoln, and Astronaut-turned-Aquanaut Scott Carpenter, 42, couldn't have agreed more. There he was in tails onstage at Houston's Jesse H. Jones Hall, reciting the narration for Aaron Copland's orchestral suite, Lincoln Portrait, to an audience of 2,800 while Conductor Andre Previn semaphored from the podium and the 90 members of the Houston Symphony sounded off behind him. Carpenter admitted talking himself into the fix one night at dinner with Previn, who "seemed to detect some interest in the symphony on my part and asked if I'd be interested in doing a narration." Though he had not performed on terra firma since high school, Carpenter gamely narrated his way to a standing ovation from worshippers. "He was absolutely ideal," glowed Previn, noting that in Copland's own directions "the speaker is cautioned against undue emphasis and added 'emotion.' "

One blonde girl wept at the entrance because she had forgotten to register for a fall course in urban problems at Manhattan's New School for Social Research. Her interest in the plight of the cities was almost as touching as her determination to sit at the feet of the New School's newest lecturer, Conservative Spokesman William F. Buckley Jr., 42. Though urbanity flowed like sarsaparilla, Buckley never did get around to talking about the cities in his first class. Instead, he led his enraptured students through a 90-minute recitative of conservative epigrams, to wit: "The main function of the state--perhaps the only one--is the maintenance of a stable currency."

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