Does He or Doesn't He?

President watchers have an eye for detail all their own. In the Jan. 17 issue of the New Republic, John Osborne accuses Richard Nixon of dyeing his hair. The tip-off supposedly came when Nixon appeared on a steamy night in Gulfport, Miss.; sweat, said Osborne, washed away the dye.

Only his barber knows for sure, and Steve Martini, who has been tending presidential locks for 18 years, is certain that Nixon has never tampered with his hair. He not only has Nixon's hair samples but has envelopes stuffed with presidential hair clippings dating back to Eisenhower. "The ones from the President's first haircut are the same as from the last," says Martini. Hirsutologists also suspected Lyndon Johnson, whose hair appeared to gray noticeably after he left office. Again Martini says no. Toward the end of his tenure, says the barber, L.B.J. was finally persuaded to give up not dye, but the "greasy kid stuff" that seemed to darken his hair. After all, what President would not want a little statesmanlike gray at the temples?

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