"You meet the strangest people in Lyndon's bedroom." That is the intriguing first sentence of a chapter in Lady Bird Johnson's still unfinished memoirs. How did that get out? L.B.J. himself gleefully quoted from his wife's journal during his recent trip to Washington and then could not resist reciting the remainder of the anecdote: "I was awakened very early by voices. Sleepily I got up and put on my robe to go and see who Lyndon had in there at that hour. I was absolutely astonished to find"--and here the storytelling ex-President paused for effect--"Richard Nixon."

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"An aristocracy would do well here, much better than it is doing in my country," observed British Novelist and M.P. Maurice Edelman on a visit to the U.S. The author of All on a Summer's Night went on to offer some puckish notions as to how an American aristocracy might be titled. First minister in the court of King Richard would be Spiro, Duke of Maryland; then would come such lesser dignitaries as Knight of the Garter Henry Kissinger and Companion of Honor Bebe Rebozo. In the Midwest, it would be Earl Humphrey of Minnesota. And in the Southwest, the vast estates of Earl Pedernales and Lady Pedernales--"Not," Edelman cautioned, "Lady Lady Bird."

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As the lanky visitor sat barefoot on a straw mat in a Kyoto restaurant, eating raw fish with chopsticks, he was approached by a comely geisha who offered to rub his tired back. With great aplomb, Britain's Prince Charles doffed his jacket and accepted a brisk massage, then responded with a heartfelt "Arigato [thank you]."

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"This is heartbreaking," said Student Paloma Picasso, 21, after a French court refused to recognize her brother Claude as Painter Pablo Picasso's legal heir. Since both Claude and Paloma are children of Picasso's former mistress, Franc,oise Gilot, the decision seemed to rule out any chance that Paloma might eventually share fully in her father's vast fortune. But it did not leave her entirely without assets.

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Upstaged by a nearby campus uprising and the Apollo 13 crisis, Jane Fonda got little local press coverage during her 36-hour "fast for peace" in Denver. But she was hardly ignored. Tourists and construction workers thronged around her and gaped at her skin-tight jeans and sweater as she camped out in a downtown square. Even Governor John Love dropped by for an amiable chat. Next day, her passive protest ended, Jane was back in action at Denver's Federal Tower Building, where she urged young antiwar demonstrators: "Be cool but don't give your bodies for cannon fodder."

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Asked by TV Interviewer David Frost to name his heroes, Black Militant Stokely Carmichael listed the late Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba, Black Panther Huey P. Newton, who was convicted of shooting a policeman, Black Muslim Leader Malcolm X, who was assassinated, and the former President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. And what about whites? "I couldn't say who was my hero," said Carmichael, in Manhattan after a 14-month African exile. "But if you could ask me who I think was the greatest white man--" "Who was that?" asked Frost. "I would think Adolf Hitler," said Stokely impulsively. As the audience gasped, booed and jeered, he quickly added, "When you talk about greatness, you don't put ethical or moral judgments on them."

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Something about the poses and expressions suggested Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. But the photo actually showed a live actor, Stacy Keach, sitting in a real electric chair, and his producerdirector, Jack Smight, making a film called The Traveling Executioner on location at Kilby Prison near Montgomery, Ala. The third figure was merely a familiar passerby: George Wallace.

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Inspired, perhaps, by the recent activities of Attorney General John Mitchell's wife Martha, Mrs. John Bell Williams went before the TV cameras in Jackson, Miss., to solicit funds for mental-health programs. "As wife of your Governor," she began, "I am constantly aware of the need for this help."

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The film Viva Max!, a political satire in which contemporary Mexicans recapture the Alamo, caused a stir when American Airlines chose to show it on an L.A.-Washington flight carrying Comedian and Superpatriot George Jessel. After vainly trying to persuade the crew to shut down the projector, Jessel promised to complain to the FAA and the airline president, then closed his eyes during the remainder of the movie.

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In its efforts to fight the air controllers' "sick-out" strikes, the Federal Aviation Administration investigated the controllers' attorney, F. Lee Bailey, and now claims--though no one at the FAA went so far as to talk to Bailey--that he is a lot sicker than the men he defended for staying home. In a dossier compiled for the FAA, Government psychiatrists labeled the famous criminal lawyer "dangerous" and "irresponsible." "He collects heads," said one. "He's a young rebel, a David. His role in life is to slay Goliaths." Bailey sprang to the counter-analysis. "General paranoia," he concluded. "If they said I was dangerous and irresponsible, they better prepare to defend it."

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