One of the greatest collections of modern paintings has been jealously guarded from Western eyes for 50 years by the Soviet Union. Now 41 of these masterpieces from the Hermitage in Leningrad and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow are coming on loan to the U.S., thanks to Oilman Dr. Armand Hammer, currently involved in a variety of business negotiations with the Kremlin. Hammer happens to be part owner of the prestigious Knoedler gallery in New York City, where the pictures will go on display in May after they have been exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. All told, the exhibition of paintings has never been evaluated for worth but is insured for $25 million. It includes seven Matisses, seven Gauguins, six Picassos, five Cezannes, three Van Goghs, and a dash of Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Derain, Pissarro, Sisley, Braque, Vlaminck, and Leger. Delighted by the scoop, the National Gallery's director, Carter Brown, said, "Russian collectors bought the canvases right off the studio walls and got their pick of the best." Came the Revolution, it was the Kremlin that got the pick of the best right off the collectors' walls.

Giving up her Senate seat but not her Washington residence, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine decided that it was time to let the folks back home know what she thought about her defeat last November. "The first thing to clear up is that I'm not a hermit hiding away in a hovel licking my wounds," she announced in an interview in the Maine Sunday Telegram. "Only one thing really hurts. I still think about my home town, Skowhegan, where I was born, worked, and grew up, voting against me. That hurts and there's no use pretending it doesn't." Mrs. Smith allowed as how she was not planning to return to Skowhegan in the immediate future.

Can a guy get by with nothing but his looks on a best-dressed list? Apparently. Burt Reynolds, who appeared draped on a bearskin for a much talked-about Cosmopolitan centerfold, has been named to a list of best-dressed men, along with Edward Finch Cox and George McGovern. The Fashion Foundation of America explained its choice by saying that Reynolds was part of a trend toward "undress."

"The typewriter will go." With that, Georges Simenon, 70, announced his retirement after 212 books written under his own name, including 80 about Maigret the supersleuth. All told, more than 300 million copies of Simenon books have been printed, including translations into 47 languages. "I realized that for the last 50 years I have been living the lives of my book characters. Now, all of a sudden, I want to live my own life. I have delivered myself and feel happy and completely serene." Readers will be happy that Maigret, a vague 55, is not quite ready to retire. Maigret and the Informer, the latest Simenon in English, will be published next month.

Gossip abhors a vacuum. Settled down in a duplex apartment in Manhattan's West Village, John Lennon and Yoko Ono have been trying to escape the public eye, but the gossip mills keep grinding out their names. Yoko admitted to Women's Wear Daily that being married to a reformed Beatle may not be all sweetness and light, but she complains, "It upsets me when I hear rumors that we are getting a divorce. People look forward to it the way they did our marriage."

Norman Mailer, his curly locks now a steely gray, decided to celebrate his 50th birthday by making an "announcement of national importance." To round up a proper audience, Mailer invited his friends, 600 or so of whom showed up, including such buddies as Senator Eugene McCarthy, Andy Warhol, Lily Tomlin, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Director Bernardo Bertolucci. Each paid $30 (or $50 a couple) for the honor of greeting Mailer at Manhattan's Four Seasons. The surprise announcement, delivered at midnight--to the accompaniment of much applause, boos and plain incredulity--was Mailer's proposal to form what he called "the Fifth Estate, a people's FBI and CIA to investigate those two...a democratic secret police to keep tabs on the bureaucratic secret police. We're going to find out just how far our paranoia is justified." He went on further to explain that the Fifth Estate might operate much like Nader's Raiders or the American Civil Liberties Union. He added that the proposal was "the best political idea I've had in my life." Standing by as her son made his announcement was Mailer's beaming mother, who happily noted: "This was the second largest birthday party for Norman. The other was his bar mitzvah in 1936."

Except that it was for real, the gathering of the clan for Singer Jim Bailey's splashy opening at the Waldorf had all the makings of a new family TV sitcom series. Liza Minnelli and Half Sister Lorna Luft showed up to see Female Impressionist Jim do his takeoffs of Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and other women performers. Liza is so impressed with Jim's Judy that she sometimes joins him onstage for a mother-and-daughter act; offstage she is going steady with Desi Arnaz Jr., whose sister Lucie Arnaz Jr. is going steady with Jim.

It doesn't always pay to kiss and tell.

Or so Xaviera Hollander, the shady lady author of the bestselling The Happy Hooker, is learning. Her book is a vivid account of how she became one of Manhattan's highest-paid call girls. Some federal taxmen apparently were among her readers and now Xaviera is being billed for $93,544 in back taxes. The IRS began its demand letter: "Dear Madam: It has been determined that you realized gross receipts from your profession of $120,577..."

"I put about 500 more miles on my legs this year than on my Vega." Not surprisingly, Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin easily jogged off with the title of National Honorary Physical Fitness Chairman of the Amateur Athletic Union. Looking younger than his 57 years since he underwent hair transplants, Proxmire gave a little demonstration of his fitness. With Senator Mike Mansfield timing him, Proxmire fell to the floor and did 75 push ups in 59 seconds. At the finish, obviously pleased by his performance, Proxmire was red in the face but not winded. As he slipped his official A.A.U. sweatshirt over his head, Proxmire quipped, "I hope I don't pull out any of my hair transplants."

Bridget may love Bernie, but Jewish groups are charging that the hit TV series "mocks the teachings of Judaism" by suggesting that intermarriage between Jews and Christians is desirable. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, director of the Commission for Interfaith Activities, complained that, "the program treats intermarriage in a cavalier, cute, condoning fashion, and deals with its inevitable problems as though they're instantly, easily solvable." Worried by threats of economic boycotts against the show's sponsors, CBS officials could only point out that intermarriage was essential to Bridget Loves Bernie's plot; to rule it out would spell the end of the show. That prospect hardly seemed to strike the critics as tragic.

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