Frequently a bone-crushing, ego-bruising boss and companion, the late President Lyndon Johnson was at his most magnetic and charming with women. Over the years, followers of the Johnson career noted how he enjoyed flirting with, among others, the irrepressible Barbara Howar, Actress Merle Oberon, and White House Journalist Marianne Means. Questioned on the Today Show last week by Barbara Walters, his widow Lady Bird, 61, did not deny Lyndon had been a ladies' man. "Lyndon was a people lover," she said, "and that did not exclude half the people in the world —women. Oh, I think perhaps there was a time or two ..." Mrs. Johnson did not finish that sentence, but her next illustrated why their own relationship had been such a durable one: "If all those ladies had some good points that I didn't have, I hope I had the good sense to try and learn a little bit by it."
Despite the shivers it gives his insurance company, Actor Paul Newman, 49, will not kick speed. As for his family's feelings: "They love it," says Paul. Since making the 1969 auto-racing movie Winning, Newman has raced "as often as anyone asks me" on amateur cc circuits, but without much success. In October he escaped injury when his souped-up Datsun slammed into a bank during a practice run. He was unlucky in the recent Daytona races; his car overheated in the seventh lap. But Paul is relaxed about his record: "Someone said to me, why don't you enter at Daytona. and I said, why not? I'm a very whimsical person."
The White House waved its wand last week—and overnight former Vice President Spiro Agnew was left defenseless in Frank Sinatra's compound in Palm Springs. Finally knuckling under to congressional pressure, GAO rulings and public criticism of the nearly $200,000 spent on Agnew's protection since he resigned in October, the White House withdrew not only his Secret Service guards but his car and chauffeur too. Still, Agnew's trip to Palm Springs had a positive side. He sold his novel, A Very Special Relationship, to Playboy Press for "more than $50,000." The book centers round a liberal Vice President in the Washington of 1983 who becomes entangled with a tough, sexy Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. So far, Agnew has turned out 15 pages, plus six pages each of outline and character sketches. Calling him a "good natural writer," Agnew's agent Scott Meredith explained that Playboy Press had been chosen because "it is the voice of the rebellious young." He neglected to add that several other publishers had turned the former Vice President down flat.