PEOPLE

"Tennis court or Congress, a man in Washington has to be on his toes," observed Texas Congressman George Bush (above, right), playing tennis with Postmaster General Winton Blount on the White House court. Bush's father, Prescott Bush, a former Senator from Connecticut, was once the USGA president and at the age of 74 still shoots golf in the low 80s; his uncle, Joe Wear, was a captain of the Davis Cup team and his grandfather, George Herbert Walker, also a onetime USGA president, was the donor of the Walker Cup. Congressman Bush upholds all this sporty tradition and is an excellent athlete himself, but this particular match was not his finest hour. "Don't form and grace count for anything?" he asked, viewing the photograph. No. He and Postmaster Blount lost.

They are pressed for press space in the White House and word is out that President Nixon is considering covering over the presidential swimming pool. Completed in 1933, the pool was a gift to President Roosevelt from hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, who contributed their pennies. It was most extensively used by Roosevelt and Kennedy, for whom it was a therapeutic boon, but Truman and Johnson enjoyed sloshing about in it, and Eisenhower liked watching his grandchildren swim. Nixon, of course, is a saltwater man himself, and the press does need more room, but however sound the idea, the Administration will undoubtedly have to finance the conversion—children may be more sophisticated today, but mail in enough pennies to build a press room?

"I didn't see a penny of these checks," said the young horsewoman of two prizes she had won, the checks having been made out to her mother. "Checks are always made out to the owner [of the horse] to protect the rider's amateur status," said a spokesman for the bank that issued them—explaining why Queen Elizabeth, and not Princess Anne, was some $19 richer.

Ozzie Nelson played football for Rutgers some years ago, which is one reason he was invited to introduce the team captains during halftime at the Princeton-Rutgers game celebrating college football's centennial. One reason he accepted, claims wife Harriet, "was that he wanted to spike rumors that he played in the first game."

Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Gene Rossides is head of the massive attempt to stop the smuggling of drugs from Mexico, a campaign called Operation Intercept. Since Rossides was an outstanding quarterback at Columbia (1945-48), presumably the idea is that the best defense is a good offense.

Senator Goldwater, a flying enthusiast of long standing, recently received the National Aviation Club's Award for Achievement and remarked, at the close of his acceptance speech, "I like airplanes and aviation. They're like sex, and I'll be after them both as long as I can." Evidently his yonder remains wild and blue.

"I used to sit at home and let my stomach grow," announced Ingemar Johansson, now 37, "but my divorce from Birgit has transformed me!" Well, it hasn't transformed him quite enough. Even Ingo admits that his present 260 pounds are some 50 too many for serious contention in the boxing rings of Europe, and he is currently sweating out 10 to 15 hard sparring rounds every day. "Three months more and Ingo will mop up the floor with the European champ," says his trainer, Nisse Blomberg, but Ingemar is somewhat more vague. "I have a yen to box again," he says, "now that I don't have a housewife to keep me from doing it."

In the latest issue of the Horsemen's Journal, Al Wesson, who used to be the publicist for Hollywood Park, tells of asking racing fan Cary Grant why he had never bought a racehorse. Replied Grant, "I might have." Some time ago, he explained, "Howard Hawks, who raised and raced horses, kept bugging me to buy a horse or two and race my own. One day he told me that he had cut me and another friend in on a racehorse. Pretty soon I was getting these bills for one-third of shoeing, veterinarians, medicines, training, hay, special water, all kinds of stuff I'd never heard of. I paid the bills, but never saw the horse, didn't know its name, its sex—if any—or if it ever ran. Finally I asked this other fellow, 'Did we really go in on a horse with Howard?' He said he thought so—one evening at a party where we three were together. But he was a bit hazy and wasn't any more sure than I. He said there might have been a little drinking at the time. They sometimes do that at parties, you know. So that's my career in the horse business. Was I or was I not ever in it? You tell me."

O.J. Simpson is now observing, "I just can't believe what the Government takes out of your pay. I paid the Government more in one check last week than I made all last year!" Well, he can't blame that on Ralph Wilson. The Bills' president was perfectly willing to help O.J. stay out of his new tax bracket.

TWO PHOTOS