"There I was, mushing around in the Central Highlands counting Viet Cong dead," said the paratroop captain. "I was the grubbiest man alive. Bad. Really bad. After two days of no sleep I went back to camp and sacked out on an air mattress in the mud." Then came a voice telling him to get up and go to Saigon to take care of Miss America. Not bad for a dream. Even better as the real McCoy. So U.S. Army Captain Frank Lennon, 25, a West Pointer and a gentleman, scraped off the mud and flew to Saigon to act as official escort for Jane Anne Jayroe, 20, the current Miss America, and five former state beauty queens arriving for a 17-day tour of Viet Nam. And how came Lennon by this boondoggle? He just wrote a letter to the Army's p.i. officer, mentioning that he knew one of the girls (which was roughly true) and offering his humble services.

On a promotion tour of Brazil, French Couturier Pierre Cardin, 45, recklessly denied that high fashion makes any impression on the enamored eye. "For a man, the woman he desires is always in style," said he, "and it's not necessary for her to be dressed up to be loved. For a woman to be loved, she usually ought to be naked."

About 15,000 people were gathered on the grounds of the Washington Monument, and they all laughed when Joan Baez, 26, hefted her guitar and said, "I would like very much to thank the Daughters of the American Revolution for all the publicity." Joanie really did owe the poor dears of the D.A.R. a vote of thanks--for stumbling over her boobytrap. It seems that Joan had determined as long ago as May that the D.A.R. would refuse permission for her to use its 3,800-seat Convention Hall for a folk-singing peace-in, had quietly arranged with the Interior Department to give her concert at the Washington Monument. Then, two days before the concert, she popped the announcement that the D.A.R. had barred her, sat back to greet the sympathetic throngs. "I'm dedicating my first number to the D.A.R.," she said onstage, "and all those I really need."

His grandfather left him a fortune of several hundred million dollars, but play no glad ragas for Nawab Mir Barkat AH Khan, 34, Nizam of Hyderabad. The legacy also included a household staff of 14,000 hungry souls, and an accounting system so lax, says the Nizam, that "every restaurant in the vicinity was being secretly supplied with food from my grandfather's kitchens." So now he has slashed his staff to a bareboned 2,000, which touched off a protest march by 500 of the dismissed employees. There was nothing else to do: the Indian government has sliced his annual privy purse from $667,000 to $266,000, and inheritance taxes have cut into his estate. But life does have a bright side. The new Nizam is an auto buff, and in the royal garage are 56 cars, only four of which work. "I inherited a scrapyard," the princely grease monkey says happily. "I have a lifetime's work before me."

At the ripe old age of 44, Air Force Colonel Robin Olds really should not be flying anything hotter than Charlie Brown's kite, but with four kills in his F-4C Phantom, he is the leading combat pilot of the Viet Nam air war (TIME, June 2). Now the Air Force has finally found a way to keep him down on the ground with the other old folks. The 1943 West Point graduate and World War II ace (twelve German planes) has been named commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, effective Dec. 1.

No one would blame West German Foreign Minister Willy Brandt, 53, if he decided that someone up there doesn't like him. Five times in the past five weeks a plane carrying the Socialist leader has been stung by gremlins--once on takeoff when a Convair's generator started pouring smoke; again when a bomb was reported (falsely) on his chartered executive jet; again when the same plane was broken into and the crew suspected sabotage; again when part of an engine fell off a Lufthansa Boeing 707 on takeoff; again when a radio transmitter fritzed. At week's end dauntless Willy was up in the air again, flying off to Norway, but he confessed to one major worry: "Will anyone fly with me?"

Britain's balletomanes were aghast at the news from Covent Garden. Rudolf Nureyev's partner in two productions of Romeo and Juliet this October will not be Dame Margot Fonteyn, 48, his matchless partner of the past five years, but a comparatively dewy Covent Garden ballerina from Rhodesia, Merle Park, 29. Could it be that the most brilliant team in modern ballet will be unhitched at last? "A big lie!" stormed Rudi. He and Dame Margot have occasionally danced with others in the past as schedules demanded. As Covent Gar den sped forward with reassurances that Rudi, 29, and Merle "are not a permanent partnership," Ballerina Park remarked unflappably that "Rudolf is marvelous," but that she has performed with British dancers who are "as good as Nureyev in their way."

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