Clicking with Ford

It is tradition that a President's photographer should see and snap but not be seen and snapped. However, David Hume Kennedy, 27, in his six months as Gerald Ford's official picture taker, has at times seemed more celebrated than his subject--especially last month when he suddenly appeared in the news squiring Actress Candice Bergen, 28, herself on a Kennerly-conceived Ford photo assignment.

No White House photographer has ever clicked with as much national prominence as Kennerly. Jaunty with his full beard and a racy line, the youngest member of Ford's close staff swings in and out of the Oval Office in his beat-up blue jeans and scuffed desert boots, and joshes the President.

Kennerly made it to the White House on brashness, guts, high-speed hustle and talent. The son of a salesman, he grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Roseburg, Ore., and was briefly married in 1967. After quitting Portland State University to take pictures for the Oregon Journal, he went on, at the age of 20, to United Press International. UPI sent him to Saigon in 1971, and the next year, his photos showing the desolation of war won him a Pulitzer Prize.

Sixteen months ago, Kennerly and Gerald Ford began an odd-couple relationship. TIME assigned Kennerly to cover Ford as a vice-presidential prospect. Kennerly virtually lived with the Fords at their Virginia home during the two months of the vice-presidential confirmation hearings. Later he traveled for eight months with Ford. Young Kenner-ly's irreverence and high lifestyle, which includes a Mercedes, a six-room Georgetown house, and an affinity for pretty women, richly entertained Ford, who came to regard him as an "adopted son." The day after he was sworn in as President, Ford asked Kennerly to be the official White House photographer.

Doubles Partner. Since then, Kennerly has become an extension of the Ford family. He now spends weekends at Camp David, is the President's doubles partner on the tennis courts and is probably personally closer to the President than any other White House assistant. He does not claim, however, to advise Ford on policy, though he says: "After hours we talk about a range of things. If he asks my opinion, then I tell him what I think--I don't mess around. But I never say, 'You ought to do this about that.' "

Kennedy's personal ties to Ford and his own flamboyant manner, however, have sometimes led him to take exuberant advantage (rather unashamedly) of his position. He recently apologized for supplying a magazine with his own photos of Susan Ford after blocking a freelance photographer's access to her. Some reporters also criticized Kennerly for using his position to obtain favors for and from his White House date Candice Bergen. Kennerly admits with a smile that he planned it all, including his original call to Bergen suggesting the Ford photo assignment. But, he says, her entree was no more than what 20 other photographers on special assignment have received. Kennerly is uncharacteristically reserved about any romance, although Bergen has reportedly returned once to see him in Washington.

Last week after returning from the Middle East, Henry Kissinger, the former swinger, greeted Kennerly saying, "Ah, so you're the sex maniac." Others are less amiable. Some cynics claim that Kennerly now needs his own photographer. Having survived the minefields of Viet Nam, he has apparently displayed a tough enough professional hide to endure the barbs of Washington, D.C. Kennerly enjoys his fame and regards his work at the White House with a professional's pride: "The important thing here is that the next President will look on this Administration's photography as a positive thing."

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