Lens Cap
If the newest photo intern at the A.P. Washington bureau, Susan Ford, is going to snap prize-winning pictures, she'll probably have to use a telephoto lens. On her first day at work, an A.P. colleague approached her with an envelope containing Newspaper Guild information. Before he could get within range of the President's daughter, he was stopped by three members of her currently supercautious Secret Service guard.

Home on the Range
John Ehrlichman, 50, has now about finished his book, but his life is still a work in progress. Six months ago, Nixon's erstwhile No. 2 hatchet lit out for New Mexico and so far has gone completely Santa Fey. While wife Jeanne remains in hometown Seattle, Ehrlichman has cultivated a beard and such other trendy departures as a young lady on the side. Washington observers say the tome, a Watergate novel, is facilely turned and commercial, but they regard the change of life-style as permanent as a Halloween mask.

Watch on the Ryan
It takes an indefatigable watchbird to watch over the irrepressible O'Neals. Ryan's latest lady, Anouk Aimée, no sooner left Hollywood than he was seen nobbing around town with Bianca Jagger. Not that his 11-year-old daughter is lonely. Au contraire, Tatum's now in the babysitting biz herself, looking after Britt Ekland's 2-year-old son Nicholai (by rock impresario Lou Adler). "I don't need the money," explained Tatum. "I'm practicing to be a parent."

Bloodshot Eye
Is it possible that Washington Post social commentator Sally Quinn can dish it out better than she can take it? Her recently published explanation for her five-month bomb-out at CBS, We're Going to Make You a Star, has not totally convinced all the book reviewers. Was her problem no classes? The wrong glasses? A producer's passes? Quinn, 34, dismisses those who dare pan her apologia as part of "a pattern. They're written by unmarried, middle-aged women who resent my life-style, and they keep talking about me, not the book."

Tennis Larynx
The world premiere of singing ace Jimmy Connors and of Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell are now part of the record books. Connors' rendition of You Turn Me on Girl brought mist to the eyes of Chrissie Evert, but love is tone-deaf, and even Jimmy's manager, Bill Riordan, now laughs that the performance "was Jimmy's first, most recent—and from the reviews he has read—maybe his last."

Switch
The word scenario is more used in Washington than in Hollywood these days, and the latest goes like this: Just before next August's GOP convention, Henry Kissinger submits his resignation to take effect after the election. This enables Gerald Ford to announce that if victorious, he will tap Nelson Rockefeller's demonstrable foreign-affairs expertise by naming him Secretary of State. Rocky publicly agrees, saying he would prefer the diplomatic action to the languor of the Vice Presidency, anyway, thus allowing Ford to substitute a more palatable running mate. And Kissinger, whether or not Ford wins, can shuttle off to the bank with his million-dollar memoirs.

Furthermore

•Most traveling pop groups live off the fat of the land—which is to say junk food. But the Captain and Tennille, one of the hottest duos now touring, put themselves on fasts that have lasted as long as 21 days. It is fruit juice (their only nutriment), not just love, that keeps them together.

•"Talking about my leading ladies is difficult for me if I'm going to be honest," admits James Mason, whose co-stars have included Judy Garland, Sophia Loren and Ursula Andress. "Any opinion I give is bound to offend somebody. So when I want to tread cautiously," he says, now mellowed since the days he was known as the rudest man in Hollywood, "I tell people that the best actress I ever worked with was Margaret Rutherford."