THE ADMINISTRATION: Comings & Goings

Latest turnovers in the Administration's councils:

Sidney Souers, 57, who every weekday morning at 9:30 briefs the President on the latest military and political intelligence, resigned as chief of the National Security Council, effective Jan. 15. A wartime Navy intelligence officer (and a rear admiral in the Naval Reserve), first chief of the postwar Central Intelligence system, and board chairman of a prospering linen supply company on the side, Souers stayed out of the headlines and close to the President's ear. Among his tasks: refereeing between the State Department and the defense establishment.

James Selden Lay Jr., 38-year-old

V.M.I, and Harvard graduate who headed a wartime branch of Army intelligence, was hand-picked by Souers as his successor. He was carefully trained for the post through 28 months as Souers' principal assistant.