California: No Kidding

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Before he entered Doctors Hospital in Washington two weeks ago for his second major brain operation in eight months, California's Democratic Sena tor Clair Engle prepared two statements for the press. The first said that he was still a candidate for renomination to the Senate in his state's June 2 primary. The second announced that he was quitting the campaign because of his health.

There was never much doubt about which statement would be released. Since August, Engle, 52, had not made a single speech in the Senate. Last month, when he rose at his desk to introduce a bill, he was able to utter only the monosyllable, "A. . .," before he lapsed into agonizing silence. Through it all, he clung to the hope that he could still run. But last week, after the results of his second craniotomy were in, Engle sent a telegram to his California headquarters advising, "It is with deep grief that I now ask my state campaign chairman, Tom Carrell, to release the second statement."

Slow Down. Engle's withdrawal left no fewer than eleven Democrats in the race for the Senate nomination, but only two of them matter. One is State Controller Alan Cranston, 49, a tense, balding liberal who spews out words so swiftly that his aides write marginal notes in his speeches advising him, "Take it easy. Slow it down." The other is portly Pierre Salinger, 38, who quit as White House press secretary in March and filed as a candidate just two hours before the deadline.

Having started last, Salinger is running hardest of all. At first, people had trouble taking him seriously. He had, after all, once taken a fully clad dip in Bobby Kennedy's Hickory Hill pool, and he was always doing things like holding press conferences in Bermuda shorts or showing up for tennis at the Newport Casino clothed in gorgeous hues of canary yellow and powder blue instead of the traditional white. Even when he quit gagging, his audience sometimes kept on laughing. Once, after his usual quota of jokes, he told his listeners that he wanted to discuss education in a serious, nonpolitical vein. The audience roared, and Pierre later wondered exasperatedly, "What was so funny about that?"

"Doll Baby, Let's Go." But Salinger has since made it clear that he is not just kidding around, now impresses audiences with his grasp of California problems. He works 18-hour days, often gets by on five hours of sleep, has dropped 13 Ibs. to 190 in five weeks.

Hastily assembled, Salinger's campaign crew committed such initial mistakes as printing leaflets and posters with his name misspelled SALLINGER, but it is now functioning with considerable precision. Some 10,000 people are working for him across the state, including a galaxy of Hollywood stars and starlets. A squad of six shapely coeds called "Sweethearts for Salinger," clad in white sailor shifts and red, white and blue berets, has been formed to pass out pink champagne and campaign propaganda at Salinger rallies.