People, Aug. 26, 1974

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He is known simply as Marty to his Capitol Hill friends, a name that just would not fit his famous father, the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Senate Page Martin Luther King III, 16, has been spending his days running errands in the upper chamber and his evenings running the base paths as a softball player on the teams of Georgia Congressman Andrew Young and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. At times, it seems, the action is brisker on the mound than on the Hill. "It's been a great learning experience," says King diplomatically. "But after a while, when the speeches cover the same things over and over," he adds, "you tune out."

In the midst of a recent radio interview by Liberal Columnist Nat Hentoff, William F. Buckley Jr., the elegantly acerbic conservative commentator, suddenly stopped short the colloquy, looked down, and testily muttered, "Shut up." Moments later he paused and clonked something below. Left-wing kibitzers in the studio audience? No, Buckley's target was his King Charles spaniel Rowley, which he had brought to the studio. Showing that he bore no ill will, Rowley then jumped into Buckley's .lap and planted a slurpy kiss on his cheek. All of which left Hentoff with somewhat more of an interview than he had expected. Said the show's producer later, "You can hear barking on the tape."