A book reviewer since 1967, including a five-year stint as editor of the _Sunday Times Book Review_, Leonard also write a warmly personal, frequently humorous column in the Wednesday _Times_ titled "Private Lives." A collection of 69 of the columns appeared in book form last year under the title _Private Lives in the Imperial City_ (Knopf, $8.95). In addition, he has published four novels and hundreds of free-lance articles for magazines ranging from _Playboy_ to the _New Republic_. For years he wrote TV reviews for _Life_ magazine under the pseudonym "Cyclops." Recalls Leonard: "It was a good way to turn your brain to Spam." Born in Washington, D.C., he grew up reading the _Congressional Record_ instead of comics, and initially planned a career in law. Booted out of Harvard for neglecting his studies in favor of the campus newspaper, he sharpened his journalistic skills under William F. Buckley Jr. at the _National Review_ before completing college at the University of California's Berkeley campus. Following graduation, he became the program director of a radio station, wrote his first two novels, and worked in an anti-poverty program in Boston. Then he was invited to join the _Times_. "I did my Westside and Village stuff when I was first here and broke," comments Leonard. He has owned his four-story Eastside house since 1971. Among the most memorable books that Leonard has helped to "discover" are Joseph Heller's _Catch-22_ and Gunter Grass's _The Tin Drum_. "To be able to sit down one night, as I did, and to realize you're in the presence of an extraordinary talent, with no advance publicity, to be able to have a hole to fill in the paper two days later, to sit down and pull out all your adjectives and get people to buy the book: this is what you live for," he sighs happily. "You only need two or three of those to last a lifetime." ******** WESTSIDER JOHN LINDSAY International lawyer 7-1-78 It was said of John Kennedy that he was too young and too active a man to retire immediately after the presidency. Had he lived to serve two full terms, he would have been 51 upon leaving office. How he might have spent the remainder of his career is difficult to guess, but it's likely that he would have ended up doing work very similar to what John Lindsay does today. A comparison between the two men is hard to escape. Both were war heroes. Both rose to power aided by their personal magnetism -- Kennedy to the nation's highest office at 43, Lindsay to the nation's second toughest job at 44. Both gave eloquent speeches, aimed for high ideals, and made controversial decisions that brought plenty of criticism from within their own ranks.