SOUNDING OFF!

Fawn Hall is . . .

(a) The deer compound at Santa’s Village.

(b) The drama building at Temple University where Vanna White learned how to turn consonants and vowels.

(c) The room where Bruce Willis keeps his private collection of self-portraits.

(d) The name of a Pentagon paper shredder.

If you don’t know the answer to that question, you have no sense of instant American popography. You can’t tell your Ollie Norths from your Ollie Souths. You wouldn’t recognize a celebrity if she rubbed off on your hands while you were reading about her in USA Today.

Fawn Hall is (d) a paper shredder. Well, not exactly a paper shredder. That is like saying Vanna White is a well-known phrase. Fawn Hall is . . . was . . . Ollie North’s secretary, and perhaps the one who extended the digit that flipped the switch that shredded the documents that may have saved North’s and Ronald Reagan’s bacon.

When she stepped into the daylight this week and exposed herself for what she is--drop dead gorgeous, with a flowing Farrah Fawcett mane, a benign porcelain smile, a little giggle when she talks, a little wiggle when she walks--you have to know two things: Ollie North has well-placed friends in the Pentagon personnel department, and a fox alert was called in Hollywood.

If Fawn Hall is staring into the teeth of a paper shredder this time next year, look for Rose Bird to be back on the bench of the California Supreme Court.

Hall may be doing paper-shredder commercials (“For the fella who can’t afford to leave anything behind . . .”). Or she may be playing a secretary on a TV series (“Now You See It, Now You Don’t”). But Fawn Hall is out of the D.C. secretarial pool and headed for the Polo Lounge, you can count on it.

Ironic that two days after Andy Warhol died, a young woman would step in front of the news cameras and explain her feelings about being the center of so much attention by quoting his famous prediction that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.

“I sort of feel like that,” Hall said.

Not to worry. Hollywood, or Playboy, or at the very least, the National Enquirer (we’ve got some sweet headlines to look forward to at the check-out stand), will keep the name productive as long as they can. Who knows, it may get her a steady game-show gig. Crazier things have happened.