Fresh fish: President Clinton’s nominee to head...

Fresh fish: President Clinton’s nominee to head the CIA quickly uncovered one secret operation when he was an Air Force cadet in the late 1950s, recalls another ex-plebe.

Gen. Michael P.C. Carns was a platoon leader, “and myself and some of the other underclassmen decided to try a practical joke when we were serving dinner,” said Jon Erik Beckjord of Santa Monica. “I put a goldfish in a glass of water and passed it to (Carns). He started to drink it, stopped and said, ‘Uh, oh, what’s this?’ I said, ‘What you see is what you get.’ And he answered, ‘No, what I see is what you get. Drink it.”

Beckjord downed the fish.

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Expert witness: One of the people who testified at the Simpson trial this week was screenwriter Pablo Fenjves, a former neighbor of Nicole Brown Simpson. Jeff Stolzer checked and found that Fenjves’ credits include the movies “A Case for Murder” and “Bitter Vengeance.”

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Another Only in L.A. scoop: We’ve published photos of several residents’ warnings to pet owners, including the ominous message: “Dog Droppings Cheerfully Force-Fed to Dog Owners.” Well, you knew someone would see the commercial possibilities. Sure enough, New Breed Products of Sherman Oaks sent us a photo of one of the genteel signs it sells. If you’d rather pull guard duty on your lawn, you can purchase a T-shirt with the same message.

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A Japanese Model T?”I didn’t know Ford had competition from Honda even back then!” marveled Cynthia Zarate, who mailed us an ad for an apparent antique.

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List of the Day: In his new book, “Lawmen & Desperadoes,” author William Secrest has unearthed several frontier characters of local interest, including:

* William C. Warren: The L.A. city marshal, he was shot to death in 1870 by Joe Dye, one of his officers, during a dispute over the divvying up of a reward. The incident reduced the department by two men--a serious problem inasmuch as the force only had seven cops.

* Emil Harris: A master L.A. detective known for his clever disguises, he was also one of the nation’s first Jewish police chiefs.

* Emmett Dalton: A member of the outlaw family, he served time in prison, then found a legal way to separate people from their money in L.A. He sold real estate.

* Anatacio Moreno: He was hailed as a hero after he brought in the bodies of two gunmen suspected of several robberies in 1854, including one at a low-society brothel party on North Main Street. Unfortunately, he was later caught trying to pawn some of the loot from those jobs. He confessed that he actually was the gang leader and had killed two of his men for the reward. The ex-hero was sent to prison.

Secrest, by the way, found echoes of today’s complaints in the writings of that era. After one outlaw was convicted of a vicious beating and robbery in 1864, a San Francisco reporter noted bitterly, “Our lenient court . . . as usual, only gave him a year in state prison.” The writer: Samuel Clemens.

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If you keep your claws to yourself: For Valentine’s Day, a Sunset Beach company is advertising “a candlelight dinner with the world’s finest lobster.”

miscelLAny:

In the book “Everything Has Its Price,” author Richard Donley says the transcript of the Menendez brothers’ murder trials can be obtained for $13,093.50 (50 cents per page) at the Van Nuys courthouse. Or you can take better notes at the retrial.