Part 24 (1/2)
The members of the ”Tate-Polanski Circle,” Roberts concluded, ”were more European than American in many ways, especially in regard to s.e.x, which was always plentiful and, actually, important.” One of their young actor friends was quoted: ”We are living in the midst of a s.e.xual revolution.”
No one knew why they were murdered, or by whom. But this ”lifestyle,” went the clear implication-the one shared by Kennedys and what Nixon called privately their ”their superswinging jet set”-must have had something to do with it.
The liberal inhabitants of the best circles: they weren't like you and me.
And yet the cultural moment was confusing. Time Time also had another obsession that summer of Chappaquidd.i.c.k. The great newsweekly was the American middle cla.s.s's arbiter of normalcy. As if self-consciously, its editorial policies had always served an integrative function in a fast-changing American culture. Whenever something new and shocking emerged in society, the magazine tended to patiently explain that it was actually continuous with our most ancient and honorable ways: the Vietnam War was like World War II; the Negroes that Negroes also had another obsession that summer of Chappaquidd.i.c.k. The great newsweekly was the American middle cla.s.s's arbiter of normalcy. As if self-consciously, its editorial policies had always served an integrative function in a fast-changing American culture. Whenever something new and shocking emerged in society, the magazine tended to patiently explain that it was actually continuous with our most ancient and honorable ways: the Vietnam War was like World War II; the Negroes that Negroes really really admired were quiet and industrious; and religion remained as vital and relevant as ever-as evidenced, indeed, by those supposedly frightening hippies themselves, for whom, the magazine observed in a long and respectful cover story in the summer of 1967, ”drug use is primarily Eucharistic in nature.” And what admired were quiet and industrious; and religion remained as vital and relevant as ever-as evidenced, indeed, by those supposedly frightening hippies themselves, for whom, the magazine observed in a long and respectful cover story in the summer of 1967, ”drug use is primarily Eucharistic in nature.” And what Time Time seemed especially eager to domesticate now was something called ”Woodstock”-a rock concert. Or, as the enterprising young men who'd conceived the business proposition promoted it, a ”gathering of the tribes,” an ”Aquarian Exposition.” seemed especially eager to domesticate now was something called ”Woodstock”-a rock concert. Or, as the enterprising young men who'd conceived the business proposition promoted it, a ”gathering of the tribes,” an ”Aquarian Exposition.”
They had at first talked about drawing fifty thousand people if they were lucky. They signed a contract for a site in Wallkill, New York. One hundred and fifty citizens packed the town's usually sleepy board meeting, where they railed about what had happened the last time thousands of young Americans had gathered together-the Democratic convention. The site's landlord started getting threatening phone calls. People started saying they'd shoot the first hippie that crossed the town line. On July 15, the zoning board beat back the demons about to set upon them by declaring public toilets illegal. The kids would have to find another place to stage their show. They'd raised over $2 million from backers. They pulled in all the best acts by promising twice as much money as they'd ever made before. Though they weren't anywhere close to the famous artist-colony town of Woodstock, they stuck with the original name because it was perfect: Bob Dylan had a house in Woodstock. They sold the movie rights to Warner Bros., pitching it as a c.r.a.pshoot: ”Spend one hundred thousand dollars and you might make millions. If it turns out to be a riot, then you'll have one of the best doc.u.mentaries ever made.” They found a Sullivan County alfalfa field whose proprietor, Max Yasgur, was sympathetic, and eager for the $75,000 fee. They advertised their more-than-a-rock-concert on FM radio and in the underground press. By the time the music started Friday, August 15, so many people were there they couldn't continue to collect tickets. (Abbie Hoffman did his part from a Yippie tent outside the gates, telling people to refuse to pay.) The New York State Thruway was rendered a parking lot. Abandoned cars scattered along the roadside like jackstraws. It started raining. A menacing wind threatened the monstrous speaker towers. Things started getting chaotic. The New York Times New York Times complained that 99 percent of the crowd was smoking dope, pa.s.sing their editorial judgment: ”What kind of culture is it that can produce so colossal a mess?” complained that 99 percent of the crowd was smoking dope, pa.s.sing their editorial judgment: ”What kind of culture is it that can produce so colossal a mess?”
Time, on the other hand, claimed to see what the kids saw. And this was a watershed. It meant that Middle America was supposed to be embracing Woodstock, too. on the other hand, claimed to see what the kids saw. And this was a watershed. It meant that Middle America was supposed to be embracing Woodstock, too.
The cover of the August 29 issue featured Defense Secretary Melvin Laird. Page 33 featured a full-color photograph from Woodstock captioned, ”Boys and girls related in a nearby river”; none of the relating boys and girls wore clothes. The accompanying essay, ”The Message of History's Biggest Happening,” noted that though Time Time usually recognized ”battles won, treaties signed, rulers elected or deposed,” Woodstock should be counted among them ”as one of the significant political and sociological events of the age.” It was ”the moment when the special culture of U.S. youth of the '60s openly displayed its strength, appeal, and power.” The magazine called the attendees ”pilgrims” and cited the scholar Theodore Roszak, author of the celebratory new book usually recognized ”battles won, treaties signed, rulers elected or deposed,” Woodstock should be counted among them ”as one of the significant political and sociological events of the age.” It was ”the moment when the special culture of U.S. youth of the '60s openly displayed its strength, appeal, and power.” The magazine called the attendees ”pilgrims” and cited the scholar Theodore Roszak, author of the celebratory new book The Making of a Counter Culture The Making of a Counter Culture-”these rock revolutionaries bear a certain resemblance to the early Christians”-and snubbed ”the oversimplification that all narcotics are dangerous and thus should be outlawed” as something as ”absurd and hypocritical as Prohibition.” Time Time also complimented the also complimented the New York Times New York Times for finally coming around-in a second editorial that redubbed Woodstock ”essentially a phenomenon of innocence.” for finally coming around-in a second editorial that redubbed Woodstock ”essentially a phenomenon of innocence.”
There were, Time Time admitted, some things to deplore at Woodstock: three deaths, one from an overdose; ”hundreds of youths...freaked out on bad trips.” (The magazine explained that away in the voice of admitted, some things to deplore at Woodstock: three deaths, one from an overdose; ”hundreds of youths...freaked out on bad trips.” (The magazine explained that away in the voice of Consumer Reports: Consumer Reports: the fault lay with manufacturers of ”low-grade LSD.”) The bottom line, however, was ”the agape-like sharing of food and shelter by total strangers; the lack of overt hostilities despite conditions that were ripe for fear and panic.... In spite of the grownup suspicions and fears about the event, Bethel produced a feeling of friends.h.i.+p, camaraderie, and-an overused phrase-a sense of love among those present.” the fault lay with manufacturers of ”low-grade LSD.”) The bottom line, however, was ”the agape-like sharing of food and shelter by total strangers; the lack of overt hostilities despite conditions that were ripe for fear and panic.... In spite of the grownup suspicions and fears about the event, Bethel produced a feeling of friends.h.i.+p, camaraderie, and-an overused phrase-a sense of love among those present.” Time Time quoted two of the young stars, both twenty-five, in support of the conclusion that it could not but have epochal if mysterious consequences for politics: ”We don't need a leader,” Janis Joplin said. ”We have each other. All we need to do is keep our heads straight and in ten years this country may be a decent place to live in.” Jimi Hendrix, who closed the festival with a blistering performance of ”The Star-Spangled Banner,” told quoted two of the young stars, both twenty-five, in support of the conclusion that it could not but have epochal if mysterious consequences for politics: ”We don't need a leader,” Janis Joplin said. ”We have each other. All we need to do is keep our heads straight and in ten years this country may be a decent place to live in.” Jimi Hendrix, who closed the festival with a blistering performance of ”The Star-Spangled Banner,” told Time, Time, ”From here they will start to build and change things. The whole world needs a big scrub down.” ”From here they will start to build and change things. The whole world needs a big scrub down.” Time Time's sister publication, Life, Life, went even further. Their special edition entirely given over to Woodstock was only the third in its thirty-six-year history. went even further. Their special edition entirely given over to Woodstock was only the third in its thirty-six-year history.
The hosannas were remarkable. They were also understandable. The new school year was soon to arrive. Tom Charles Huston, the former Young Americans for Freedom leader and army intelligence officer who was now a White House a.s.sistant, wrote a long memo for the president's desk: ”I am willing to state unequivocally that we will witness student disorder in the fall which will surpa.s.s anything we have seen before. Student militancy will sweep major campuses and flow into the streets of our major cities as competing factions of SDS strive to prove that each is more 'revolutionary' than the other.” J. Edgar Hoover released a public letter on how this school year violent militants would be seeking to ”lure students into their activities” with the argument that school was ”irrelevant.” Max Ascoli, the editor of the liberal magazine the Reporter, Reporter, said that Nixon faced a task harder than Lincoln's: ”He must save the Union not from a civil but a guerilla war.” As such said that Nixon faced a task harder than Lincoln's: ”He must save the Union not from a civil but a guerilla war.” As such Time Time's argument was tinged with yearning: if what these uprisings added up to was caring and sharing beneath pacifying clouds of marijuana smoke, there was nothing much to worry about at all.
But many of Time Time's readers were not embracing Woodstock. Some, in fact, wondered whether their arbiter of normalcy had gone out of its mind.
A letter-writer from North Carolina: ”So 'the whole world needs a big wash, a big scrub-down.' Granted-and why don't we start with the loonies who wallowed for days in Bethel's 'beautiful' mud, litter, and garbage? Your whitewash of this youth culture may well precipitate the flood that will inundate us all.” From North Dakota: ”The message is that of all the different kinds of love in the world, there is no love to compare to the love of one b.u.m for another. The other message is that they will, as usual, all end up in the gutter.” Time Time was still running letters two weeks later: ”a superb job of furthering the moral decay of this nation”; ”They're gonna build, no matter how they destroy. They're gonna teach love, no matter who they hurt. They're gonna be useful by being useless.... They want to be nonproductive on someone's production. Now I understand why I don't understand.” was still running letters two weeks later: ”a superb job of furthering the moral decay of this nation”; ”They're gonna build, no matter how they destroy. They're gonna teach love, no matter who they hurt. They're gonna be useful by being useless.... They want to be nonproductive on someone's production. Now I understand why I don't understand.”
The letters had a put-upon tone: why, from all sides, were they being asked to swallow this nonsense? Wasn't this ”Age of Aquarius,” this ”s.e.xual revolution,” something decent people should obviously condemn? Not, some parts of the Establishment seemed to be saying, if you wanted to be ”with it.” The irruption of the radical into the mainstream had been an uneven and uncertain process. But by 1969, it was unmistakable. Time Time meant to be making peace. Some spied in their olive branch a declaration of cultural war. meant to be making peace. Some spied in their olive branch a declaration of cultural war.
In that August 29 Time Time was an extraordinary advertis.e.m.e.nt. On the inside cover, in an artist's-model pose, sat a beautiful young nude. The facing page was headlined, ”Conglomerate, like naked, is not a dirty word.” The text continued: was an extraordinary advertis.e.m.e.nt. On the inside cover, in an artist's-model pose, sat a beautiful young nude. The facing page was headlined, ”Conglomerate, like naked, is not a dirty word.” The text continued: ”The Signal Companies has been called a 'conglomerate.'
”If 'conglomerate' implies a profit-making monster who gobbles up unsuspecting companies by means of underhanded tender offers, we do not qualify.
”The main trouble with the word 'conglomerate' is that it has been used to infer something ominous and evil.
”We suggest that in 'conglomerates,' as in nudity, the evil often exists only in the eyes of the beholder.”
Multibillion-dollar corporations do not undertake multimillion-dollar ad campaigns designed to spruce up their public image without long and hard reflection. This corporation had concluded that the average Time Time readers would knowingly nod at the absurdity of the hypocrisy and irrationality of the prejudices surrounding the display of naked flesh in American culture-and perhaps, by a chain of mental equivalences, toss overboard their prejudices concerning multibillion-dollar corporations. readers would knowingly nod at the absurdity of the hypocrisy and irrationality of the prejudices surrounding the display of naked flesh in American culture-and perhaps, by a chain of mental equivalences, toss overboard their prejudices concerning multibillion-dollar corporations.
But domesticating what the pundits were calling the New Morality wasn't so simple. By the end of the summer of 1969, basic a.s.sumptions about the line between common decency and archaic prejudice were up for grabs. Newsweek Newsweek tried to grasp the conundrum in its own dispatch on the New Morality: ”Sheer numbers tell the tale. There are more explicitly erotic films, more blunt-spoken novels, more nudity on stage.” They concluded, conservatively enough, ”More than ever we need direction from mature leaders.” They offered their direction by heralding the piece on the cover with a graphic of a stark naked couple. tried to grasp the conundrum in its own dispatch on the New Morality: ”Sheer numbers tell the tale. There are more explicitly erotic films, more blunt-spoken novels, more nudity on stage.” They concluded, conservatively enough, ”More than ever we need direction from mature leaders.” They offered their direction by heralding the piece on the cover with a graphic of a stark naked couple.
Sophisticated Establishment opinion endorsed a key tenet of the New Morality: s.e.xual pleasure was good and proper, shame and denial unhealthy. It was seen as a mark of education to recognize the casual cruelties behind the old regime of s.e.xual hypocrisy-which divided girls into the categories of ”those who did” and ”those you married” but reserved no stigma for tomcatting boys; which let Kiwanis Clubs, American Legion halls, and college fraternities screen s.e.x films at ”stag nights” put on by promoters in a traveling circuit (conservative state legislatures in Illinois and North Carolina exempted them from state obscenity laws) but put the producers of these movies in jail. In November of 1966 the Atlantic Atlantic ran a dossier of pro-divorce articles (including a short story by Philip Roth-who, two years later, received almost a million dollars for his bestselling novel, ran a dossier of pro-divorce articles (including a short story by Philip Roth-who, two years later, received almost a million dollars for his bestselling novel, Portnoy's Complaint, Portnoy's Complaint, in which the protagonist m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed into a chunk of liver). The January 1967 in which the protagonist m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed into a chunk of liver). The January 1967 Atlantic Atlantic ran a piece celebrating ”p.o.r.nography and the New Expression.” Even ran a piece celebrating ”p.o.r.nography and the New Expression.” Even Reader's Digest Reader's Digest reported ”A Victory Over the s.m.u.t Peddlers” in the same issue in which it excerpted an article from the women's magazine reported ”A Victory Over the s.m.u.t Peddlers” in the same issue in which it excerpted an article from the women's magazine McCall's McCall's by the ”s.e.x therapists” William Masters and Virginia Johnson advising, ”Today's methods of 's.e.x education' are failing to produce warm, responsible human beings.... Perhaps if we ourselves honor and respect s.e.xuality, the children will sense its promise.” Another 1967 by the ”s.e.x therapists” William Masters and Virginia Johnson advising, ”Today's methods of 's.e.x education' are failing to produce warm, responsible human beings.... Perhaps if we ourselves honor and respect s.e.xuality, the children will sense its promise.” Another 1967 Digest Digest was warm in praise of ”An Experiment in s.e.x Education” at a school where seventeen girls had become pregnant the year before. Such s.e.x education programs were sweeping the country, and who could object? ”Silence is criminal,” was warm in praise of ”An Experiment in s.e.x Education” at a school where seventeen girls had become pregnant the year before. Such s.e.x education programs were sweeping the country, and who could object? ”Silence is criminal,” Time Time quoted an expert on the subject-an expert speaking in 1914. Luckily popular opinion was catching up to him, as quoted an expert on the subject-an expert speaking in 1914. Luckily popular opinion was catching up to him, as Look Look magazine noted enthusiastically: ”Backwardness is succ.u.mbing as surely as snow to spring.” magazine noted enthusiastically: ”Backwardness is succ.u.mbing as surely as snow to spring.”
A similar att.i.tude obtained on abortion. In 1962, the host of a popular children's show in Arizona, Sherri Finkbine, pregnant with her fifth child, accidentally took a tranquilizer containing thalidomide, which caused babies to be born without limbs. Her doctor recommended an abortion-forbidden in Arizona as everywhere else in the United States. Finkbine took her case to court. The judge turned her down. She traveled to Stockholm for the procedure. The story was covered widely; Finkbine's plight helped catalyze a nationwide movement to liberalize abortion laws. Time Time grew especially sympathetic. In June of 1967 they lamented that only ten thousand abortions had been allowed in 1966 under the available therapeutic grounds while a million to a million and a half were performed illegally-”with a high rate of resulting infections and hundreds of deaths.” They took ending this as uncontroversial: as progress. The previous month they had put ”The Pill” on the cover in an evangelical dispatch on its potential in ”eliminating hunger, want, and ignorance.” They buried a glancing discussion of the moral objections of ”Roman Catholics and...the smaller number of Orthodox Jews” in the twenty-first paragraph. grew especially sympathetic. In June of 1967 they lamented that only ten thousand abortions had been allowed in 1966 under the available therapeutic grounds while a million to a million and a half were performed illegally-”with a high rate of resulting infections and hundreds of deaths.” They took ending this as uncontroversial: as progress. The previous month they had put ”The Pill” on the cover in an evangelical dispatch on its potential in ”eliminating hunger, want, and ignorance.” They buried a glancing discussion of the moral objections of ”Roman Catholics and...the smaller number of Orthodox Jews” in the twenty-first paragraph.
The results were the same as with Woodstock: the revelation, on the letters page, of one more front in the Franklin-Orthogonian war. ”Could it be possible that Time Time condones her desire for abortion?” a reader wrote about Sherri Finkbine, incredulous. Another: ”Abortion is murder.... Is it not doubletalk to deny they are human lives?” Then, on the other side, the dueling moral absolutism-liberals and feminists a.s.serting the choice as a right: ”The very idea that abortion should present a dilemma infuriates me. The morality of satisfied, waistcoated male legislators complacently discussing the academics of ending a prenatal life while terrified women are desperately inserting pointed objects into their wombs is, to my mind, infinitely more questionable than the subject of abortion itself.” condones her desire for abortion?” a reader wrote about Sherri Finkbine, incredulous. Another: ”Abortion is murder.... Is it not doubletalk to deny they are human lives?” Then, on the other side, the dueling moral absolutism-liberals and feminists a.s.serting the choice as a right: ”The very idea that abortion should present a dilemma infuriates me. The morality of satisfied, waistcoated male legislators complacently discussing the academics of ending a prenatal life while terrified women are desperately inserting pointed objects into their wombs is, to my mind, infinitely more questionable than the subject of abortion itself.”
The Harris organization released a poll on the New Morality two months before Woodstock. Two-thirds of the entire sample thought morality had declined over the last ten years. Only 11 percent said it had risen. Franklin and Orthogonian agreed society was becoming decrepit. They just disagreed over whether Vietnam or venereal disease was the leading indicator. And the opinions seemed to divide along cla.s.s lines: 29 percent thought ”unjust laws may be ignored”; the figure rose to 38 percent among ”professional people.” Thirty-one percent of the full sample thought that ”the use of four-letter words” didn't make s.e.x ”dirty”-as compared to 45 percent among college-educated, 41 percent of those earning over $10,000 per year, and 46 percent of professionals. Time Time's own interpretation was patronizing: there was ”a huge gulf between the old verities and life as it is actually lived by the American people today”-as if the lesser-educated, less well-off, and nonprofessional lived in simple denial of social reality. As if their objections were not really moral ones at all.
There was condescension, in 1967, in New York mayor John Lindsay's parks commissioner August Heckscher's insisting to those complaining of filthy doings in the parks that they were ”scared by the abundance of life.” Condescension was in a new president at the University of Wisconsin campus in rural Stevens Point starting the 196768 school year boasting to students that his initials were LSD and proposing, ”We're going on a trip together.” It was, that Christmas, in the posters for The Graduate The Graduate on New York buses and in subway stations depicting Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman in bed. It was, in 1968, in how on New York buses and in subway stations depicting Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman in bed. It was, in 1968, in how Newsweek Newsweek answered the question on its cover ”Is Dr. Spock to Blame?” with a resounding no, that the new laxity in child-rearing practices was based on simple scientific progress and that objecting to it was like objecting to the invention of the automobile. It was in the answered the question on its cover ”Is Dr. Spock to Blame?” with a resounding no, that the new laxity in child-rearing practices was based on simple scientific progress and that objecting to it was like objecting to the invention of the automobile. It was in the Nation Nation noting the emerging position that abortion was a woman's right was ”prevalent among the educated.” noting the emerging position that abortion was a woman's right was ”prevalent among the educated.” Pleasure Pleasure was a new front in the Franklin-Orthogonian war, a new vein of anger rumbling beneath the social surface. And Richard Nixon got out his miner's lamp and shovel. was a new front in the Franklin-Orthogonian war, a new vein of anger rumbling beneath the social surface. And Richard Nixon got out his miner's lamp and shovel.
Pat Buchanan, the president's most culturally conservative top adviser, prepared Nixon's daily news summary. He made sure every story on the encroachment of moral decadence was prominently featured: Newsweek Newsweek's cover on the New Morality; the decency rally in Miami; the Swedish erotic film I Am Curious (Yellow), I Am Curious (Yellow), which had been seized at the border, then released after a landmark court decision, becoming a hit at the fas.h.i.+onable 57 Rendezvous Theater in Manhattan (of special interest to Nixon, the which had been seized at the border, then released after a landmark court decision, becoming a hit at the fas.h.i.+onable 57 Rendezvous Theater in Manhattan (of special interest to Nixon, the Times Times reported that the former Mrs. John F. Kennedy attended with her new husband, the playboy Greek s.h.i.+pping magnate Aristotle Ona.s.sis). ”p.o.r.nography and filth are gut issues with millions of decent people,” Buchanan wrote in a memo to the president, who agreed. ”P had me in quite a while before NSC, mainly on wanting to take stronger action on obscenity,” Haldeman recorded in his diary March 28, 1969. ”Even decided he'd go to a play in New York where they take off clothes, and get up and walk out, to dramatize his feeling.” Nixon delivered a special message on obscene and p.o.r.nographic materials, prepared with the help of a bright young a.s.sociate deputy attorney general, John W. Dean III, at the height of the spring insurrections on the campuses: ”The courts have not left society defenseless against the s.m.u.t peddler; they have not ruled out reasonable government action”; Congress had to strengthen laws letting the citizen ”protect his home from any intrusion of s.e.x-oriented advertising.” reported that the former Mrs. John F. Kennedy attended with her new husband, the playboy Greek s.h.i.+pping magnate Aristotle Ona.s.sis). ”p.o.r.nography and filth are gut issues with millions of decent people,” Buchanan wrote in a memo to the president, who agreed. ”P had me in quite a while before NSC, mainly on wanting to take stronger action on obscenity,” Haldeman recorded in his diary March 28, 1969. ”Even decided he'd go to a play in New York where they take off clothes, and get up and walk out, to dramatize his feeling.” Nixon delivered a special message on obscene and p.o.r.nographic materials, prepared with the help of a bright young a.s.sociate deputy attorney general, John W. Dean III, at the height of the spring insurrections on the campuses: ”The courts have not left society defenseless against the s.m.u.t peddler; they have not ruled out reasonable government action”; Congress had to strengthen laws letting the citizen ”protect his home from any intrusion of s.e.x-oriented advertising.”
Nixon concluded, ”The ultimate answer lies not with the government but with the people. What is required is a citizens' crusade against the obscene.” Americans answered the call. And the subject of their crusade was the movement over which Look Look magazine had gushed that backwardness was succ.u.mbing as surely as snow to spring: ”s.e.xual education” in the schools. magazine had gushed that backwardness was succ.u.mbing as surely as snow to spring: ”s.e.xual education” in the schools.
Two weeks after Woodstock a conference opened at the infamous Hilton in Chicago, where across the street a rally was commemorating the countercultural victims of the 1968 Democratic convention. The conference opened with a prayer for the Lord's blessing in the struggle against ”the humanistic, G.o.dless effort to destroy the sanct.i.ty of the home and the well-being of America.” That was followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem. Then the chairwoman, a Mrs. Albert Flemming, asked the cameramen in the back to turn down the TV lights. When the cameramen didn't respond, someone shouted, ”Who the h.e.l.l wants the news media anyway?” The National Convention on the Crisis in Education had come to order.
Delegates came from twenty-two states, groups with such names as Mothers for Moral Stability (MOMS) and Parents Opposed to s.e.x and Sensitivity Education (POSSE). The hallways burbled with talk of the recent ”so-called protest music festival,” Woodstock, the ”unshaven faces and their tumbling blankets”; of the gym cla.s.s in which students supposedly went into a closet in pairs to explore what made boys different from girls; of the boy and girl who said they were performing a ”scientific experiment” based on what they'd learned in cla.s.s when found coupling in a toolshed; the kindergartens where copulation was taught; the alleged move to coed bathrooms without part.i.tions separating the toilets. The teacher in Minneapolis-or Wichita, Texas, or wicked New York City, or in Flint or Lansing, Michigan-who fornicated in front of a rapt cla.s.sroom in the interests of pedagogy. The seventeen boys who raped a s.e.x education teacher after being aroused by her lecture. The cla.s.ses that taught about copulation between people and livestock. The moral dissolution society was falling to as surely as snow to spring. And the villain responsible for it all: a woman named Mary Calderone.
The former medical director of Planned Parenthood, Calderone had come up with the idea for her organization, the s.e.x Information and Education Council of the United States, at a 1961 conference of the National a.s.sociation of Churches. By the 196465 school year SIECUS's ”Guidelines for s.e.xuality Education: Kindergarten through 12th Grade” had been requested by over a thousand school districts. A typical exercise for kindergarten was watching eggs hatch in an incubator. Her supporters saw themselves as the opposite of subversives. ”The churches have to take the lead,” Dr. Calderone, herself a Quaker, would say, ”home, school, church, and community all working cooperatively.” The American Medical a.s.sociation, the National Education a.s.sociation, and the American a.s.sociation of School Administrators all published resolutions in support of the vision. Her theory was that citizens would be more s.e.xually responsible if they learned the facts of life frankly and in the open, otherwise the vacuum would be filled by the kind of talk that children picked up in the streets. An Illinois school district argued that her program would fight ”'situation ethics' and an emerging, but not yet widely accepted standard of premarital s.e.x.” Even Billy Graham's magazine, Christianity Today, Christianity Today, gave the movement a cautious seal of approval. gave the movement a cautious seal of approval.
They didn't see it as ”liberal.” But it was was liberal. The SIECUS curriculum encouraged children to ask questions. In her speeches Calderone said her favorite four-letter word ended with a liberal. The SIECUS curriculum encouraged children to ask questions. In her speeches Calderone said her favorite four-letter word ended with a k: T-A-L-K. k: T-A-L-K. She advised ministers to tell congregants who asked them about premarital s.e.x, ”n.o.body can judge that but yourself, but here are the facts about it.” She taught that people ”are being moral when they are being true to themselves,” that ”it's the highest morality to live up to the best in yourself, whether you call it G.o.d or whatever.” Which, simply, was a subversive message to those who believed such judgments She advised ministers to tell congregants who asked them about premarital s.e.x, ”n.o.body can judge that but yourself, but here are the facts about it.” She taught that people ”are being moral when they are being true to themselves,” that ”it's the highest morality to live up to the best in yourself, whether you call it G.o.d or whatever.” Which, simply, was a subversive message to those who believed such judgments came came from G.o.d-or at least from parental authority. The anti-s.e.x-education movement was also intimately related to a crusade against ”sensitivity training”: children talking about their feelings, about their home lives, another pollution of prerogatives that properly belonged to family and church. ”SOCIALISTS USE s.e.x WEDGE in Public School to Separate Children from Parental Authority,” one of their pamphlets put it. Maybe not socialists, but at the very least from G.o.d-or at least from parental authority. The anti-s.e.x-education movement was also intimately related to a crusade against ”sensitivity training”: children talking about their feelings, about their home lives, another pollution of prerogatives that properly belonged to family and church. ”SOCIALISTS USE s.e.x WEDGE in Public School to Separate Children from Parental Authority,” one of their pamphlets put it. Maybe not socialists, but at the very least someone someone was separating children from parental authority. More and more, it looked like the Establishment. was separating children from parental authority. More and more, it looked like the Establishment.
And, given that the explosion issued from liberals obliviously blundering into the most explosive questions of where moral authority came from, thinking themselves advancing an unquestionable moral good, it is appropriate that the powder keg came in one of America's most conservative suburbs: Anaheim, the home of Disneyland, in Orange County, California, where officials had, ironically enough, established a pioneering flags.h.i.+p s.e.x education program four years earlier.
During the consultation period in 1965, 92 percent of parents approved. It was expanded to full scale-an ungraded four-and-a-half-week unit for seventh to twelfth graders-in 196768. The Family Life and s.e.x Education program announced as its goal preparing students to build ”a family with strong bonds of affection, loyalty, and cooperation...whose members are happy and enjoy living together.” By 196869 such programs existed in forty states. And the public was reconsidering its approval.
A science consultant to the Racine United School District opened a letter: ”Dear d.i.c.k, I know you don't realize you're being used by Communists, but...” He picked up his phone: ”You're nothing but a dirty Communist traitor.” (In fact he was a Republican.) The district suspended the program ”until misinformation and misunderstanding are corrected.” Fifty miles to the north, in the rural town of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, the farm wife whose chickens supplied the incubator cried, ”If I'd known what the school was up to, they never would have gotten their hands in my eggs.” In Park Forest, Illinois, an eighth grader served a week's suspension for boycotting the science unit on plant and animal reproduction at the bidding of his parents; in Springfield, Ohio, school administrators got death threats. That was four towns within a 140-mile radius. Reported the National Observer, National Observer, ”Put a finger almost anywhere on the map and chances are it will land on a town where the radio talk shows and letters to the editor are stoking the controversy over s.e.x education in the schools.” ”Put a finger almost anywhere on the map and chances are it will land on a town where the radio talk shows and letters to the editor are stoking the controversy over s.e.x education in the schools.”
It wasn't entirely spontaneous. The vanguard cadre included people like the radio preacher Billy James Hargis (whose pamphlet Is the Schoolhouse the Proper Place to Teach Raw s.e.x? Is the Schoolhouse the Proper Place to Teach Raw s.e.x? labeled Calderone ”the SIECUS s.e.xPOT”) and a John Birch Society front group called Movement to Restore Decency and far-right congressmen such as Orange County's James Utt, who gave speeches on the House floor linking s.e.x ed, ”the Beatles and their mimicking rock and rollers,” and Communists using ”Pavlovian techniques to produce artificial neuroses in our young people.” Much was made of the Communist-front connections of one of Calderone's uncles, the poet Carl Sandburg. labeled Calderone ”the SIECUS s.e.xPOT”) and a John Birch Society front group called Movement to Restore Decency and far-right congressmen such as Orange County's James Utt, who gave speeches on the House floor linking s.e.x ed, ”the Beatles and their mimicking rock and rollers,” and Communists using ”Pavlovian techniques to produce artificial neuroses in our young people.” Much was made of the Communist-front connections of one of Calderone's uncles, the poet Carl Sandburg.
All this, to be sure, was rather comical-and often easily debunked. One of the urban legends was that a twelve-year-old boy had copulated with his four-year-old sister, just as he'd learned about in school. Parade Parade magazine got to the bottom of that one; it originated with a fundamentalist Protestant minister who heard it from a paris.h.i.+oner, who heard it from another woman who was not particularly noted for her emotional stability. Liberals steadied their grip and harnessed their reason: ”The venereal disease and divorce rates keep rising and these people refuse to understand,” the administrator from Racine told the magazine got to the bottom of that one; it originated with a fundamentalist Protestant minister who heard it from a paris.h.i.+oner, who heard it from another woman who was not particularly noted for her emotional stability. Liberals steadied their grip and harnessed their reason: ”The venereal disease and divorce rates keep rising and these people refuse to understand,” the administrator from Racine told the New York Times. New York Times. ”It's as if they were saying, 'There's an epidemic of polio, but we're not going to let you do anything about it.'” What liberals did not understand was that the hysterical anti-s.e.x-ed crusaders were not without reason. Said one parent, ”I know teachers I wouldn't want teaching math to my kids, let alone s.e.x education.” s.e.x, people were realizing once they had suddenly been given the opportunity to give it thought as a public policy issue, was ”It's as if they were saying, 'There's an epidemic of polio, but we're not going to let you do anything about it.'” What liberals did not understand was that the hysterical anti-s.e.x-ed crusaders were not without reason. Said one parent, ”I know teachers I wouldn't want teaching math to my kids, let alone s.e.x education.” s.e.x, people were realizing once they had suddenly been given the opportunity to give it thought as a public policy issue, was intimate. intimate. Complained one parent, ”My wife and I have never discussed s.e.x in seventeen years of marriage.” Complained one parent, ”My wife and I have never discussed s.e.x in seventeen years of marriage.”
In Anaheim, a receptionist for the Quick-Set Lock Company named Eleanor Howe related how she had walked into her son's cla.s.sroom and found the names of s.e.xual acts chalked on the board, including ”69.” Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding. Perhaps the teacher had just chalked up what year it was. Either way: spark, powder keg, war-for which the conditions had been gathering for years.
Activists commandeered Anaheim school board meetings and recited the ”findings” of anti-s.e.x-ed pamphleteers (”s.e.x education is just one of the many deadly weapons in the armory of the Communist-Humanist Complex”). The superintendent had to rea.s.sure citizens that ”film strips showing human or animals engaged in s.e.xual intercourse” and instruction in the ”techniques of s.e.x” were not part of the curriculum. s.e.x education became the only issue in the spring 1969 school board election. The crusaders won two of three contested seats. By Woodstock, the California legislature pa.s.sed a law banning attendance at s.e.x-ed cla.s.ses without written parental permission. Mrs. Howe started barnstorming the nation, an anti-s.e.x-ed celebrity. Her visual aide was Life Life's special issue on Woodstock. A September issue of Look Look reported that Anaheim was now famous ”as a community where, it is alleged, venereal disease and illegitimacy run rampant because of a pioneering curriculum in Family Life and s.e.x Education.” reported that Anaheim was now famous ”as a community where, it is alleged, venereal disease and illegitimacy run rampant because of a pioneering curriculum in Family Life and s.e.x Education.”
The new school year arrived. The Friday after Labor Day the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's Reagan-signed abortion law, the nation's most liberal, wasn't nearly liberal enough: the California const.i.tution, they ruled, gave women an absolute right ”to choose whether to bear children.” Orange County's first antiabortion group was founded. Billy Graham's 20th Anniversary Crusade sold out Anaheim Stadium ten days running. An anti-s.e.x-ed leader used a TV interview to announce, ”In order to protect the children...all people with any affiliation to this program [should] be investigated concerning their private and public lives and be given tests by a psychiatrist to see if they are considered s.e.xually normal. These results should then be made public.” The head school nurse and codirector of Anaheim's Family Life and s.e.x Education program reported of the phone calls she'd been getting in the middle of the night, ”People have the dirtiest minds. It's astonis.h.i.+ng.” The superintendent told the media, ”People in the community have stopped talking to each other.” The September 14 New York Times New York Times reported that a score of state legislatures now had anti-s.e.x-education legislation pending. In Netcong, New Jersey, the school board ordered daily readings of the same prayers recited by chaplains in the U.S. Congress and tried to get around the Supreme Court by calling them ”inspirational remarks.” Outside Chicago, a federal judge said schools could kick a kid out for long hair: ”Teachers have rights, too. They have better things to do than follow him around to make sure his grooming doesn't cause any problems in the school.” reported that a score of state legislatures now had anti-s.e.x-education legislation pending. In Netcong, New Jersey, the school board ordered daily readings of the same prayers recited by chaplains in the U.S. Congress and tried to get around the Supreme Court by calling them ”inspirational remarks.” Outside Chicago, a federal judge said schools could kick a kid out for long hair: ”Teachers have rights, too. They have better things to do than follow him around to make sure his grooming doesn't cause any problems in the school.”
And so, in downtown Chicago at the Hilton, speaker after speaker raged on against the humanistic, G.o.dless effort to destroy the sanct.i.ty of the home and the well-being of America.
”A couple of girls from our community went down to Kalamazoo Teachers College and in one year they were completely changed. What do they do do to our girls?” to our girls?”
”We know our enemy is promoting revolution in this country by every means possible: s.e.x education, drugs, music.”
”You'll be robbed as I was of the privilege of telling your child in your own way of the beauty of creation.”