police for protection, as any other citizen would.

We've reported many cases in this column where a person who has been a victim of blackmailers capitalizing on the average man's sensitivity to any accusation of homosexuality, has found that the police have turned on him and let his attacker go free, as almost happened in a recent San Diego case. There, a man prominent in the community went to police to complain of blackmail by two marines-and was himself arrested, with the D.A. going to unusual lengths to try to convict the victim and protect the confessed criminals. A successful defense by ONE's attorney, Eric Julber, helped by the introduction of a Catholic priest the same marines had tried to blackmail, won the victim's acquittal. The opposite result seems more common-often making heroes of "hustlers" who murder homosexuals.

It is true the Mattachine Society moved its National headquarters to San Francisco in 1957. It is true Christopher was Mayor then. But the move was made solely because the Society's Los Angeles officers got tired and dropped out, leaving the remaining officers in San Francisco, and holding the bag. However, the same rooms the National Office now occupies had been occupied by the local office and the MATTACHINE REVIEW long before Christopher became Mayor. Nor was it due to the presence of any friendly Mayor or police chief that the whole American homophile movement started in Los Angeles. ONE has been here for over seven years, and let Mr. Wolden even suggest that it's because Chief Parker likes us. Legitimate organizations concerned with homosexual problems, have operated in several cities, not through official favor (which we would not

mind) but because these operations are legal and within our constitutional rights.

are

In this sense, Wolden's charges. idiotic.

While Mayor Christopher has in

way "provided" a friendly climate, neither has he carried on such a witchhunt as Wolden proposes. Those Democrats who are still on Wolden's bandwagon might well consider the effects of their alliance with this new McCarthyism. Beyond expressing shock and disgust at such tactics, Mayor Christopher has maintained an attitude of Olympian impartiality, refusing to be drawn into approval or condemnation of the Society with which his name has been strangely coupled. EXPOSING THE EXPOSE

Friday's CHRONICLE blasted the core out of the Wolden charges, with frontpage headlines that dwarfed Macmillan's election victory. "SORDID VICE CHARGE BY WOLDEN BACKFIRES," "Vice Issue a Plant by Wolden Supporter" and "Deviate Group's Praise of Mayor Engineered by Ex-Police Informer." They told how the now-famous Mattachine resolution had been planted at the Society's Denver Convention by a Wolden man, Wm. Patrick Brandhove. Brandhove had a long police record (sodomy, drunkenness, grand theft) and was a frequent but unreliable police informer. He had joined the Mattachine Society just before the Convention, to which he was a delegate and parliamentarian. A gladhand Charlie, spreading money around in Denver "as if it was about to go out of style," he offered to pay for services the Society hadn't previously been able to afford-such as a caucus room and stenotypist to take complete minutes.

Brandhove first proposed the resolution at a caucus of S. F. dele-