submit all his publications to the Minister of the Interior for approval. The submission must be of the published book, not a manuscript, at which time the whole edition may be ordered destroyed and the publisher, under certain stipulations, forbidden to ever publish again. A healthy literary output cannot be sustained under such a system.

A certain legacy of authoritarianism, long manifest in French history. has been becoming increasingly manifest throughout French society since the debacle in Indochina and the brutal Algerian adventure. It even extends, as Peter Lennon points out in the Manchester Guardian, to the moralistic surveillance commonly understood to be exercized by Mme. de Gaulle over the behavior and dress of Cabinet Ministers, their wives and other high officials. A situation such as this would be quite unthinkable in a comparable American setting.

To continue with the censorship story: Once a book has been banned not even its title can be mentioned again. Publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert was indicted for using the name of a banned book in a footnote. While in his case no conviction followed, that it should have been attempted illustrates the trend. Other publishers have been repeatedly harrassed by the police, a practice almost automatic since the Algerian War days it seems.

Christian Bourgeois, a director of the Julliard firm, believes that the aim is not really the reduction of obscenity as it is claimed, but rather the intimidation of publishers. Girodias himself has written (Newsweek, May 4, 1964) that it is "quite right to put moral and political censorship in the same bag . . they always have the same purpose."

Speaking in Los Angeles a few years ago, psychologist Dr. Eberhard Kronhausen told of his experiences in Germany at the onset of the Nazi take-

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over. He stated that their first maneuver was to censor books under the pretext of the protection of morality. From that starting point the moves step by step to the control of all publishing and the suppression of opposition opinion were as inexorable as the rising of the tide. Homosexuals are well aware that once the Nazi control was complete their fate was but little better than that which befell the Jews in Germany. Today the Nazi legal legacy still remains to oppress them both in Germany and in France.

It will of course, be asked if censorship is not found in the United States and if books are not seized and banned? Of course they are. In fact, Evergreen Review, the literary bimonthly published by Grove Press in New York, had its April-May, 1964, issue seized at the bindery. Prior to that an issue of the lavishly illustrated Eros was seized and its publisher, Ralph Ginzburg, convicted. This conviction is now being appealed to a higher court. Still earlier, the October, 1954, issue of ONE Magazine was seized by U. S. postal authorities. How are such occurrences in any way different from those in France?

The difference, while not really difficult to understand, at times seems to escape many Europeans and even some Americans. It lies in the unique, constitutionally-based structure of the American government by which the citizen literally is supreme. Each American has numerous irrevocable rights under the Constitution. No President, no Congress, no official may abrid these rights, however difficult it may sometimes be in practice to assert them.

As an illustration, in ONE's case no defense was made or even contemplated. On the contrary, ONE proceeded to require the high postal officials concerned to appear in court and to justify their behavior. The U. S. Supreme Court then, by its verdict.

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