TANGENTS

SENATOR KUCHEL KICKS BACK

A secret three-week hearing with 43 witnesses by the LA County Grand Jury resulted in indicting 4 men for libeling US Senator Kuchel (R-Calif.) which centered around an affidavit depicting him as committing a homosexual act. It stemmed from a 2-11-50 incident when a cop, Krause, said he got the impression that two men whose car he stopped were engaged in a homosexual act and that one was Kuchel. When at the hearing Krause (now an ex-cop) was confronted with the arrest records with fingerprints indicating neither had been Kuchel, Krause refused to withdraw his story but is believed to admit some doubt about it.

Perhaps the key to what appears to be a flimsy story is the fact that one man indicted is Francis Capell, publisher of the ultra-right HERALD OF FREEDOM. Kuchel refused to come out for Goldwater, and he has always been so vote-popular even with democrats that a smear is about all that could hurt him. PHILIP ROTH ON PANSY RHETORIC

"The Play That Dare Not Speak Its Name is the heading of Philip Roth's viciously anti-homosexual diatribe in the 2-25-65 NY REVIEW on Edward Albee's new play, TINY ALICE.

In WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, writes Roth, Albee "attempted to move beyond the narrowness of his personal interests," but TINY ALICE has "pansy rheto-

ric and repartee." Albee "seems to have introduced the Catholic Church into the play so that he can have some of the men dressed up in gowns." And the last line shows Roth's red-hot hate is actually against not only this play and this playwright but others:

"How long before a play is produced on Broadway in which the homosexual hero is presented as a homosexual, and not disguised as an angst-ridden priest, or an angry Negro, or an aging actress; or, worst of all, Everyman?"

The naming (in everything but name) of the last three playwrights shows that Mr. Roth is infuriated by the fact that some homosexuals can write about heterosexuals and (perhaps the crux of the thing), superbly so which nobody has yet said about the writing of Mr. Roth. Maybe Mr. Roth would get more art in his writings if he moved beyond the narrowness of his personal hetero interests and wrote about us pansies.

To attack homosexuality through a weak play is pitiful. To ask why homosexual playwrights don't write about homosexuals is just plain dim-witted. It is like asking a Jew why he didn't march right up to Hitler with prayer shawl, skull cap, the Torah in one hand, a flaming menorah in the other, with his fly open and flaunting his circumcision and say, "Please, sir, I'm afraid you might miss me,