Writing to Rehabilitate

The prisoner stands in the modern, well-lighted classroom and begins self consciously to read from his manuscript. It is the rollicking story of a predawn police raid on the upstate New York home of LSD Guru Timothy Leary. The informally dressed audience -- 29 other inmates and an instructor who is himself an ex-con -- laughs appreciatively at the description of troopers peering inside, hoping for a glimpse of porno films but seeing only flickering psychedelic lights. When the cops finally storm the place, they find no orgy, no mob of spaced-out kids. Instead, Leary, dressed in white pajamas, comes politely downstairs to greet them. The ensuing critique by other prisoners credits the story's spirit and impressive detail. All in all, the reaction amounts to a rave review for the author, G. Gordon Liddy.

Watergate Conspirator Liddy, who had participated in the raid as an assistant district attorney, is not the first convict to try writing his way to rehabilitation -- or at least to use writing as a means of passing prison time constructively. As a participant in a weekly workshop at the federal prison on Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor, Liddy is not even unique in his fame. Mobster Scion Bill Bonanno, central character in Gay Talese's Honor Thy Father, was also a workshop student until his parole last week, after serving three years for a stolen credit card scheme. Measured by the professional accomplishments of its members, the class is the most successful program of its kind in U.S. penology.

Screen Rights. Counterfeiter Pat Yim (serving three years) sold four proposed TV sketches to Hawaii Five-O, one of which has been used as the basis for an episode. Bank Robber Edward Bunker (doing five years) recently sold the screen rights to his first novel, No Beast So Fierce, to Actor Dustin Hoffman for $80,000. Bonanno had a piece on prison life on the New York Times's Op-Ed page and has sold a story to Tennis magazine. Bank Robber Hank Garrison (now serving a ten-year term) just sold a story to Stag magazine. "It may not be impressive to some people," says Robert Dellinger, who runs the workshop, "but here's a man who has spent 15 years in prison--15. And he's now sold a story."

Dellinger, a former advertising man, began the class in 1972 while serving a 17-month term for attempted extortion. Prison authorities, hesitant at first, became so enthusiastic about the workshop that they let Dellinger continue it after his parole. He gets some help from such guests as TV Writer-Producer Rod Serling and Joseph Wambaugh, Los Angeles literary policeman (who last week quit the force to write full time). During his visit, Wambaugh offered Bonanno a cop's role on his TV show Police Story. Bonanno said thanks, but no, "I haven't been that rehabilitated yet."

Reel Guts. Dellinger, who wrote his first novel, The Nightmare Factory, while in prison, says: "It takes real guts to stand up in front of a class of pretty heavy types and read your prose or poetry. But you can see what it does to an individual's self-confidence to have the experience, and you can watch them grow." Some of his favorite writers have not yet been published professionally. Gary Taylor, who just finished eighteen months for drug addiction, used his time working on a novel. Dellinger says of Margaret Martinez, a prolific young Chicano who is in for three years for smuggling dope: "She has the potential to do for the barrio what James Baldwin did for ghetto life." Liddy has not been published either, and does not want to be--at least for the present. But like all his classmates, he seems to be using the writing to help himself understand his current feelings. His favorite theme is that of the warrior without honor in his own country; his chef-d'oeuvre is an intricate tragedy written in verse in the mode of a Greek classic. Liddy tells of a Spartan mother who debates the need for war with her son and finally realizes that she must let him go into battle for the good of the state.

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