REPUBLICANS: The Nude Deal

The official program of the Republican National Convention was on the presses. “Peace, Progress, Prosperity” read the slogan on the cover; “Unity” read the label near the top. The illustration: a photograph that at first glance looked like unity, all right. It was a famed sculpture by France’s Auguste (The Thinker) Rodin (1840-1917), showing three muscular men, their lowered heads together, their arms and bodies touching one another with fluid force. They were also nude.

It was the nudity that first attracted attention. Last week Republican women in San Francisco, where the programs were being printed, complained about what they called obscenity. What was worse, as the ladies—and then G.O.P. officials—discovered to their horror, was that Rodin had titled his work The Three Shades, and had done it for a project called The Gate of Hell. Rodin had also conceived a legend for the statue, taken from Dante: “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.”

San Francisco’s Republican Mayor George Christopher and Edward V. Mills, chairman of the Host Committee for the convention, took one horrified look and sprang into action. “I wouldn’t say,” reckoned the mayor, “that it’s a very healthy way to depict the Republican Party.” Eying the photo sharply, he concluded: “These three guys look like they’ve been kicked.” Chairman Mills, noting that the cover was selected by Art Director Leo Mannheimer under the supervision of Public Relations Man Bruce Ellis, added: “These three guys in the statue were supposed to be agreeing on something, but I don’t know what the hell they were agreeing on, and I don’t think Ellis and Mannheimer knew either.”

The cover, already approved by some unidentified but obviously imperceptive official of the Republican National Committee, was junked. The more appropriate replate: a photo of a smiling (and fully clothed) Dwight Eisenhower.