85.5

“Writers Assail FBI Seizures in Puerto Rico.” Article by Edwin McDowell. New York Times, 2 October, B9. Account of press conference called by the American chapter of PEN to discuss what Mailer called the apparent “outrageous abuse” of Puerto Rican writer Coqui Santaliz’s civil liberties. The apartment of Ms. Santaliz, former president of the Puerto Rican chapter of PEN, was searched, along with 37 others, in connection with the robbery of a Wells Fargo armored truck in 1983. “But what impressed me as singularly shocking,” Mailer said, was that the novel Ms. Santaliz was writing “was taken from her and has not been returned.” Mailer was joined at the conference by Rose Styron, Allen Ginsberg and Frances FitzGerald.