CONCORD, N.H. -- Conservative Sen. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., has denounced as a 'political attack' a published report that his wife belongs to a group that subscribes to the teachings of a psychoanalyst who promoted orgasm for mental health.
'I resent bitterly this attack on my wife from Jack Anderson and Norman D'Amours,' Humphrey said Wednesday after Anderson's syndicated column appeared in newspapers across the country.
Humphrey is campaigning for re-election against D'Amours, a Democratic congressman from New Hampshire.
Anderson wrote that Patricia Humphrey is a member of the American College of Orgonomy in New York City. The column did not describe the group in detail but said it was a 'school of psychology that would curl the hair of your average pro-family conservative.'
Today Anderson defended his column, telling radio station WGIR in Manchester the report was justified by Humphrey's strong pro-family views and his attack on the wife of Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.
Anderson said initially he was reluctant to run the column, but changed his mind after an aide pointed out Humprhey's strong pro-family position and the senator's attack on Young's wife for her 'campaign to distribute contraceptives to minors.'
'At that point, he had it coming and it should be written,' he said.
The term orgonomy was coined by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian-born psychoanalyst and onetime colleague of Dr. Sigmund Freud, who believed in the power of orgasm in achieving psychic health.
The college declined to comment on the story or to discuss its teachings, saying it did not want to get involved in a political dispute.
However, Anderson said, 'The basic tenet of orgonomy is that orgasms are essential to a healthy psyche -- in children as well as adults.'
'We're bowing out of this thing,' college lawyer David Blasband said, but added, 'The organization has no secrets.'
Humphrey refused to say whether or not the story was accurate but said the column 'was certainly planted by somebody who wished me no good.'
'This clearly is a political attack. The timing leaves no doubt,' he said.
A spokesman for D'Amours said the congressman had no immediate response to the column. But told of Humphrey's charge that the story was planted, D'Amours spokesman George Burke said, 'Come on now. Every time Gordon Humphrey gets caught in an embarrassing position, he blames Congressman D'Amours.'
Anderson wrote that Patricia Humphrey had attended at least one orgonomy conference and has written articles for the American Journal of Orgonomy.
She also was chairwoman of the college's 1982 fund-raising drive, he said.
Reich died in 1957 at the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., where he was serving a term for selling 'orgone accumulators' -- large boxes in which the patient sat and absorbed 'orgone' energy. The Food and Drug Administration had ordered him to stop selling the boxes.
Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., and Rep. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., attacked the Anderson piece as cheap journalism.
'This reflects the lowest form of American political commentary and campaign activity that exists,' Gregg said.
