◆ SpookStack

Nhe e ‘oid Richard O'Hare, a Chica “Just think of it 25% of 4, oan-turned-resident of “the, all_assessable property in The 4, “Switzerland of Mexico,” as this mountain village is some-° ‘\ times referred to, and who bills himself as a retired ar- } tist. “Let's just say I was a! bad artist and Jet it go at that.” he added laconically arom his seat by the fireplace. : %:: The Oct. 13 ceremony,” rvoddly -enough, will not be held in church, But .it will jz have the dignity of Valle de 237 Bravo's municipal president { presiding over rituals® An ex- {pected 25 guests. including wi this , reporter, will witness @ Mrs. ,Murray's second wed- ¥" Baltimore's Atila in a form- ¥ less cotton housedress, gazed ‘cat the vast artificial lake ‘x beneath: her high picture favindow, said “I’m really in fT guess Pve found at last What T was looking for. A -Sman, I mgan a real man. Af- “ter looking’at this — she held up the latest copy of Plav- JSboy magazine — I realize it Fis a growing scarcity in the ¢-United States.” 4; The 46-year-old divorcee ~~ ""ehas found few compliments “ttt0 pay the United States in athe last five years, Ever since Othe Supreme Court's land- Jii:mark decision in 1960 (Mur- pray vs. Cullen) to bar the € ving of pravers in pu ii skhools, Mrs. Murray and “9 cons have been vilifi at gdeath by their countrymen, c . "<In Mexico now for five ; { months, she said she has al- * ready filed papers asking for 5, political asylum. ‘This coun- Ruy has been good to me,” { she beamed, “Nobody bothers j us; nobody’s interested that + much in our past. In fact, =the Mexicans I've talked to ¥- can't? even’ comprehend why ‘there was so.much trouble - over what I did.” « . But if Madeline Murray has ¢ taken refuge in a foreign = land she has by no means 2 abandored ber fight to push *, Gor fro th: American pyb- = Jie por sint, The second cam- “Belg -. Uhe relentless war eit are.dy sappet out in the _heriidciz of ibe Marvidnd —Pisit: Court of Appedis: % Povernmen, taxauon of Fil & Laurches. U. S. belongs to religion!” Although most statiticians would disagree, with her fi- gutes, many reformers, ine cluding a few churchmen, think that an ‘assessment On religious holdings would be a convenient, if not necessary, rein on church power in America. The gist of Mrs. Murray's argument {s noth- ing more than a very literal interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Cons- titution, “This battle? I've elready won it,” she smiles. I'm jus waiting for them to give in.”. “] might be out of the country but I will go on bat- tling until the separatio of church and state become a reality and not the polftica! myth it is now.” ‘Freedom in the _ States? Don’t make me ° ~ the bedroom, try bringing She th were opinion but the opinion to reality. Looking at the clean- beamed ceiling and white- washed walls and then out onto the explosion of orange, Madeline Murray almost sighed. “I will. prob- ably have to remain in Mex- jco for the rest of my life.” She outlined one possible condition that would ever tiled roofs, bring her back: if the city of Baltimore recanted all the charges and humiliations against her, “Hardly likely.” she snorted. Baltimore, scene of the most virulent strife, gave her the final souvenir of an assault-and-battery charge against — fourteen police- men! Released on bail, she gathered up her family and took off for Hawaii, But even the 5ist state was no haven; he was extradicted and sent ack ta the mainland. When locked =s if the pot iwas oing to boii over an the urray’s headed for Mekico. nited: laugh: I was forced to leave my own country because ! tried to do something. Not just talk about it. People can talk ‘and think all they please in But don’t ever it out into the parlor; someone might hear.” ought it was an Ironic commentary on pre- sent-day politics that citizens encouraged to have an punished when they attempted to convert. he anti-Cross crusader knows perfectly well ' other foreigner’s, in this country is contingent upon complete abstinence from po- , litical activity. She accepts ' this with perfectly good | grace. * "Yet even in Mexico, Ma- | deline Mprray never others, and not she, got the scalding. By her own admis- sion she and a friend en- | gineered the expulsion of a : dozen fellow Americans from the country on charges of illegal possession of narco- . * tics, It bad to do with the gaga of the Blake College scandal which inflated head- : Jines about two weeks ago. According to Mrs, Murray, Blake College was nothing but a blind for experiments with hallucinigens. “The students would pop capsules of these drugs into their mouths like jellybeans,” she snuffed. “I ‘couldn't stand helplessly by watching this. So 1 finally called in - the Mexican federal agents.” Although some will be sur- prised at this first statement jn print of Mrs. Murray's part in the Blake affair, others will attribute the ac- tion to understandable poli- tical self-preservation. The expatriate atheist was well aware that the faintest whiff of a dope scandal wafting her way could put in jeopar- dy the last of her foreign havens, _ Confident as she appears, j the worm of this though ap- " pears to be constanly nibbling at her mind: does the United . States wield enough power to have her extradicted even from here? “You know, I passed & - huge fenced-in area near the Mexico City airport the other - day. The sign said ‘Campo ' Deportivo.” Do they really re?” We explained that It meant sports field and not depor tation camp. She chuckl i “§ don't think I ever WIL’ ; learn Spanish.” mane aged. to |stay too far f the hoiligeg ‘pot. This time ; deport that many people from jhat Glancing from time 4e-times Oxgeenced™ her staying as well as any > 2¢r ten-year-old son Garth, . sitting at the table leafing through Playboy, and O'Hare, refraining from most of the conversation, Mrs. Murray went on to tell how her mili. - tant atheism has cost her not only peace of mind but also her basic rights as a U. S citizen, Applying for a pass-. port a while 2g0, she says she was refused it on the grounds of her stand on Te-; ligion. ‘According to her, Passport. Bureau head Frances Mc- Knight told her she was not. elegible for the document munist Elizabeth Gurley. ’ Flynn applied i. to Russia q while before that,, was refused and won her. case in a Supreme Court de-. cision establishing that no one could be refused a passpo under any pretext. 4 “But as you se, It's Com: munists sf, ath@sts no, How ridiculous can Fou get?” = The soon-to-be bride belie- ves the U. S. government, with backing from the Catho- . lic Church, will stop at noth- ing to see her rendered help- jess. She described it in terms of a personal vendetta. . The press, she admitted however, has usually been quite fair to her, It was an AP man, she confided, that. helped her flee Baltimore. But she countered the praise with a twinkling “I suppose much of what I say here will _ never be printed, Oh, I don't ‘mean you,” she said point: 7 _ - ing at us, “but editors and : publishers are notorious : holding back ” ; After giving her assurance that her disrespect for the bs and Stripes would g}t an| honest airing, she since she was an atheist” .” “Can you. imagine that? Com: for a possport.-~ wegt