Wages of Fear

Illinois Senator Charles Percy had never publicly discussed the murder of his 21-year-old daughter Valerie nearly four years ago. Last week, breaking his silence, Percy discussed his family's life since the mysterious killing.

With a $50,000 reward still out for the killer, the Percys have lived in dread. When they moved to Washington, said the Senator, "we started at the police station and circled our way from there looking for a home." They settled half a block from the precinct house, installed burglar alarms, magnetic seals on the windows and a guard dog. Fear, Percy warned, inevitably breeds a dangerous, defensive solipsism. "When an individual is afraid," he said, "he worries about only one thing--himself, No. 1. The poor, the oppressed, those whose lives have been torn by war, the imprisoned, the neglected and lonely, all of these are to be tended to later, if at all. Even justice takes a back seat."

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