A Drinking Problem

After more than three weeks' treatment and rest at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., Wilbur Mills, fallen chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, propped himself up in bed and drafted a statement explaining his recent bizarre behavior. "During the past several years, and most especially in the last year," wrote Mills, "I had scarcely noticed that my drinking habits had changed perceptibly. I now realize, after several weeks of treatment by the doctors and soul-searching of my own, that I had developed a severe drinking problem, not as a daily drinker but as a periodic heavy drinker. I did not know that this pattern corresponds with what is known as alcoholism."

Mills thus joined New Jersey Senator Harrison Williams and outgoing Iowa Senator Harold Hughes as an admitted problem drinker. The Arkansas Congressman has received counseling from Alcoholics Anonymous in the hospital, and he vows total abstinence in the future. Said he: "I have been a sick man who did not understand the nature of the illness."

Like Socrates. Indeed the revelry that led to the Tidal Basin dunking of Stripper Fanne Foxe and Mills' onstage appearance with her at Boston's Pilgrim Theater, a burlesque house, were unusual behavior for the 65-year-old Congressman. Such escapades led to his ouster as Ways and Means chairman.

Mills announced his intention to take his seat in Congress next week, and pledged full support to Oregon's Al Ullman, the new Ways and Means chairman. Most of Mills' committee colleagues welcomed his return. "He's still the most knowledgeable tax man on the committee," said Illinois Democrat Daniel Rostenkowski. "If he can really lick this thing, he can be one of the most effective members of the committee. It'll be like Socrates having the students sitting at his feet while he passes out tips on taxes." But not unless Mills steers completely clear of strippers and carousing. Warns another member of Ways and Means, Florida Democrat Sam Gibbons: "If that occurs again, he'd just be gone."

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