National Affairs: Too Fantastic

Hearty, glad-handing Walter Ellsworth Brehm was a leading dentist in Logan, Ohio for a quarter-century before his friends talked him into making politics a full-time profession. He soon worked himself up to Congress, got elected to four successive terms as an unobtrusive Republican from Ohio's Eleventh District.

Last September, when Brehm (rhymes with seem) was running for his fifth term, Columnist Drew Pearson lined the 58-year-old Congressman up in his sights. Brehm, wrote Pearson,* was "another quiet operator in the congressional kickback circle." Over a period of three years, said Pearson, the Congressman had compelled his elderly office clerk, Mrs. Clara Soliday,...