CONGRESS: Indecent Exposure on Capitol Hill

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It was exciting. I thought politicians were gods. They did no wrong. You have to understand—me, a little girl from the South talking to a Congressman.

—Elizabeth Ray

The sin may not have been all that original in the U.S. Congress, but the public confession certainly was. After two days of lying about it, Ohio Democrat Wayne Hays stood in an unusually hushed House chamber and admitted that he had carried on an affair with Elizabeth Ray, 33, whom he employed as a $14,000-a-year committee clerk although she claims that she can neither type nor file. The portly Congressman, 65, who in January divorced one wife after 38 years of marriage and six weeks ago wed his secretary, denied only that Miss Ray's federal salary was awarded solely for sexual services. She was not, insisted Hays, "hired to be my mistress."

Hill Glee. For almost any other Congressman, such an emotional admission would have yielded a measure of forgiveness. But the acidulous Hays is the kind of sinner who has been casting stones at others throughout his 28-year career in Congress. He put it well himself, almost boasting to the House that he was "mean, arrogant, cantankerous and tough," and noting that he had also been called "ruthless, coldblooded, vicious and temperamental." Thus there was ill-disguised glee on Capitol Hill at his indecent exposure.

Hays had little choice except to confess. Liz Ray, an emotionally flaky, sensually attractive woman, had detailed her sex life with him to reporters for the Washington Post and let them listen as the Congressman reassured her on the phone that he would continue their sex-and-job arrangement despite his new marriage. She is understood to have even more explicit tape recordings. "I have proof," she insists.

The FBI was under Justice Department orders to see if any federal laws had been violated. That would be the case if Ray, as she claimed, did nothing more for her salary than have sex with Hays. She was granted immunity from any possible prosecution and was talking freely to the FBI.

The scandal may well spread and engulf others. Liz is not alone in turning talkative. Federal investigators are expected to explore reports that she and other women working on jobs over which Hays held power took part in "orgies" at a hideaway in the Capitol—assigned to Speaker Carl Albert and known as "the Board of Education" —and in suburban apartments. Various Congressmen, staff members and Capitol Hill police reportedly attended.

There were ironies aplenty in the scandal. In 1967, Hays had led an investigation of Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, who was charged, among other things, with taking women companions along on official junkets. Powell, perhaps more on target than he realized, replied that he had just been doing what white Congressmen often did but was being hounded because he was black.