Encounters: A Senator Tries to Explain

Leisure Spa offered "nude modeling, nude encounters and nude rap sessions" to men who would pay a $10 membership fee—tipping extra, naturally. So what was Roger Jepsen, staunch promoter of traditional family values, doing there on March 15, 1977? Jepsen, now a Republican Senator from Iowa, had many explanations last week. It was, he said, "a moment of weakness." He dropped in thinking the spa was a legitimate health club, he contended, and left in a few minutes after discovering what was really being offered for sale—though he did sign an application. Anyway, the visit occurred half a year before he became a born-again Christian and 20 months before his election to the Senate. Then, too, he and his wife Dee "have made no secret that our lives and our marriage have gone through some rocky times." According to the Senator, the fact that his application, confiscated in a police raid two months after his visit, was publicized by an Iowa radio station at this time points to "character assassination ... by forces which seek my defeat for re-election." Democratic Congressman Tom Harkin is already running well ahead of Jepsen in the polls. Since a shift of six seats would give control of the Senate to the Democrats, Jepsen's problems are important to the calculations of both parties.