Ssh!

It was foolishness enough when one of CBS's intrepid interrogators started asking Betty Ford a lot of personal questions and soon found that the First Lady's dedication to "candor" inspired her to hold forth on her husband's roving eye and her daughter's hypothetical sex life (TIME, Aug. 25). Although many Americans share Mrs. Ford's views, so many others complained that the President last week joked rather hyperbolically that his wife had just cost him 20 million votes. Now, however, it turns out that Mrs. Ford has still more to say about her once private life--even when unasked. In an interview with Myra MacPherson published in the current issue of McCall's, she recalled the day the Fords' king-size bed had been moved into the White House and added that inquisitive reporters had questioned her about "everything but how often I sleep with my husband, and if they'd asked me that, I would have told them." Thus challenged, the interviewer apparently felt obliged to inquire what answer she had prepared, which enabled Mrs. Ford to say, "As often as possible." An idle imagination could perhaps conceive still further questions--all in the name of candor--but it may be hoped that the press will now lapse into a discreet silence. And that the First Family will not misinterpret the lack of embarrassing questions as a mandate to answer them anyway. If candor at all costs is to become the supreme policy, there are a number of more important areas to which it might more usefully be applied.

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