IHT:
It had been something of an open secret for years, but most people did not learn the story of Daniel Miller until last week, when Vanity Fair published an article called "Arthur Miller's Missing Act."UK TIMES:
As described in Suzanna Andrews's 5,000-word article, Arthur Miller, who died in February 2005, and his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, had a son born with Down syndrome in 1966.
Soon after, they made the painful decision to put the child, Miller's youngest, in an institution for the mentally retarded before Miller essentially cut him out of his life.
... Andrews describes in detail how Miller rarely, if ever, accompanied his wife on weekly visits to see Daniel, almost never mentioned him to shocked friends and didn't mention him in his memoir, "Timebends." ...
... In a scathing post last week on the blog for the neoconservative Commentary magazine, James Kirchick suggests that this story "ought to damage permanently Miller's reputation, if not as a writer, then as a humanitarian."
What makes the revelation of Daniel so upsetting is how it juxtaposes Miller's private decision with his public image, as one of the greatest American playwrights and the man who refused to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and eloquently and loudly opposed the Vietnam War.
... Writers like Miller and Günter Grass, "who set themselves up as moralists and public scolds, are more vulnerable to criticism based on their own behavior," wrote Morris Dickstein, who teaches English at the City University of New York Graduate Center, in an e-mail message this week.
Six weeks before his death in 2005 at the age of 89, Miller wrote a will and signed confidential trusts leaving Daniel a share of his estate equal to his other three children – Rebecca, and Jane and Robert, his son and daughter from his first marriage to Mary Slattery.
Rebecca Miller was at a loss to explain her father’s treatment of Daniel. “The only person who can truly answer your questions is my father, and he is dead,” she told Vanity Fair.
The playwright’s behaviour appears at odds with the principled stances he took throughout his life, from his refusal to “name names” of communist sympathisers to his opposition to the Vietnam War and his work for oppressed writers.
RELIAPUNDIT: Miller was a typical leftist; he was a phony and a hypocrite just like Edwards and Gore - espousing one thing while doing another.
Dear Lord: this baby was his son... his own son.
What cowardice - to run away from being a father to his own son.
His son Daniel is probably TWICE the man the libs thought Arthur Miller was, and a THOUSAND times better than Arthur Miller really was.
So tell me, who do you think Miller was talking about when he said this:
What is the most innocent place in any country? Is it not the insane asylum? These people drift through life truly innocent, unable to see into themselves at all.Yes: Daniel - who IS innocent. And that makes his father what??? Guilty as hell.
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