Six years after the second Exclusion Act, the Pacificon Committee choose to ban Walter Breen; the committee announced their intention before the Worldcon was held, explaining that they had been advised that they might be held liable if Breen were to seduce an underage male fan there, but also plunging all of active fandom into war. At around the same time, he was blackballed by the 13 members of FAPA needed to drop him from their waiting list, but within a very short period of time more than half FAPA's 65 members over-rode it and voted to reinstate him (the argument being that, whatever his sexual orientation might be, Walter was unlikely to seduce anyone in a organization whose activities take place via the mails). Breen took on a de facto membership anyway when he married Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was already a member. Despite protests and even outright boycotts by some, Breen was not allowed to attend the Pacificon. Worldcon Chairman Bill Donaho outlined the committee's actions, detailing incidents which had been observed regarding Walter that fell short of seducing youths but nonetheless gave some people pause, in a pre-convention fanzine called The Boondoggle. The resulting fandom-wide War is thus often referred to as the Boondoggle or the Breen Boondoggle. Although his behavior at conventions both before and after Pacificon were beyond reproach, Breen did write the authoritative book on man-boy love and ultimately died in prison a convicted pederast. But even 40 years after the event, the sole point fans on both sides can agree upon is that the resulting feud had long-lasting effects, tore the fabric of the microcosm beyond repair and led to a proliferation of mutually exclusive private apas where the opposing forces retired to lick their wounds and assure themselves that they had been undeniably right while the other side had been unmistakably wrong.
See also Exclusion Acts
Contributors: Dr. Gafia
