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This year Betty Dederich died. Dederich found another woman and soon decided that everyone would benefit by taking a new mate. Couples who had been married for as long as 30 years are now in the process of divorcing and remarrying. "I didn't know whom to marry," confesses Linda Buonaiuto, 32. "I asked my girlfriends to make the decision for me. I ended up with Walter," she adds with a tentative glance at her new husband, "and it's just great." Another member philosophizes: "Wife swapping used to be thought of as a vice. But we take a vice and turn it into a virtue. It's been an exhilarating experience."
Not, of course, for everybody. While Synanon has moved in new, provocative directions, its membership has dropped from a peak of 1,800 in 1972 to 1,183 today. Among those to leave was Dederich's brother William, who did not want to break up his marriage of 37 years. Those who stay at Synanon seem to be as hooked on the place as any junkie on his drugs. "They want somebody to tell them what to do," says Sydney Fischer, who left the commune in 1976 after living there for four years. "It's like having a big daddy."
Former residents as well as outsiders have begun to question whether the new, swinging Synanon should be spared paying taxes since it currently devotes much less time to rehabilitation. The California department of health is showing interest in Synanon, and the Marin County grand jury is investigating reports of child abuse. Some 132 children, who have been sent to Synanon by courts, probation officers and distraught parents across the country, are housed in a separate compound and designated the "punk squad."
Dederich says he is not worried, but admits he is toying with the idea of giving up the rehabilitation business and moving to Washington to start an operation that will distribute distressed merchandise, such as mislabeled canned food and slightly flawed clothing, to the needy. "It's a bigger notion than Synanon is now," Dederich says. "I have the normal desire to get my name in the newspapers and history books."