Leaving Town Alive CL

Appointed chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989 amid the uproar over Robert Mapplethorpe's photography, Frohnmayer entered the fray as a First Amendment moderate. By the time he was fired in February 1992, he had become a free-speech radical. In this cogent, detailed account of his stormy tenure, he eloquently defends the principle of artistic freedom as vital to democracy and warns against ``cultural terrorists'' who seek to emasculate the NEA with content restrictions. Criticizing ex-President Bush for lack of support for the arts, he faults moderates for ceding the moral high ground to the far right. Frohnmayer observes that art dealing with gender, religion or sexual frankness has sparked controversy through the ages. To reinforce his support for artistic diversity, he quotes an intolerant, narrow artist, Adolf Hitler, who in 1935 said, ``Art must be the handmaiden of sublimity and beauty, and thus promote whatever is natural and healthy. If art does not do this, then any money spent on it is squandered.'' Photos. Author tour. (Apr.)