Merle Dale Miller[1] (May 17, 1919 – June 10, 1986) was an American writer, novelist, and author who is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling biography of Harry S. Truman, and as a pioneer in the gay rights movement.
Miller came out of the closet in an article in the New York Times Magazine on January 17, 1971, "What It Means to Be a Homosexual." The response of over 2,000 letters to the article, more than ever received by that newspaper, led to a book publication later that year. The book was reprinted by Penguin Classics in 2012, with a new foreword by Dan Savage and a new afterword by Charles Kaiser.[2][3]