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“Homosexuals travel in packs”: Robert C. Ruark on homosexuality in the State Department

Novelist and columnist Robert C. Ruark was a sort of a poor-man’s Hemingway. He was proud of his humble North Carolina roots. But he also cultivated a worldly air through his international travels and an adventurer’s reputation as an African big game hunter. From his perch at the Washington Daily News, his column went out to about 180 newspapers in the Scripps-Howard chain. He didn’t indulge in politics very much. “I’m a political eunuch,” he once said, “and I don’t evaluate myself as a heavy thinker.”

But in 1950, he was among a handful of columnists who picked up and amplified the February 28 revelation that the State Department had let go 91 homosexuals since 1947. The first major columnist to turn the revelation into a national crusade appears to have been George E. Sokolsky, whose March 21 column warned about homosexuals “accustomed to secrecy, conspiracy, lying” who are “always subject to blackmail.”

Two days after that, Ruark publish the first of two columns with his own set of warnings. Interestingly, Ruark works the “travel-in-packs” canard to asserts that all ninety-one homosexuals fired from the State Department were all hired by one man and his homosexual underlings. Rourk doesn’t say this, but the rumors floating around Washington are that this one man doing all the hiring was Sumner Welles, F.D.R’s close friend and de-facto foreign minister since Roosevelt took office in 1933. Officially, Welles was undersecretary to Cordell Hull, Roosevelt’s political appointee as Secretary of State. Hull, a Democratic Senator from Tennessee, was chosen more for his political connections to the southern wing of the Democratic party. It was Welles who had the President’s ear and who shaped American’s foreign policy, much to Hull’s anger.

That anger turned to disgust (and opportunity) when Welles made some inappropriate propositions to two Pullman porters during a political trip to Alabama. Hull tried to convince the newspapers and key Senators to open an investigation and instigate a scandal. Nobody took the bait, but Hull succeeded in forcing F.D.R. to demand his close friend’s resignation in 1940. The papers reported the resignation as the result of a power struggle between Hull and Welles, but the Washington press corps knew the whole back story. So when Ruark writes, “I know the story of the highly-placed State Department executive who crowded the lists with so many homosexuals…” — this is what he is talking about.

Let’s Spin a Yarn

Robert C. Ruark

Looks like a new point in journalism has finally been reached, at which it is possible to face the problem of homosexuality and perversion with the same honesty it too us so long to win in the case of venereal disease. Our peering into the well of loneliness is as much overdue as our realization that syphilis and gonorrhea were something more than “social” diseases, to be hushed behind the hand.

This belated appraisal of a human aberration is due to the face that our State Department, on record, has been filled with a type of humanity which is not “normal” as we construe normalcy in the broad sense, and that the list of perverted sex-crimes seems to be mounting furiously.

There is considerably more to abnormality in the sexes than a simple negation of boy-meets girl. There is a great difference between homosexuality and perversion. The homosexual in a simpler sense is less dangerous than he is irresponsible. The pervert is always potentially dangerous to the world around him, because his odd sexual leanings creep easily into vicious criminality with innocent victims.

Divergents from the sexual norm are pitiable, and in general live a life of mental and spiritual torture, full of frustration and persecution. Their residence in a minority group makes them subject to censure by the majority, and leads them to a life in shadow.

This creates a constant nervousness that pays off in panic. Most “queers” eventually acquire a tendency to hysteria, which means they blow their tops in time of stress. Since they also must hide from the world that outweighs them — since they must always mask their activities with stealth and secrecy — they’re forever open to apprehension.

A pervert fondles a child. The child cries. The creep blows his roof. He is panic-ridden and hysterically afraid of being caught. He throttles the child. A homosexual — possibly even a “happily” married one — is suddenly confronted with public awareness of his abnormal outcroppings. His position, his job, his very life is at stake. He blows his top. He has three choices. He can kill himself, kill his discoverer, or submit to blackmail.

In the loneliness that cloaks a homosexual, that places him basically apart from his fellow, his scarred soul calls out for company. So his inclination is to surround himself with his like. Homosexuals travel in packs, as do most divergents from an accepted status.

It is all well to say that a man must live his own life and in the manner which best suits him, but in government which is operated for the greatest good of the greatest number a dissenter from accepted behavior is a great liability. The drunkard, the boss who chases every stenographer, the sexual degenerate or homosexual all have a gaping chink in their behavioristic armor. This leads almost invariably to erratic action, neglect of job, and ever to blackmail. Always to blackmail.

When a man or woman is susceptible to easy blackmail, he is a tremendous risk in a position of trust. I know the story of the highly-placed State Department executive who crowded the lists with so many homosexuals that 91 resignations or firings have recently resulted. His appointees surrounded themselves with their appointees, and on down the line. What you have finally is a corroded organization which can be bribed, bullied or blackmailed in the easiest possible fashion.

Homosexuality has figured, off stage, in one of our traitorous operations. Homosexuality and similar irresponsibility has weakened us all over the world through the State Department’s calm acceptance of abnormality. A great deal of the trouble we are in, internationally, can be laid to the tolerance of that kind of weakness in a service which should be above reproach. You can say that the queer ones are pathetic and deserve a right to pursue happiness in most businesses, but you don’t need them in positions of heavy trust. I have some case histories tomorrow.

Epilogue:

The following day, Ruark published his description of traveling to North Africa in the company of State Department employees.

On the Timeline:

Previously:

Feb 20, 1950: McCarthy links homosexuality and Communism.

Feb 27, 1950: Commerce Department official says no homosexuals have been dismissed from the department.

Feb 28, 1950: The State Department reports dismissing 91 homosexuals.

Mar 14, 1950: McCarthy names five “bad security risks,” including one homosexual.

Mar 21, 1950: Columnist George E. Sokolsky says homosexuals are “advantageously stationed” in the State Department.

This story:

Mar 23, 1950: Robert C. Ruark’s column warns of homosexuals “traveling in packs.”

Next:

Mar 24, 1950: Robert C. Ruark follows up with “a drunk, a homosexual, and a flagrant fool.”

Mar 24, 1950: Westbrook Pegler says homosexuals in government weren’t a problem before FDR.

Mar 31, 1950: Rep. Arthur L. Miller gives “the putrid facts about homosexuality.”

Apr 14, 1950: Westbrook Pegler agrees that “homosexualism is worse than Communism.”

Apr 14, 1950: GOP Senator says McCarthy should attack homosexuals instead of Communists.

Apr 18, 1950: GOP Chairman warns of “perverts who have infiltrated our government.”

Periscope:

For March 23, 1950:
President: Harry S. Truman (D)
Vice-President: Alben W. Barkley (D)
House: 262 (D) 168 (R) 2 (Other) 3 (Vacant)
Southern states: 102 (D) 2 (R) 1 (Vacant)
Senate: 54 (D) 42 (R)
Southern states: 22 (D)
GDP growth: 7.3 % (Annual)
3.0 % (Quarterly)
Fed discount rate: 1½ %
Inflation: -0.8 %
Unemployment: 6.3 %
Electrolux, for only $69.75 or $5/mo (about $740 today, or $55/mo).

Headlines for March 23, 1950: McCarthy accuses Truman of “arrogant refusal” to release State Department’s loyalty files. State Department denies McCarthy’s charges of employing a “top Russian spy”. Conditions in Southeast Asia deemed “extremely critical” because of Communist military successes in China. Peiping radio admits famine is spreading across eastern, central and southern provinces of China. Gen. Eisenhower warns that defense cuts have gone too deep. Thousands of Belgians riot over the return of King Leopold III. B-50 bomber explodes over Arizona; 12 killed, 2 parachute to safety.

In the record stores: “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Red Foley, “Music! Music! Music! (Put Another Nickel In)” by Teresa Brewer and the Dixieland All-Stars, “Rag Mop” by the Ames Brothers, “The Cry of the Wild Goose” by Frankie Lane, “There’s No Tomorrow, by Tony Martin, “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” by Bing Crosby, “I Said My Pajamas” by Tony Martin and Fran Warren, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” by the Andrew Sisters, “It Isn’t Fair” by Don Cornell and the Sammy Kaye Orchestra, “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Bing Crosby with Vic Schoen & His Orchestra.

Currently in theaters: Walt Disney’s Cinderella.

On the radio: Lux Radio Theater (CBS), Jack Benny Program (CBS), Edgar Bergan & Charlie McCarthy (CBS), Amos & Andy (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), My Friend Irma (CBS), Walter Winchell’s Journal (ABC), Red Skelton Show (CBS), You Bet Your Life (NBC), Mr. Chameleon (CBS).

On television: The Lone Range (ABC), Toast of the Town/Ed Sullivan (CBS), Studio One (CBS), Captain Video and his Video Rangers (DuMont), Kraft Television Theater (NBC), The Goldbergs (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), Candid Camera (NBC), Texaco Star Theater/Milton Berle (NBC), Hopalong Cassidy (NBC), Cavalcade of Stars/Jackie Gleason (DuMont), Meet the Press (NBC), Roller Derby (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier, The Egyptian by Mika Waltari, The King’s Cavalier by Samual Shellabarger. Non-fiction: The Mature Mind by H.A. Overstreet, This I Remember by Eleanor Roosevelt, Home Sweet Zoo by Clare Barnes.

Sources:

Robert C. Ruark. Washington Daily News (March 23, 1950); as it appeared in  “Let’s Spin a Yarn.” Reading (PA) Eagle (March 23, 1950): 10.

David K. Johnson. The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004): 65-67.

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“Something twisted mentally”: McCarthy links “flagrantly homosexuals” to communism

Click to download the text of McCarthy’s floor speech of February 20 (PDF/11.9MB)

Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin’s junior Senator started out as a most unremarkable figure.  He was dubbed the “Pepsi-Cola Kid” when it came out that he benefitted from a $20,000 personal loan from the CEO while he was pushing to eliminate prices controls on sugar. He lobbied to commute the death sentences of several Waffen-SS war criminals, saying they didn’t get a fair trial. Fellow Senators avoided him. They were put off by his explosive temper and impatience. In 1949, the Senate press pool voted him “the worst U.S. Senator.”

But he was a popular speaker. Clubs, civic groups and political organizations lined up to book him for their banquets and meetings.

One such group was the Republic Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. That’s where, on February 9, 1950, he gave the speech that changed the course of his career. Towards the end of his speech in which he catalogued all that was wrong with America, he famously held up that mysterious piece of paper and said, “While I cannot take the time to name all of the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205 — a list of names that were known to the Secretary of State, and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping the policy in the State Department.”

The next day, a Salt Lake City radio station aired a prerecorded interview. Listeners heard McCarthy say that he had the names of 57 card-carrying Communists at the State Department. The day after that, he released a letter that he had sent to President Truman asking why the State Department had discharged only 80 of 300 employees “certified” as security risks. Every time he raised the subject, his numbers kept changing. But he revealed his partisan motives when he demanded that Truman order the State Department to turn their personnel records over to him. “Failure on your part,” he wrote, “will label the Democratic party as being the bed-fellow of international communism.”

McCarthy was no longer that forgotten, unremarkable figure. He now had a sensational cause that was guaranteed to make front page headlines. And his party had an issue that might finally dislodge the Democrats from their seventeen-year lock on power.

McCarthy’s charges were long in rhetoric. But they were short in details and devoid of names. The State Department’s Undersecretary of State John E. Peurifoy was responsible for administration, including employent and security. He publicly challenged McCarthy to provide the department with his list of names. In a telegram to McCarthy, Peurifoy said, “As a loyal American you owe it to your country to inform the officials responsible for any such characters existing in the government.”

McCarthy refused, but on February 20, he held court on the floor of the Senate for five and a half hours as he read out details of 81 people he said were “security risks” at the State Department. Again, several Senators challenged him to provide names, and again McCarthy refused. Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas (D-IL) interrupted McCarthy several times. Their arguments grew so acrimonious that McCarthy finally demanded a quorum call in the nearly empty chamber. After about thirty-five minutes, the sergeant-at-arms was able to round up fifteen more Senators to form a quorum. McCarthy resumed speaking, and held the Senate hostage until almost midnight.

Among those McCarthy accused, one was, supposedly, “one of our foreign ministers.” Another allegedly was a top official at the Voice of America. And another was Truman’s speechwriter. “I am doing President Truman a favor by telling him this,” said McCarthy. “He wouldn’t have this individual there if he knew it.”

Two of the eighty-one cases McCarthy weren’t particularly noteworthy at time. Case 14 and Case 62 escaped the press’s attention. But they are interesting to us today because they show how easily his Red Scare can color shift to Lavender. Case 14 came up just a before the quorum call:

Case No. 14. This is a case of pressure from a high State Department official to obtain security clearance for an individual with a bad background from the standpoint of security. He was appointed in December 1945 as a translator in the State Department.

This is an interesting case showing the extent to which some of their superior officers will go when they find that some of these very unusual individuals are going to lose their jobs. He was appointed in December 1945 as a translator in the State Department. A report from another Government investigating agency under date of January 9, 1946, advised that the subject should be dismissed as a bad security risk because he was flagrantly homosexual. He had extremely close connections with other individuals with the same tendencies, and who were active members of Communist front organizations, including the Young Communist League.

I think this is interesting, Mr. President. I asked one of our top intelligence men in Washington, one day, “Why do you find men who are so fanatically Communist? Is there something about the Communist philosophy that attracts them?”

He said, “Senator McCarthy, if you had been in this work as long as we have been, you would realize that there is something wrong with each one of these individuals. You will find that practically every active Communist is twisted mentally or physically in some way.”

The State Department’s own security agency recommended the discharge of this employee on January 22, 1946. On February 19, 1946, this individual’s services were terminated with the State Department. Subsequently on April l, 1946, the action discharging this individual was rescinded and he was reinstated in his job in the State Department. In this case a CSA report of September 2, 1947, is replete with information covering the attempt of a high State Department official to induce several individuals who had signed affidavits reflecting adversely upon the employee to repudiate their affidavits. The file shows that that high State Department employee even went out and ·personally contacted the individuals who signed the affidavits, and asked them, “Won’t you repudiate them?”

This individual, according to the security files of the State Department, was a very close associate of active Soviet agents. As to whether he is in the State Department at this time or not, I frankly do not know, but in view of the fact that he was reinstated, I assume that he is.

After the quorum call, McCarthy resumed his speech with Case 16. (He skipped 15.) He got as far as Case 34 when the Senate went more or less into rebellion over McCarthy’s stream of innuendos, one-sided case presentations and lack of specifics. But the longer the debate went, the more it became clear to everyone that McCarthy wasn’t about to give up the floor. He would keep the body hostage under threat of another quorum call all night long if he had to.

Finally, he came to Case 62, which McCarthy conceded had nothing to do with Communism.

Case No. 62. This file is not important insofar as communistic activities are concerned, but rather is important because it sheds light on some rather unusual mental aberrations of certain individuals in the Department. In this connection, it perhaps should be mentioned that the types of individuals described in this file are regarded as bad security risks by most investigative agencies for the reason that they are rather easy blackmail victims. This file I recommend to the attention of any committee that cares to investigate it. It goes into some detail in regard to the peculiar — how can we put it –the peculiar mental twists. I was trying to handle this matter delicately. I think this will be of interest to the committee in that it gives a rather interesting picture of some rather unusual mental twists of these gentlemen who are tied up with some of the Communist organizations.

Also it is confirmation of what I believe I mentioned earlier this evening when I was talking about one of the top investigators in Washington. I said to him, “Why do you find so many people fanatic about communism? Is there something that is so inviting about it? Is there something mentally wrong?” He said, “You will find if you search deep enough that there is something mentally or physically wrong with every one of them.” There is certainly something wrong with this group. I might say that the new security officer has recommended that they get rid of all that type of individuals regardless of whether they are shown to have any communistic connection or not.

This is the link, in McCarthy’s mind, between Communism and homosexuality: you’d have to be crazy to be a Communist, and you’d have to be crazy to be a homosexual. In fairness to McCarthy, he was far from alone in creating this linkage. As far as most people were concerned, there was one problem: subversion and perversion, which in their minds was one and the same.

The rest of the first year of what became known as the Red Scare was actually devoted to a Lavender Scare. The latter scare grew, somewhat accidentally, out of the first. It peaked in 1953, and then was swiftly forgotten. Today’s history books ignore the Lavender Scare and leave the impression that only suspected Communists were hunted. But we can look back and see the obvious: two parallel scares, each reinforcing the other.

The Quest for Case 14’s Protector

Sens. Millerd Tydings (L) and Joseph McCarthy (R)

Case 14 figured in a spectacular showdown between, McCarthy and Sen. Millerd E. Tydings (D-MD), whose committee was named to investigate McCarthy’s accusations. The committee met on March 9, with McCarthy beings its star witness for much of the next two weeks. McCarthy had charged that “a high State Department official” had engaged in a cover-up to protect Case 14. Tydings began first day’s hearing by demanding to know this official’s name. “This is a very serious charge,” said Tydings, “that a high official in the State Department is tampering with the records to protect people who are charged with disloyal activities.”

McCarthy refused to answer. Instead, he insisted on going through each of the cases, in order, as he had done on the Senate floor. “I assure you we will get to it,” he said. “I have other cases documented for your information this morning.”

Sen. McCarthy before the Tydings Committee

Tydings then asked not for the man’s name, but whether McCarthy knew it. Again McCarthy refused to answer. Then Tydings asked even more simply if the man’s identity could be found connected with another of McCarthy’s 81 cases. Again, McCarthy refused to answer. Tydings tried another tack. He asked if the man’s name was anywhere in McCarthy’s records. McCarthy kept stonewalling, saying that he will get to it when he was ready to discuss Case 14. The two went back and forth for about forty minutes. McCarthy refused to budge.

McCarthy had two objectives by refusing to answer. First, he wanted to retain control of the headlines. Answering Tydings’s question would effectively shift the headlines away from what he wanted to disclose for the day. He, McCarthy, would decide whose name would show up in the newspapers, and he would control its timing for maximum impact.

The fact that McCarthy didn’t want this particular name in the papers is closely related to his second reason for stonewalling. It was Joseph A. Panuch. He had been the State Department’s Undersecretary for Administration until 1947. That’s when Gen. George Marshall became Secretary of State and brought in his team with him. Panuch moved on and became a contributor to Plain Talk, a Chicago-based anti-Communist magazine. That exposure made him something of a minor hero to the far right. Panuch later became a special advisor to Gen. Lucuis D. Clay, U.S. Military Governor of the American sector in Germany.

But McCarthy refused to reveal Panuch’s name. That’s because  McCarthy had named him — and praised him — when discussing another unrelated individual known only as Case 41. “Joe Panuch had made considerable efforts to get this man out of the State Department,” McCarthy had said. “Here is one man who had tried to do the job of housecleaning, and the ax falls.”

In other words, the un-named man who McCarthy condemned for helping Case 14 was the very same man McCarthy praised, by name, in Case 41.

Tydings already knew the name, and McCarthy knew that Tydings already knew. Tydings knew that this man was Panuch for the same reason that most other Senators knew it. McCarthy’s had simply re-arranged and renumbered the cases from a different list compiled in 1947. The so-called “Lee List,” named for House investigator Robert E. Lee, had been compiled for a House subcommittee investigating the State Department’s security procedures. The same list was also shared with three other subcommittees in what had been a Republican-controlled Congress. Four different GOP-run subcommittees looked into the list, and all of them concluded that no further actions were necessary.

By the time McCarthy got hold of the Lee List, it was 2½ years old. By then, was so well known among other legislators that Sen. Homer Ferguson (R-MI) brought his copy to the Senate chamber to read along during McCarthy’s speech. Case 14 in McCarthy’s list was actually Case 10 of the Lee List. It read:

This is a case of pressure from a high Department official to give clearance to a subject although derogatory information is available.

The subject was appointed in December 1945 as a translator for “not over a year.” He had previously been a special attorney with the Justice Department and was in the U. S. Marines for one year during World War II.

A report of another investigative agency, under date of January 9, 1940, advised that the subject has homosexual tendencies and made suicide attempts in 1936 and 1942.

A memorandum dated January 22, 1946, by Mr. Bannerman recommended terminating the subject’s services which could be done rather easily because of his appointment being of a temporary nature. He was terminated February 19, 1946, and appealed the termination.

A memorandum dated April 1, 1946, from J. A. Panuch stated that he had interviewed the subject and reviewed various affidavits and letters of reference submitted by this subject and he rescinded the termination action of February 19, 1946. A memorandum from Mr. Panuch, dated May 28, 1946, to Mr. Fred Lyon, of the Office of Controls, referred to an opinion expressed by Mr. Lyon on May 27, 1946, that the subject was an undesirable employee because of moral depravity, and requested substantiation of Lyon’s charge in writing with evidence additional to what was already in the file. Mr. Lyon’s memorandum of May 31, 1946, to Mr. Panuch pointed out that dismissal of charges against the subject was premature because —

  1. No complete CSA investigation had been made to determine the subject’s current personal conduct.
  2. No interviews were had with two witnesses who had originally reported homosexual tendencies on the part of the subject and later denied their statements in affidavits.
  3. The subject is known to have an arrest record in the District of Columbia for disorderly conduct. The facts regarding this arrest had not been checked.

Mr. Lyon pointed out that this is another case where it is necessary to either resolve all doubts in favor of the individual or the Department, and he favored the latter.

A memorandum of June 19, 1947, from the Foreign Activities Correlation Division to CSA stated information had been received from a Government security agency to the effect that the subject had been an enlisted man in the Marines and while such had shown undue interest in naval activities and had pro-German sentiments during the war. The memorandum also stated that investigation by another Government agency exposed him as a flagrant homosexual.

A CSA report of September 2. 1947. set out considerable information confirming the subject’s homosexual activities and tendencies. It also relates an interview with an attorney who originally reported the subject a homosexual to a Government agency and who subsequently on March 2, 1946, signed an affidavit contradicting his former statement. In connection with the affidavit he informed an investigator that the subject had approached him and begged him to sign a document he had written. He said he refused, but that a short time later Mr. Joseph Panuch, representing himself to be from Assistant Secretary of State Russell’s office, called him by telephone on behalf of the subject and said the subject was being ruined by statements that he had made about him. Mr. Panuch reportedly said that everyone else who had made statements against the subject’s character had retracted them and the informant was the only one holding out. Mr. Panuch then reportedly asked the informant to make an affidavit rescinding the statements made by him to another Government agency. It is noted that although Panuch said everyone else had rescinded their statements against the subject, the key witness to an incident of perversion by the subject did not sign an affidavit until March 18, 1946, whereas the informant’s affidavit was signed March 2, 1940. The CSA investigation developed quite conclusively that the subject had homosexual tendencies.

On September 12, 1947, a form memorandum from CSA to the Personnel Division stated that the subject is a homosexual.

He was still on the Department rolls as of October 29, 1947.

“The New Deal, The Fair Deal, and the Fairy Deal”

McCarthy finally submitted his list of names corresponding to his 81 cases to the Tydings Committee in March. The Tydings Committee released its report in July. Unsurprisingly, it found nothing behind any of McCarthy’s 81 charges:

We were thus confronted with the amazing spectacle of four different committees of the Eightieth Congress, which was controlled by Senator McCarthy’s own party, having considered the very same files and information which provided the predicate for the McCarthy charges — with none of these committees so much as regarding the situation as one meriting a report or citing a single State Department as disloyal.”

The two Republicans on the committee, Sens. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., (R-MA) and Bourke B. Hickenlooper (R-IA) refused to sign the report. Lodge’s objections are particularly noteworthy. A moderate Republican who would later fall out with McCarthy, Lodge objected to thirty-five missing pages of discussions that were omitted from the Committee’s published hearing transcripts. (They were later published in a separate thin volume.) The omitted portions included a lengthy dialogue between Lodge and Tydings in which Lodge objected to how the hearings were conducted. “I shall not attempt to characterize those methods and the tactics of leaving out of the printed text parts of the testimony and proceedings,” Lodge announced on the Senate floor. “I shall not characterize such methods, because I think they speak for themselves.”

Republicans were furious. Several of them had already criticized the Tydings committee for refusing to expand its investigations to include homosexuals in the State Department. Tydings insisted that the committee remain focused on Communists and other “disloyal” risks. In fact, neither Democrats nor Republicans saw any real difference between Communists and homosexuals, since everyone assumed that homosexuals could be easily blackmailed. And besides, as McCarthy had already said, Communists and homosexuals both shared certain “mental twists.” Tydings’s refusal to look into homosexuals in the State Department had already led Sen. William E. Jenner (R-IN), a close McCarthy ally, to call the Tydings Committee “Whitewash, Inc.” Its sole purpose, said Jenner, was to protect “the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the fairy deal administrations.”

Epilogue:

In 2007, Library of Congress archivist and historian John Earl Haynes made public McCarthy’s list and associated names. Case 14 was identified as Ernest Theodore Arndt. He had been discharged from the Marines “by reason of habits and traits of character,” but his discharge was changed to honorable “for the convenience of the government.” He was hired by the State Department as a translator in December 1945. He was dismissed on February 19, 1946 for “homosexual activities and tendencies.” The State Department re-hired him April 1, despite a police record for disorderly conduct and an FBI report that said “he was suspected of being homosexually inclined.”

Case 62 was identified as Isham W. Perkins.  He passed an FBI background check in 1940 with flying colors when the State Department hired him. But the Lee List reports that by 1947, two informants had come forward alleging that Perkins “had the reputation “among homosexuals as being homosexuals.” A third alleged that he “goes to homosexual parties, associates with homosexuals and is ‘undoubtedly homosexual.”

Perkins left the State Department job in 1948. By 1955, he was working at the Dumbarton Oaks Library, from which he retired in 1967. Perkins has been identified as the State Department librarian in Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life 1918-1945. Perkins appeared as C.C. Dasham, or Dash, in these diaries when they were edited and published by Ina Russell, the niece of Carter Newman Bealer (“Jeb Alexander”). He died in Boca Raton in 1976.

Read More:

I have extracted the text of McCarthy’s floor speech of February 20 from the Congressional Record and placed it online here (PDF/11.9MB).

On the Timeline:

Previously:

Feb 9, 1950: McCarthy tells an audience in Wheeling, WV, that he has a list of 205 Communists in the State Department.

Feb 10, 1950: McCarthy tells a Salt Lake City radio station that he has the names of 57 card-carrying Communists in the State Department.

Feb 11, 1950: McCarthy releases a letter to Truman charging that the State Department is lax in dismissing “certified” security risks.

Feb 27, 1950: Commerce Department official says no homosexuals have been dismissed from the department.

This story:

Feb 20, 1950: McCarthy links homosexuality and Communism.

Next:

Feb 28, 1950:The State Department reports dismissing 91 homosexuals.

Mar 14, 1950: McCarthy names five “bad security risks,” including one homosexual.

Periscope:

For February 20, 1950:
President: Harry S. Truman (D)
Vice-President: Alben W. Barkley (D)
House: 262 (D) 169 (R) 2 (Other) 2 (Vacant)
Southern states: 102 (D) 2 (R) 1 (Vacant)
Senate: 54 (D) 42 (R)
Southern states: 22 (D)
GDP growth: 7.3 % (Annual)
3.0 % (Quarterly)
Fed discount rate: 1½ %
Inflation: -1.3 %
Unemployment: 6.4 %

Headlines: Coal rationing goes into effect in many parts of the country as striking miners bring reserves to critical levels. A severe cold snap in the east with single digit temperatures further strains coal supplies. Power companies institute brown-outs to conserve coal.  Miners ignore a Federal Judge’s order that they return to work.

In the record stores: “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Red Foley, “Music! Music! Music! (Put Another Nickel In)” by Teresa Brewer and the Dixieland All-Stars, “Rag Mop” by the Ames Brothers, “There’s No Tomorrow,” by Tony Martin, “The Cry of the Wild Goose” by Frankie Lane, “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” by Bing Crosby, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” by the Andrew Sisters, “I Said My Pajamas” by Tony Martin and Fran Warren, “It Isn’t Fair” by Don Cornell and the Sammy Kaye Orchestra, “Rag Mop” by Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra.

Currently in theaters: The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard.

On the radio: Lux Radio Theater (CBS), Jack Benny Program (CBS), Edgar Bergan & Charlie McCarthy (CBS), Amos & Andy (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), My Friend Irma (CBS), Walter Winchell’s Journal (ABC), (CBS), You Bet Your Life (NBC), Mr. Chameleon (CBS).

On television: The Lone Range (ABC), Toast of the Town/Ed Sullivan (CBS), Studio One (CBS), Captain Video and his Video Rangers (DuMont), Kraft Television Theater (NBC), The Goldbergs (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), Candid Camera (NBC), Texaco Star Theater/Milton Berle (NBC), Hopalong Cassidy (NBC), Cavalcade of Stars/Jackie Gleason (DuMont), Meet the Press (NBC), Roller Derby (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier, The Egyptian by Mika Waltari, The King’s Cavalier by Samual Shellabarger. Non-fiction: This I Remember by Eleanor Roosevelt, The Mature Mind by H.A. Overstreet, White Collar Zoo by Clare Barnes.

Sources:

Newspapers (in chronological order):

“M’Carthy insists Truman ousts reds.” New York Times (February 12, 1950): 5.

Jay Walz. “Acheston aide asks ’57 Reds’ be named. New York Times (February 14, 1950): 16.

Harold B. Hinton. “M’Carthy charges spy for Russia has a high State Department post.” New York Times (February 21, 1950): 13.

“40 quarreling minutes: Mr. 14’s loyalty or lack of it embroils Tydings, McCarthy.” Washington Post (March 9, 1950): 1, 2.

William S. White. “Nazi tactics laid to M’Carthy foes.” New York Times (July 25, 1950): 1, 17.

Government documents:

“Communists in Government Service” Remarks by Sen. Joseph McCarthy given on February 20, 1950. 81st Cong., 2nd sess. Congressional Record 96 part 2: 1952-1981. Case 14 is given on page 1961. Case 62 is given on pages 1978-1979. The extracted remarks are available online here (PDF/11.9MB).

Remarks by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., given on July 24, 1950. 81st Cong., 2nd sess. Congressional Record 96 part 8: 10813. Available online here.

State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation. Wednesday, March 8, 1950. Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Tydings Committee), 81st Cong., 2nd sess. part 1: 1-32. Available online here.

State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation. Wednesday, March 8, 1950. Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Tydings Committee), 81st Cong., 2nd sess. part 2. Available online here. McCarthy’s Case 14 (Ernest Theodore Arndt) is taken from Case 10 of the “Lee List,” given on page 1777-1778.  McCarthy’s Case 62 (Isham W. Perkins) is taken from Case 73 of the “Lee List,” given on page 1796.

Books:

Genny Beemyn. A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, D.C. (New York: Routledge, 2015): 146-148.

Douglas M. Charles. Hoover’s War on Gays: Exposing the FBI’s “Sex Deviates” Program. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2015): 81-82.

Robert Griffith. The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate 2nd ed. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987): 25-27. 30, 54-67.

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“A liar advantageously stationed”: George E. Sokolsky on homosexuals in the State Department

The State Department’s undersecretary for administration, John E. Peurifoy, revealed to a Senate committee on February 28, 1950, that the department had dismissed ninety-one homosexuals since 1947. Nine days later, that testimony was reinforced by news coverage of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s testimony before a special Senate subcommittee looking into charges of loyalty and security risks in the U.S. State Department. McCarthy had stood in the well of the Senate for five and a half hours on February 20 reading out 81 cases that he alleged were Communists, communist sympathizers, and other risks. Two of those “other risks” included homosexuals. One of those homosexuals, Case 14, figured prominently in McCarthy’s testimony before the Senate subcommittee. Case 14 also figured prominently in that day’s news coverage and in the days following.

By the third week of March, the Lavender Scare was getting at least as much attention in the press as the Red Scare. The first major public figure outside of government to turn it into a full-blown crusade was George E. Sokolsky. His column, “These Days,” distriibuted by Hearst’s King Features Syndicate, appeared in an estimated 300 papers nationwide.

L-R: Roy Cohn, George Sokolsky, and Joseph McCarthy

Sokolsky took his right-wing politics personally. The son of a Russian émigré rabbi, Sokolsky had started out with high hopes for the Russian Revolution of 1917. He went to Petrograd to witness the revolution first hand. But when the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government, Sokolsky’s politics took a sudden lurch to the right. A Columbia University classmate later said, “Suddenly the flaming radical, Sokolsky, became the flaming reactionary.”

Sokolsky was a McCarthy supporter from the very beginning. In 1954, Time described Sokolsky as McCarthy’s mentor and advisor. He even introduced McCarthy to Roy Cohn  and David Schine, two key players in McCarthy’s Red Scare who would eventually cause its downfall.

McCarthy’s career ended in disgrace. Sokolsky’s continued without a hitch. When he died in 1962, honorary pallbearers included former President Herbert Hoover, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Senators Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), Everett Dirksen (R-IL) and Thomas Dodd (D-CT).

These Days

By George E. Sokolsky
George Sokolsky’s column, as it appeared in The Daily Times of New Philadelphia, Ohio the next day (March 22, 1950, page 4)

Never before has the state department been attacked so violently as during the past ten years. The attacks did not begin with Senator McCarthy of Wisconsin, nor will they end with his current reports. The attacks began really in 1933 when we recognized Soviet Russia. They were intensified with the startling “Amerasia” case, in which 100 files from the state and other departments were found in the offices of this left-wing magazine in which there was also situated photographing equipment. That case was hushed up.

Those interested in the infiltration of the highest levels of government by known Communists, whose party membership could not be proved without their consent, continued to dig into the record. While much was discovered, little could be established, for what these men were engaged in was a conspiracy, internationally directed.

Their trail might be uncovered, but it could not be established by the rules of evidence applicable in a court of law. Only when they fumbled, or when one of the broke from the crowd, and stated fact under oath, was it possible to publish the already known facts. The principals in this business, such as George Mink, J. Peters, Gerhart Eisler and others whom even now I cannot name with provable evidence, were clever, trained men.

The most damaging contribution to the subject has thus far been made by John Peurifoy, deputy under-secretary of state in charge of administration. His statement should have shocked this nation. When Maximillian Harden, the German journalist, called attention to a similar camarilla in the Kaiser’s court, involving Prince Eulenburg, it shocked and astonished the world. Yet, in this generation, in the United States, a charge that 91 employees of the state department were dismissed for being homosexuals passes with little excitement.

Perhaps the reason is that the word, homosexual, is considered bad. It is not the word that is bad; it is the consequences of the deed that lay the individual open to blackmail. He is ashamed; he is frightened; he has become accustomed to secrecy, conspiracy, lying. He is always subject to blackmail.

Mr. Peurifoy said, in giving the figure 91:

“Most of them were homosexuals. In fact, I would say all of them were.”

Of course, Mr Peurifoy withheld the names of these persons and therefore it is not known what positions they held. For instance, if a homosexual held such a position as under-secretary of state, or assistant secretary or as sensitive bureau chief, the menace to the United States would be that if the espionage services of a foreign power or of a world-wide conspiracy got at him, he would have three alternatives: 1. To resign yet to risk exposure; 2. To submit to blackmail and become a spy for a foreign power; or 3. To commit suicide.

I am dealing with this problem not from a moral but from a practical standpoint. There are some persons who excuse the homosexual on the ground that he was born that way. Others became involved in Freudian jargon and explain this phenomenon as due to a variety of causes. From our standpoint, it is merely a question as to whether a person whose conduct lays him open to blackmail is a good security risk.

Now, in all the arguments on the subject, those who defend the State Department and attack Senator McCarthy miss two points:

1. Our foreign policy has been wrong since 1943 (Teheran) because it was controlled by a foreign power, Soviet Russia. Dean Acheson’s speeches in San Francisco must be read as a condemnation of these policies; otherwise they have no meaning.

What part did these homosexuals, subject to blackmail, play in the formation of those erroneous policies?

2. Whereas some of the rest of us may be as black at heart as Al Capone, those in the State Department must be as pure in mind and purpose as driven snow. For that Department gatherers the data, formulates the policies, lays down the techniques, short of war, for the defense of our country in times of peace and war.

A liar advantageously stationed; a blackmailed creature in a sensitive spot; a frightened soul, caught in the web of conspiracy, can produce such a result as the conquest of China by Soviet Russia by consent. There is the menace.

On the Timeline:

Previously:

Feb 9, 1950: McCarthy tells an audience in Wheeling, WV, that he has a list of 205 Communists in the State Department.

Feb 20, 1950: McCarthy links homosexuality and Communism.

Feb 27, 1950: Commerce Department official says no homosexuals have been dismissed from the department.

Feb 28, 1950: The State Department reports dismissing 91 homosexuals.

Mar 14, 1950: McCarthy names five “bad security risks,” including one homosexual.

This story:

Mar 21, 1950: Columnist George E. Sokolsky says homosexuals are “advantageously stationed” in the State Department.

Next:

Mar 23, 1950: Robert C. Ruark’s column warns of homosexuals “traveling in packs.”

Mar 24, 1950: Robert C. Ruark follows up with “a drunk, a homosexual, and a flagrant fool.”

Mar 24, 1950: Westbrook Pegler says homosexuals in government weren’t a problem before FDR.

Mar 31, 1950: Rep. Arthur L. Miller gives “the putrid facts about homosexuality.”

Apr 14, 1950: Westbrook Pegler agrees that “homosexualism is worse than Communism.”

Apr 14, 1950: GOP Senator says McCarthy should attack homosexuals instead of Communists.

Apr 18, 1950: GOP Chairman warns of “perverts who have infiltrated our government.”

Periscope:

For March 21, 1950:
President: Harry S. Truman (D)
Vice-President: Alben W. Barkley (D)
House: 262 (D) 168 (R) 2 (Other) 3 (Vacant)
Southern states: 102 (D) 2 (R) 1 (Vacant)
Senate: 54 (D) 42 (R)
Southern states: 22 (D)
GDP growth: 7.3 % (Annual)
3.0 % (Quarterly)
Fed discount rate: 1½ %
Inflation: -0.8 %
Unemployment: 6.3 %

Headlines: Sen. McCarthy says “the boss of Alger Hiss” is “the top Russian espionage agent in this country.” The Veterans of Foreign Wars urges Congress to outlaw the Communist Party. Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall issue letters strongly defending Ambassador at Large Philip C. Jessup against McCarthy’s accusations that Jessup enjoys “an unusual affinity with Communist causes.”

In the record stores: “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Red Foley, “Music! Music! Music! (Put Another Nickel In)” by Teresa Brewer and the Dixieland All-Stars, “Rag Mop” by the Ames Brothers, “The Cry of the Wild Goose” by Frankie Lane, “There’s No Tomorrow, by Tony Martin, “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” by Bing Crosby, “I Said My Pajamas” by Tony Martin and Fran Warren, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” by the Andrew Sisters, “It Isn’t Fair” by Don Cornell and the Sammy Kaye Orchestra, “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Bing Crosby with Vic Schoen & His Orchestra.

Currently in theaters: The Asphalt Jungle, starring Marylin Monroe, Sterling Hayden and Louis Calhern.

On the radio: Lux Radio Theater (CBS), Jack Benny Program (CBS), Edgar Bergan & Charlie McCarthy (CBS), Amos & Andy (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), My Friend Irma (CBS), Walter Winchell’s Journal (ABC), Red Skelton Show (CBS), You Bet Your Life (NBC), Mr. Chameleon (CBS).

On television: The Lone Range (ABC), Toast of the Town/Ed Sullivan (CBS), Studio One (CBS), Captain Video and his Video Rangers (DuMont), Kraft Television Theater (NBC), The Goldbergs (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), Candid Camera (NBC), Texaco Star Theater/Milton Berle (NBC), Hopalong Cassidy (NBC), Cavalcade of Stars/Jackie Gleason (DuMont), Meet the Press (NBC), Roller Derby (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier, The Egyptian by Mika Waltari, The King’s Cavalier by Samual Shellabarger. Non-fiction: The Mature Mind by H.A. Overstreet, This I Remember by Eleanor Roosevelt, Home Sweet Zoo by Clare Barnes.

Sources:

George E. Sokolsky. “These Days” column for March, 21, 1950. As it appeared in The Daily Times (New Philadelphia, OH, March 22, 1950): 4.

“The man in the middle.” Time (May 24, 1954): 44, 46.

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The State Department 91 and the Beginning of the Lavender Scare

Undersecretary of State John E. Peurifoy

The Lavender Scare began precisely on February 28, 1950. Communists were supposed to be the day’s topic. Specifically, Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s (R-WI) allegations that the State Department was crawling with them. Just three weeks earlier, McCarthy told  the Republican Women’s Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, that he had a list of 205 Commies on the department’s payroll. The next day, he told a Salt Lake City radio station that his list had fifty-seven names in red. The day after that, he released a letter to President Truman asking why only 80 of 300 employees “certified” as loyalty and security risks were gone.

As America moved to a post-war Cold War footing, the country’s political ground was rapidly shifting. The Great Depression and the War both kept Democrats solidly in power since 1933. But since 1945’s victory in Europe and the Pacific, an Iron Curtain fell across Eastern Europe, the Soviets got the bomb, China was “lost” to the Reds, and several high-profile spy cases made headlines at home. The old worries that put Democrats in power and kept them there were gone, and new ones replaced them. Democrats had held the White House for seventeen straight years. They barely kept it in 1948 by a Dewey whisker. But now with the Cold War on, Republicans saw national security as their best hope to come along in two decades, and they went for it.

For the past two years, the State Department’s star diplomat, Alger Hiss fought charges that he was a Communist spy. He testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and wound up being criminally charged. Not for spying, but for perjury. Few Americans appreciated the difference. Democratic luminaries lined up as character witnesses — Adlai Stevenson, Supreme Court Justices Felix Frankfurter, and Stanley Reed, and former Democratic presidential candidate John W. Davis. Truman called it a “red herring.” The first trial ended in a hung jury. Not so the second.

Hiss’s conviction in January 1950 cemented the reputation of a young California congressman by the name of Richard Nixon as a Communist fighter. McCarthy now wanted some of that action. He gave his Wheeling speech just two weeks after Hiss’s conviction. On February 20, he stood in the well of the Senate for almost six hours and read out, one by one, 81 cases of individuals he said represented loyalty and security risks at the State Department. Two of them were homosexuals.

Loyalty Risks and Security Risks

Let’s pause here and define our terms. As lawmakers and officials brought these questions up, they typically treated them as belonging to two separate topics. Loyalty risks denoted Communists and others who acted to undermine American interests or, more commonly, were suspected to belong to groups that Conservatives labeled as “Communist front” organizations — whether they really were or not. But security risks defined people who were otherwise loyal, but who were seen as not being trustworthy. The most common examples were “alcoholic, blabbermouths and sexual perverts” — the latter term meaning homosexuals. The problem, of course, is that there were no active programs to drive alcoholics and blabbermouths from government service. But it had been a longstanding practice (and policy, in many places) to immediately dismiss anyone found to be homosexual.

That practice was reinforced in 1947 when Sen. Pat McCarran (D-NV) attached an amendment to a State Department appropriations bill giving the Secretary of State “absolute discretion” to dismiss any employee in the interest of national security. The Appropriations Committee, at the same time, warned in a letter to then-Secretary George C. Marshall of a “deliberate, calculated program” to place and keep Communists in high public offices. It also warned that the effort included, “the extensive employment in highly classified positions of admitted homosexuals, who are historically known to be security risks.”

This had the effect of defining homosexuals as security risks. And in official public parlance, security risks, far more often than not, meant homosexuals. This let public officials get by with without having to utter the word homosexual directly.But by 1950, that was changing. Republicans were increasingly willing to say homosexuals when talking about employees in the Truman administration. Democrats, on the other hand, Democrats preferred to deflect that association by using security risks and other benign euphemisms.

The Lavender Scare may have started in 1950, but the purge of homosexuals had accelerated since 1947, thanks to the McCarran amendment. Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy was in charge of that program. After McCarthy began his campaign, Peurifoy denied to reporters that the State Department harbored any Communists, but he did say that 202 employees had been identified as security risks “security risks” since 1947 and had left the department. Peurifoy thought that statement would prove that the State Department had a very effective security system in place. Instead, it was like spilled blood in shark-invested waters.

“The Shady Category”

Undersecretary John E. Peurifoy and Secretary of State Dean Acheson at the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, February 28, 1950.

Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Undersecretary Peurifoy had been called before the Senate Appropriations Committee on February 28 to to discuss the State Department’s budget — which they did for the first half-hour or so. Then the topic abruptly shifted to two other topics. Not long before, Secretary of State Dean Acheson had told reporters that he still believed Hiss was innocent. “I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss,” he had said. Republican Senators pelted Acheson and Peurifoy with questions about Hiss. Those questions segued neatly into Peurifoy’s statement about the 202 “security risks.”

Sen. Styles Bridges (R-NH) did most of the grilling. He asked Acheson how many people resigned or were fired as security risks under the McCarran amendment. Peurifoy understood what Bridges was getting at and jumped in. “I might answer that, sir. In this shady category that you referred to earlier, there are 91 cases sir.”

Bridges wasn’t having it. He wanted Peurifoy to say the dreaded word. “What do you mean by “shady category”?

“We are talking about people of moral weaknesses and so forth that we have gotten rid of in the Department.”

“I see,” said Bridges.

McCarran jumped in. “Now, will you make your answer a little clearer, please?”

Peurifoy finally said it: “Most of these were homosexuals, Mr. Chairman.”

“You say that there were 91?” asked McCarran.

“Yes sir. All of them were removed.”

Epilogue:

Surprisingly, this testimony barely made a ripple in the press. The Associated Press and United Press devoted just a couple of paragraphs to it.  The Washington Post almost missed it altogether. It showed up in the very last paragraph, under a subheading “Other Points at Hearing.” The big story was still about Acheson’s comments about Hiss. One exception was a small evening paper in Los Angeles, which printed an editorial which said, in effect, Wait! What was that?

The following is a quote from an Associated Press story out of Washington, dated February 28, dealing with testimony about the State Department given before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee:

“The Hiss matter came up after Department Undersecretary of State John E. Peurifoy had testified that in the last 2 years the Department has rid itself of 202 employees who were under security investigation.

“He said 91 of the 202 were homosexual cases, explaining that such persons are rated bad risks because they might be blackmailed by spies.”

We confess that we were more startled by that casual statement than by any other revelation that has come out of Washington in many months.  … Add to favorite swish occupations: A career in the United States State Department.

But aside from a few editorials in a couple of small newspapers, this revelation prompted very little comment. That changed dramatically in the next few weeks.

Read More:

“Statistic on Homosexual Cases since January, 1947” via the National Archives.

“These People Are Frightened to Death,” by Judith Adkins for Prologue magazine at the National Archives.

On the Timeline:

Previously:

Jan 25, 1950: Secretary of State Dean Acheson tells reporters, “I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss.”

Feb 9, 1950: McCarthy tells an audience in Wheeling, WV, that he has a list of 205 Communists in the State Department.

Feb 10, 1950: McCarthy tells a Salt Lake City radio station that he has the names of 57 card-carrying Communists in the State Department.

Feb 11, 1950: McCarthy releases a letter to Truman charging that the State Department is lax in dismissing “certified” security risks.

Feb 13, 1950: Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy denies there are known Communists in the State Department, but says that 202 employees identified as “security risks” have left the department since 1947.

Feb 20, 1950: McCarthy links homosexuality and Communism.

Feb 27, 1950: Commerce Department official says no homosexuals have been dismissed from the department.

This story:

Feb 28, 1950: The State Department reports dismissing 91 homosexuals.

Next:

Mar 14, 1950: McCarthy names five “bad security risks,” including one homosexual.

Mar 21, 1950: Columnist George E. Sokolsky says homosexuals are “advantageously stationed” in the State Department.

Mar 23, 1950: Robert C. Ruark’s column warns of homosexuals “traveling in packs.”

Mar 24, 1950: Robert C. Ruark follows up with “a drunk, a homosexual, and a flagrant fool.”

Mar 24, 1950: Westbrook Pegler says homosexuals in government weren’t a problem before FDR.

Periscope:

For February 28, 1950:
President: Harry S. Truman (D)
Vice-President: Alben W. Barkley (D)
House: 262 (D) 169 (R) 2 (Other) 2 (Vacant)
Southern states: 102 (D) 2 (R) 1 (Vacant)
Senate: 54 (D) 42 (R)
Southern states: 22 (D)
GDP growth: 7.3 % (Annual)
3.0 % (Quarterly)
Fed discount rate: 1½ %
Inflation: -1.3 %
Unemployment: 6.4 %

Headlines: Secretary of State Dean Acheson defends his loyalty to the U.S. and his remarks about Alger Hiss. Two Klansmen are arrested for killing a retired storekeeper near Birmingham, Alabama. A month-long strike by coal miners brings supplies to the nation’s homes, schools, hospitals, factories and railroads to dangerously low levels. An escaped cougar from the Oklahoma City zoo terrorizes neighborhoods for three days before being captured; twelve hours later he’s found dead in his cage.

In the record stores: “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Red Foley, “Music! Music! Music! (Put Another Nickel In)” by Teresa Brewer and the Dixieland All-Stars, “Rag Mop” by the Ames Brothers, “The Cry of the Wild Goose” by Frankie Lane, “There’s No Tomorrow, by Tony Martin, “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” by Bing Crosby, “I Said My Pajamas” by Tony Martin and Fran Warren, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” by the Andrew Sisters, “It Isn’t Fair” by Don Cornell and the Sammy Kaye Orchestra, “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” by Bing Crosby with Vic Schoen & His Orchestra.

Currently in theaters: The Accused, starring Loretta Young and Robert Cummings

On the radio: Lux Radio Theater (CBS), Jack Benny Program (CBS), Edgar Bergan & Charlie McCarthy (CBS), Amos & Andy (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), My Friend Irma (CBS), Walter Winchell’s Journal (ABC), Red Skelton Show (CBS), You Bet Your Life (NBC), Mr. Chameleon (CBS).

On television: The Lone Range (ABC), Toast of the Town/Ed Sullivan (CBS), Studio One (CBS), Captain Video and his Video Rangers (DuMont), Kraft Television Theater (NBC), The Goldbergs (CBS), Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS), Candid Camera (NBC), Texaco Star Theater/Milton Berle (NBC), Hopalong Cassidy (NBC), Cavalcade of Stars/Jackie Gleason (DuMont), Meet the Press (NBC), Roller Derby (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier, The Egyptian by Mika Waltari, The King’s Cavalier by Samual Shellabarger. Non-fiction: This I Remember by Eleanor Roosevelt, The Mature Mind by H.A. Overstreet, Home Sweet Zoo by Clare Barnes.

Sources:

Newspapers (in chronological order):

Associated Press “Acheston denies favoring actions charged to Hiss.” Austin Statesman (February 28, 1950): 1.

Ferdinand Kuhn. “Denies condoning offenses, says he would not tolerate traitors in his office.” Washington Post (March 1, 1950): 1,2.

William S. White. “Never condoned disloyalty, says Acheson of Hiss stand.” New York Times (March 1, 1950): 1,2.

United Press. “Acheson denies condoning acts of Hiss ‘in any way’ The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY, March 1, 1950): 1.

Editorial: “More Light on the State Department.” Santa Monica (CA) Evening Outlook (March 2, 1950). As reprinted in in “Extension of Remarks of Hon. Donald L. Jackson of California in the House of Representatives, March 7, 1960.” 81st Cong., 2nd sess. Congressional Record 96, pt. 14: A1745. Available online here.

Government documents:

Departments of State, Justice, Commerce and the Judiciary Appropriations for 1951. 81st Cong., 2nd sess, Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate  part 1, Tuesday, February 28, 1950: 581-639. Peurifoy’s testimony concerning the 91 security risks are on page 603. Available online here.

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That House on Catalina Drive

That house on Catalina Drive

Catalina Drive epitomized the post-war American dream. Low-slung ranches on quiet streets, with large yards, green grass and thirsty palm trees — this was the stuff that transformed the desert between Phoenix and Scottsdale into a suburban paradise.

Who knows what actually went on behind those closed doors on Catalina Drive. A lot, probably. Divorce rates were edging up. Beer bottles in the trash cans and raised voices heard from back yards hinted at other troubles in paradise. So did the rumors about affairs, the bread man or the milk man who lingered at that house a little too long.

That house. Every neighborhood seemed to have one. For Catalina Drive, it was 4042. That house, on the outside, looked more or less like every other house on Catalina Drive. But inside, well, let me tell you…

The woman who lives there is really young. Only 21 and already she’s divorced and with two young boys. She inherited more than $20,000, enough to buy it just a little while ago. She’s already in trouble for bringing marijuana in from Mexico at Nogales. Now she’s got parties going on there every single weekend. Wild parties, with thirty, forty people maybe. And here’s the thing: almost all of them are men. Weird men, some of them with makeup and curly eyelashes. The kind you don’t want anywhere near your children.

So the neighbors on Catalina Drive did something about it. They called the police. And just to be sure, they also called the mayor. Mayor Jack Williams asked Police Lt. Charles Hodges to keep a good watch on this “influx of homosexuals.” Vice-squadders kept an eye on that house for the next two week. Four more parties took place during those two weeks in that house.

Finally, it’s Saturday night, February 8, and another party is underway.  It’s time to act. Police raided the place and found 31 people there: 27men and only four women. According to the Arizona Republic, “there were Negroes, Spanish-Americans, and whites at the party, which was raided at 5 a.m.”

But as Lt. Hodges admitted later, there is no law against homosexuality itself. And they didn’t find that anyone at the party that had committed any “overt act which are illegal (sic).” So all he could do was arrest eleven of them on misdemeanor charges, for being drunk or for drinking under the age of 21. Police also found marijuana in the home. That was the homeowner’s. Her problems just kept piling up.

“Something should be done about such orgies,” said Lt. Hodges, of this particular non-orgy. “Laws should be enacted to deal with such homosexuals.” One neighbor said he was going to organizing a vigilante group to “deal with these persons in our own way.” These “twisted personalities,” he said, were a threat to children.

The raid was a hot topic at the City Council meeting on February 24. The council members wanted to “declare war on Phoenix sexual deviates,” reported the Republic. Eight Catalina Drive residents were there. One of them said that police might have to arrest him for “shooting somebody up” if one of those people came near his children. He asked council to find “ways and means to deal with all people like those.”

But city attorney William C. Eliot said you can’t just arrest people suspected of being homosexual because it’s like arresting someone with tendencies to commit burglaries. You can only arrest people if they actually commit a crime. Mayor Williams grumbled that the law doesn’t even allow for running suspects out of town.

Epilogue:

Mayor Williams, a former radio announcer, later served as Arizona Governor from 1967 to 1975. He had entered politics as a member of the city school board, where he helped to integrate the city’s schools. He joined the City Council in 1954 when fellow councilman Barry Goldwater nominated him to fill an empty seat.

On the Timeline:

February 8, 1958: Phoenix police arrest 11 in a raid on a private party.

Periscope:

For February 8, 1958:
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
Vice-President: Richard M. Nixon (R)
House: 233 (D) 196 (R) 0 (Other) 6 (Vacant)
Southern states: 99 (D) 7 (R)
Senate: 49 (D) 47 (R)
Southern states: 22 (D)
Inflation: 3.3%
Unemployment: 6.4%

Headlines: The Defense Department says sending a satellite to the moon may be possible this year. A severe winter storm on the East Coast brings heavy snow, high winds and freeze warnings as far south as central Florida. An Air Force Atlas rocket blows up in a test firing. Police in five stages search for the kidnappers of a Flagstaff man who was forced at knifepoint to drive to Gallup, where he was tied up and left at the side of the road. Two days earlier, a Holbrook man was kidnapped and released in Benson; his kidnappers were captured in El Paso, Texas.

On the radio: “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors, “Get a Job” by the Silhouettes, “Short Cuts” by the Royal Teens, “Don’t” by Elvis Presley, “Sail Along Silvery Moon” by Billy Vaughn and his Orchestra, “The Stroll” by the Diamonds, “Sugartime” by the McGuire Sisters, “I Beg of You” by Elvis Presley, “Great Balls if Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis, “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly.

Currently in theaters: Peyton Place, starring Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Lee Philips, and Lloyd Nolan.

On television: Gunsmoke (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS), Tales of Wells Fargo (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), I’ve Got a Secret (CBS), The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (ABC), General Electric Theater (CBS), The Restless Gun (NBC), December Bride (CBS), You Bet Your Life (NBC), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (CBS).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens, Rally Round the Flag, Boys! by Max Shulman, Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver. Non-fiction: Please Don’t eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr, Baruch: My Own Story by Bernard Baruch, Kids Say the Darndest Things! by Art Linkletter.

Sources:

“Neighbors aroused: 11 nabbed in raid by anti-vice squad.” Arizona Republic (Phoenix, February 9, 1958): section 2, page 2.

“City Council seeks potent weapons in war on Phoenix sexual deviates.” Arizona Republic (February 25, 1958): 7/

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Long Beach Professor’s Arrest Leads To Suicide

Sometime on Sunday evening, December 10, 1961, Long Beach State College psychology professor Robert E. Farley, 35, picked up Robert Lee Stofle, of the USS Paul Revere, one of Long Beach’s many thousands of sailors. This sailor and Farley had a few drinks at a bar in Compton. Then they went back to Farley’s house on The Toledo in Long Beach where they had some more drinks. From then on, we only have the sailor’s side of the story because nobody cares about Farley’s.

The sailor  said he got really, really drunk on screwdrivers. The sailor said that Farley made “improper advances.” The sailor said he had no choice but to hit Farley in the head with a heavy object. (He couldn’t have just said no.) The sailor called the police. The police took the sailor’s side of the story, and took Farley to a hospital for stitches, then to jail.

Farley managed to raise the $525 bail ($4,215 today) from his state college professor’s pay. He was charged with lewd conduct and sex perversion, and for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. His lost his state college professor’s job that very same day. The sailor was under 21, and you know how innocent those sailors under 21 can be. What would a sailor know about lewd conduct? What would a sailor know about sex? The sailor who committed assault and battery was entirely innocent and his upstanding all-American reputation was fully protected.

Farley’s name was again in the papers two days later when his body was found in the Veterans Hospital laboratory. He had worked there as a lab technician several years earlier. An open can of chloroform lay next to his body.

In Pocatello, Idaho, Ed and Bethel Farley packed their car and began the 900 mile trip to Long Beach to claim their son’s body. Before they left, they put an obituary notice in the Idaho State Journal. It said simply, “he collapsed in a classroom.”

On the Timeline:

December  13, 1961: Long Beach professor’s arrest leads to suicide.

Periscope:

Headlines for December 13, 1961: Police in Albany, Georgia, arrest another 198 African-American demonstrators, protesting the trial of eleven Freedom Riders. Albany police have arrested 466 in the past three days. Long Beach carhop accuses Municipal judge of making improper sexual advances. Beloved folk artist Granda Moses dies at 101. Retired Marine Col. Mitchell Paige tells a right wing Project Alert gathering that Chief Justice Earl Warren should be hanged.

On the radio: “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean, “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes, “Goodbye Cruel World” by James Darren, “Runaround Sue” by Dion, “Fool #1” by Brenda Lee, “The Twist” by Chubby Checker. “Walk On By” by Leroy Van Dyke, “Tower of Strength” by Gene McDaniels, “I Understand (Just How You Feel)” by the G-Clefs, “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens.

Currently in theaters: Blue Hawaii.

On television: Wagon Train (NBC), Bonanza (NBC), Gunsmoke (CBS), Hazel (NBC), Perry Mason (CBS), The Red Skelton Show (CBS), The Andy Griffith Show (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS), Dr. Kildare (NBC), Candid Camera (CBS), The Garry Moore Show (CBS), My Three Sons (ABC), Sing Along with Mitch (NBC), Lassie (CBS), The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Non-fiction: The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White, A Nation of Sheep by William J. Lederer, Living Free by Joy Adamson.

Sources:

“LBSC Prof booked on lewdness charged.” The Independent (Long Beach, California. December 12, 1961): C-4.

“Prof facing morals trial takes life.” The Independent (Long Beach, California. December 14, 1961): 1.

Obituary: Robert E. Farley. Idaho State Journal (Pocatello, December 14, 1961): 2.

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Britain’s ITV Airs First Gay Drama

ITV’s Play of the Week, an ambitious ninety-minute weekly anthology series, aired some 500 plays from 1956 to 1966. Because the series started out as a live broadcast, hundreds of important television adaptations are now lost, including Look Back in Anger, Death of a Salesman, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Skin of our Teeth. Another historic drama, Julien Green’s South, was also thought to have been lost. It’s very likely that when South aired live on November 24, 1959, that was the very first time anywhere in the world that a gay-themed drama appeared on television. Fortunately, a kinescope of South was recently rediscovered in the depths of the British Film Institute’s archives. Audiences were able to see it again for the first time fifty-seven years at the BFI’s 2016 Film Festival.

As its title suggests, South is set in the American South before the Civil War. Exiled Polish officer Lt. Jan Wicziewsky (played by Peter Wyngarde), is staying with a wealthy family on their plantation. The arrogant Wicziewsky softens when tall, blond and ruggedly handsome army officer Eric MacClure (played by Graydon Gould) arrives and throws Wicziewsky’s life into turmoil. The Guardian, on the occasion of the play’s rediscovery, described one scene:

There are some extremely moving scenes involving Wyngarde as Lieutenant Jan Wicziewsky, including one where he pours his heart out to the admittedly confused Jimmy, the young son of the plantation owner. “You know, Jimmy, odd times, freedom of will is a crushing weight and it’s not always possible to choose. I’m in love Jimmy, as no human being was ever in love before,” he says to the bewildered boy. “It’s better not to know what men are thinking, it’s almost always sad or shameful. I’m not ashamed, but I am alone. Hopelessly alone.”

The object of his love is MacClure, a handsome army officer played by Graydon Gould who has just arrived at the plantation. “By today’s standards it is all quite implicit, it is not explicit,” said (BFI curator Simon) McCallum. “But it is pretty extraordinary — it all builds up in this pressure cooker atmosphere with war clouds looming in the background.”

Peter Wyngarde showed special courage by taking on the role of Jan Wicziewsky. Most actors feared playing a gay character would be the kiss of death for their careers. Wyngarde had an additional concern: it was well known among fellow actors that Wyngarde was gay.

Banned in Britain

South has a particularly interesting history. Its impossibly handsome author, Julien Green, was himself gay. Born to American parents in Paris, he identified as a “Sudiste,” a Southerner, although he wrote mainly in French. Green translated his 1953 play Sud into English, and it was all set to be performed in London in 1955.

But there was one thing standing in the way: a peculiar quirk in English law left over from the early eighteenth century. The Theatres Act of 1737 gave the Lord Chamberlain of the Queen’s Household the absolute power to ban any play he deemed detrimental. Britain had a tradition of stage censorship dating back the 1545, but this 1737 Act was put in place specifically to protect Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first modern Prime Minister, from satirical attacks.

The Lord Chamberlain’s main duties is to oversee the ceremonial aspects of the Royal Household: garden parties, investitures, state dinners, weddings, funerals — things of that nature. Those were the things a Lord Chamberlain is hired to do, and the things he is most qualified for. Censuring plays was just a sideline, Lord Chamberlains were never hired for their literary knowledge. Furthermore, Lord Chamberlains are hired by the Sovereign — the King or Queen, as the case may be. Because he’s not employed by Parliament, he’s not answerable to it.

And there was another quirk. His powers of censorship extended nowhere else except to the public stage. It didn’t extend to radio, television, newspapers, books, or any other medium. He couldn’t even ban the book in which the play was printed. The public could freely read it, hear it performed on the radio, or watch it on television. They just couldn’t see it performed on the public stage.

From 1952 to 1963, Sir Lawrence Roger Lumley, 11th Earl of Scarboroug wielded this peculiar prerogative. He routinely banned any play that he deemed contrary to public morals, but he had a eccentric way of determining that. Plays that dealt with infidelity were granted performance licenses. Plays that mentioned homosexuality, even in passing, were banned. The Lord Chamberlain denied Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire a license  until it was edited to remove all mentions of homosexuality — and consequently all coherence — from the storyline. In one 1957 memo, the Lord Chamberlain tried to sort out what was acceptable:

We would not pass a play that was violently pro-homosexual. We would not allow “funny” innuendo or jokes on the subject. We will not allow embraces between males of practical demonstrations of love. We will allow the word “pansy”, but not the word “bugger”.

It’s worth repeating that the Lord Chamberlain’s powers extended only to the public stage. So to get around it, theatre clubs sprang up around London. A membership fee entitled members — and only members — to see plays in theaters not open to the public. And because these weren’t legally public performances, these theatre clubs could mount any production they desired.

One particularly successful club was the Arts Theatre Club, under the directorship of Campbell Williams. When the Lord Chamberlain refused a license for South, Williams brought it to the Arts Theatre Club to generally good reviews. The pamphlet advertising South to the club’s subscribers described it:

South being performed at the Arts Theatre Club. L-R: Mrs. Strong (Joan Young), Edward Broderick (André Morell) Jan Wicziewsky (Denholm Elliot), and Regina (Clare Austin). (Photo: The Illustrated London News, April 16, 1955, p708.)

It is a play about extremes: North versus South, white man against coloured man, the old world of Europe in contrast to the new world of America, the difficulty that the sexually normal have in understanding the sexually abnormal. When the difference between two such contrasting elements becomes so great, and they lack toleration and understanding one for the other, then the setting is ripe for tragedy. Green takes as the theme of his play Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, “the purification of a dangerous passion by violent liberation.”

…although the Lord Chamberlain has refused to grant a license for public performance of this play, it is important to emphasise that it is not primarily about homosexuality; this topic is only a strand in Green’s tapestry.

Pretty soon, London theatre patrons discovered that the Arts Theatre Club, and others like it, could be counted on for decent quality productions of other banned plays like Tea and Sympathy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Children’s Hour. But it was South that became synonymous with everything that was wrong with Britain’s censorship scheme.

The Move To Television

By the time ITV mounted its television production, the Lord Chamberlain had already eased his hard-line ban on homosexual themes. Plays could now mention homosexuality in passing without risking its performance license. Plays dealing more directly with homosexuality, as long as they were “serious and sincere” (read: tragic and critical), might also be allowed.

Peter Wyngarde (left) and Graydon Gould (right) rehearsing the duel scene earlier in the week. (Photo: The Stage, Nov 19, 1959, p9.)

South may been able to get a performance license under these new guidelines. It was certainly serious, sincere and tragic. “So moved, so profound is (Wicziewsky’s) love for Eric MacClure that he forces a duel on him and allows himself to be killed rather than live without him,” a Stage reviewer described the plot.

South went on the air at 9:35. By the time it ended, the public television audience saw what the public stage had been prohibited from showing. Reviews were mostly positive — when they focused on the production itself. The Stage reviewer found ITV’s production “moving and poignant”:

A still from the television broadcast.

Green’s dialogue was so full of compassion, understanding and tenderness that his subject didn’t seem distasteful and Mario Prizek, a new Canadian director, toned down his production so much that it kept perfect pace with the script. I wish I had ore space to write about this play, but needless to say Peter Wyngarde as Jan, the man who couldn’t talk of his live like other men, gave a stunningly brilliant performance, controlled and delicately pitched.

But reviewers who focused solely on the play’s theme weren’t so enamored. A Daily Sketch reviewer wrote:

I do NOT see anything attractive in the agonies and ecstasies of a pervert, especially in close-up in my sitting room. This is not prudishness. There are some indecencies in life that are best left covered up.

See More:

Viewers in the UK can see the entire production here. Unfortunately, the program is not available outside of the UK due to licensing restrictions.

The British Library’s English and Drama Blog has an entertaining history of the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship powers here.

On the Timeline:

Nov 24: Britain’s ITV broadcasts a gay-themed drama.

Periscope:

Headlines for November 24, 1959: Prince Philip arrives in the Dominion of Ghana for a seven-day tour. The 12-nation Antarctic Conference agreed to ban all nuclear detonations in the South Polar region. The sex nations of the Common Market (France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg) agree to extend limited trading privileges to other Western countries. A TWA cargo plane crashes into a residential Chicago neighborhood shortly after takeoff from Midway field; Twelve are killed including nine in their homes. British Motor Corporation announces expanded production and £50 million in new factories. The German carmaker NSU announces the invention of a revolutionary new type of engine, called the rotary engine.

On the radio: “Travellin’ Light” by Cliff Richard and the Shadows, “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin, “What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes At Me For?” by Emile Ford and the Checkmates, “Red River Rock” by Johnny and the Hurricanes” “(‘Til) I Kissed You” by the Everly Brothers, “SEa of Love” by Marty Wilde, “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” by Paul Anka, “High Hopes” by Frank Sinatra, “The Three Bells” by the Browns, “Oh Carol” by Neil Sedaka.

Currently in cinemas: North by Northwest.

On television: Wagon Train (ITV), Take Your Pick (ITV), Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ITV), Play of the Week (ITV), Saturday Spectacular (ITV), Emergency Ward Ten (ITV),  Concentration (ITV), Armchair Theatre (ITV), Probation Officer (ITV), Juke Box Jury (BBC).

Additional Sources:

J.S. Trewin. “The World of Theatre: Thunder in the Air.” The Illustrated London News (April 16, 1955): 408.

“Avoiding the censor.” The Stage (April 12, 1956): 8.

Anthony Merryn. “‘X’ and ‘A’ Certificates for Plays, says Ronald Duncan.” The Stage and Television Today (March 27, 1958): 8.

“‘South’ – Moving.” The Stage and Television Today (November 26, 1959): 16.

 

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When “Deviate Headquarters” Became a Political Issue

Mayor George Christopher

Like most San Francisco mayors before him, George Christopher won election in 1955 on a platform of cleaning up the town. But unlike mayors before him, Christopher delivered. He appointed Francis Ahern as chief of police, and charged him with reforming the corrupt and inefficient force. Ahern professionalized the department’s upper echelons and launched a massive anti-vice campaign. For too long, San Francisco had enjoyed a reputation as a “wide open town” where anything goes: liquor, gambling, graft,  prostitution, licentious entertainment and other sexual vices that dared not speak their names. Christopher and Ahern aimed to close it all down.

Ahern established the “S-Squads”, so named for “a strategy of saturation and selective enforcement.” For two to four nights a week, a squad of sixty-four undercover officers hit the city streets and interrogated anyone who looked suspicious. Those S-Squads dramatically changed San Francisco’s character in very short order. Ahern died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1958, and Christopher appointed Ahern’s deputy, Thomas Cahill, to replace him. Cahill promised to continue Ahern’s policies, which, to Cahill, meant  “strict departmental discipline, heads up efficiency and a ‘closed town.'”

The S-Squad’s targets included the city’s gay bars and neighborhoods in North Beach, along the Embarcadero, and South of Market. The gathering holes had enjoyed several years of relative calm after a 1951 California Supreme Court ruling ended police efforts to shut them down. The calm was shattered in 1956 when a re-energized police Department and the state’s Alcohol Board of Control (ABC) found new ways to put these businesses in legal jeopardy. Dubious closures and arrests soared so high that even the city’s district attorney complained about the police’s “Gestapo” tactics.

Police also targeted suspected muggers, prostitutes, public drunks, and kids who had no business being out at night. For the most part, San Franciscans were happy with the results. A few thought the clean-up went a bit too far. They enjoyed the city’s reputation as a wide-open town. They just didn’t like the crime that went with it. But Christopher had solid support from the business community and the three major newspapers. And besides, he had successfully lured the Giants from New York to San Francisco. The city was, literally, in the big leagues.

Russell Wolden
City Assessor Russell Wolden, Jr.

So in 1959, the San Francisco mayoral race was looking like a real snooze-fest. The Chronicle complained, “Challengers can find nothing to sink their teeth into.” Christopher’s main challenger, City Assessor Russell Wolden, Jr., was a particularly weak candidate. His problems began with his blundering switch from Republican to Democrat. Everyone saw it as a naked attempt to ride the rising party’s coat-tails. To the average voter, this was unseemly; the Mayor’s race was nominally non-partisan. Ordinarily, endorsements rested on precisely those affiliations, and Christopher had the Republican’s usual line-up of supporters in his camp. But Democrats and labor unions mostly ignored this interloper. Their endorsements, when they came, were late and perfunctory, if they came at all. Wolden’s campaign was becalmed in a sea of boredom. He needed a bold move to pull ahead.

Wolden’s October Surprise

On October 7, the tiny and obscure San Francisco Progress, in obvious coordination with Wolden’s campaign, opened a new front in the fight for city hall. The headline read, “Sex Deviates Make S.F. Headquarters,” and the paper hit directly at Christopher’s strength: his law-and-order cred:

A just-completed survey of vice conditions in San Francisco discloses that this city, during the Christopher administration, has become the national headquarters of the organized homosexuals in the United States. It is a sordid tale, one which will revolt every decent San Franciscan, but one which the San Francisco Progress believes is of vital importance to our city, and therefore must be told.

The survey was made in an effort to determine the truth or falsity of George Christopher’s claim that he has given the people a “clean city.”

The facts are that some of the big call girl operations and a number of minor bookmakers have been put out of business. But in their place another form of vice — homosexualism — has been allowed to flourish to a shocking extent, and under shocking circumstances.

Last month at a convention of deviates in Denver, Colorado, a resolution, passed unanimously, praised the mayor of San Francisco — by name — for an “enlightened administration” which has permitted the group to flourish here.

The Progress published a photocopy of the notarized resolution. The sentence expressing appreciation “to Mayor George Christopher and Police Chief Thomas Cahill” by name was circled for emphasis. Wolden, told The Progress:

“This is a matter of grave concern for every parent,” Russell L. Wolden, assessor and candidate for mayor, declared today. “It exposes teenagers to possible contact and contamination in a city admittedly overrun by deviates. For a city administration to permit this situation to exist is nothing less than scandalous. The whole rotten mess cries for investigation.”

For those who missed the tiny paper’s exposé, Wolden took out a fifteen-minute paid political spot on KNBC radio. His speech began at 6:45 in the evening, just as families were eating dinner. “This is not a political speech,” he began, “but a heart-to-heart talk with the people of San Francisco, especially mothers and fathers.” He then listed his “facts.” “The number of sex deviates in this city has soared by the thousands.” There were more than twenty bars and restaurants downtown catering to “crowds of young men conducting themselves in a repulsive manner. They move from place to place. … They accost normal young men and boys.” He was just getting warmed up:

I say San Francisco is not a closed town! And it is not a clean town! And I charge that conditions involving flagrant moral corruption do exist here which will revolt every decent person. … Under the benign attitude of the Christopher administration, those who practice sex deviation operate in San Francisco today to a shocking extent, under shocking circumstances, and in open and flagrant defiance of the law. So favorable is the official San Francisco climate for the activities of these persons that an organization of sex deviates known as The Mattachine Society actually passed a resolution praising Mayor Christopher by name for what the resolution described as the enlightened attitude of his administration toward them.

…Pick up your telephone book. You’ll see the Mattachine Society — spelled M-A T-T-A-C-H-I-N-E — listed in it. The Mattachine publish and sell sex literature of the most lurid, distasteful and disgusting variety. The Mattachine Society is the national voice of organized sex deviates. … (Its) principles and objectives are subscribed to by the thousands of deviates who do not care or dare to join it. From these thousands come the sex gangs whose abnormal appetites are catered to by these bars and other joints whose operations I have just described. …

This is a matter of grave concern for every parent. It exposes teenagers to possible contact and contamination in a city admittedly overrun by deviates. … Every San Francisco neighborhood is threatened by the bold shadow they cast over the entire community.

The Poisoned Resolution

Hal Call

These accusations hit Hal Call like a ton of bricks. Call was officially the editor of the Mattachine Society’s magazine, The Mattachine Review. Unofficially, he was the de-facto leader of the Mattachine Society through the Review’s influence and with his allies installed in key positions in the organization. Call immediately recognized the man behind this attack. William Patrick Brandhove had just joined the Mattachine Society in August,  and he accompanied the San Francisco delegation to its annual convention in Denver over Labor Day weekend. Brandhove made a huge splash, unusually so for someone who had only joined a couple of weeks before. He bought drinks for the conventioneers, paid for hotel rooms for several delegates, and even sprang for the cost of stenographic services. The tiny organization was never able to afford a stenographer before. This was pure luxury! San Francisco delegate Henry Foster, Jr., later told reporters, “He was spending money as if it was going out of style.”

Brandhove’s lavish spending didn’t arouse any suspicions. The Mattachine Society was chronically broke. Call was just grateful for Brandhove’s generosity. Besides, Call’s bigger concern was a push by East Coast chapters to loosen his grip on the Society. They wanted to remake the organization into a much looser federation. Brandhove, with his expensive bar tab, lobbied on Call’s behalf. Call admitted at the time, “Brandhove’s room became sort of the headquarters for the San Francisco delegation.” Call also installed Brandhove as the official parliamentarian for the Monday business meeting. And with Call armed with a pocketful of proxies, the Easterners didn’t stand a chance. One by one, their proposals were voted down.

With that danger now passed, Call moved on to lighter fare. He offered a resolution on behalf of his new friend. It was a watered-down resolution that Brandhove had proposed earlier. This resolution read:

WHEREAS the goals of the Mattachine Society call for tolerance and understanding of the problems and rights of certain minority groups within a community, and

WHEREAS the Mattachine Society is cognizant of basic constitutional principles in America which guarantee these groups the rights of lawful and peaceful expression of their sincere aspirations of improvement and acceptance of the sometimes different groups, and

WHEREAS the Mattachine Society is deeply appreciative of the efforts of law enforcement authorities in San Francisco based upon an officially administered entity, enlightened, and just City Government and Police Force,

NOW THEREFORE BE IT HERE RESOLVED that the Mattachine Society go on record as recognizing and expressing its appreciation to Mayor George Christopher and Police Chief Thomas Cahill for their persistent and consistent efforts to conduct their administration with these high ideals foremost in mind and congratulate them for favorable results in the sociological problem.

The almost-apologetic resolution was pretty standard Mattachine copy. Brandhove’s original resolution was much bolder, but Call rejected it as “too political.” In this newer watered-down version, “homosexuals” appear nowhere — just “certain minority groups.” The gay community was reduced to a “sociological problem.” Christopher’s anti-gay campaigns were re-cast as “enlightened and just.”

Given the realities on the ground, it’s hard to believe a self-styled gay rights group would approve such a resolution. But all of this was in line with the Mattachine’s goal of currying favor with leaders that society deemed respectable. Call urged its passage “to butter our bread with a couple of areas in San Francisco … it will do the entire organization a lot of good.” The convention went along, and approved it unanimously.

“We thought it was just an innocent expression in favor of tolerance in San Francisco, ” said Mattachine General-Secretary Don Lucas, soon after the resolution hit the papers. “We had no idea that it was intended or might be used for any political purpose.” 

But that was exactly its purpose. A few weeks after the convention was over, Brandhove contacted Darlene Armbeck, the Denver stenographer who Brandhove had so generously hired. Armbeck also just happened to be a notary public. Brandhove asked her for three notarized copies of the resolution. Just one week later, one of those copies showed up in the Progress. And a scandal was born.

The Undercover Is Uncovered

But the scandal that grew wasn’t the one  Wolden and Brandhove intended. First of all, Brandhove apparently counted on the Mattachine Society being cowed and timid. But that wasn’t Hal Call’s style. He relished a good fight. And if that fight included a spotlight, it was all the better. Call launched a million dollar lawsuit against Wolden, charging slander against the Mattachine Society. That move alone was guaranteed to generate publicity. But Call had another card to play. He knew all about Brandhove’s role in getting the resolution passed. Call shared everything he knew with the three major dailies, The Chronicle, The Examiner and the recently-merged News-Call Bulletin.

William P. Brandhove

Reporters recognized Brandhove’s name immediately. He was no stranger to bare-knuckeled politics. Brandhove had been involved in smear campaigns during a 1948 congressional contest and the 1949 mayor’s race. He once testified before the state’s Un-American Activities Committee, claiming to be an ex-communist. He then changed his testimony, fought with the committee, and wound up in jail on contempt charges. Brandhove had been entangled in a local blackmail trial involving Jimmy Tarantino, a small-time publisher of a local scandal magazine. Tarantino extorted large sums from local businessmen in exchange for keeping allegations of homosexuality out of the magazine. The Chronicle reported that Brandhove was “known to police and the underworld as an unreliable stool pigeon.” It also noted that he had been arrested in 1930 in Jersey City, New Jersey on a sodomy charge.

When reporters tried to find Brandhove for comment, they found that he had quickly checked out of the fleabag Grand Hotel in the Tenderloin. They tracked him down, with his car “plastered with Wolden stickers.” Brandhove admitted that he had, in fact, attended the convention. “I’m not a homosexual but I joined the Mattachine Society only to find out about its activities.” He also admitted to turning over the notarized copies to his lawyer, Ralph Taylor — who just happened to be Wolden’s campaign treasurer. Brandhove told Taylor, “Make sure it’s used.”

Backlash

With those details now out in the open, the papers quickly branded the entire operation a smear. But the smear wasn’t on  homosexuals or the Mattachine Society. It was a smear on the city’s good name, its honorable mayor and its upright citizens for supposedly tolerating all of these sexual deviants.

And the fact that Wolden’s radio address came at dinnertime only made things worse. One letter writer to the News-Call Bulletin complained that Wolden’s speech had “invaded San Francisco homes at the very time the family is assembled — the dinner hour.” Picture it: whole families sit down at the kitchen table. The radio is playing in the background.  It’s 1960; television censors are still struggling with the word “pregnant.” And children all over San Francisco simultaneously look up from their meat loafs and ask, “Daddy, what is a homosexual?”

The papers rushed to prove that San Franciscans certainly did not tolerate homosexuals. The News-Call Bulletin reminded readers, “A special unit of the vice squad is detailed to keep tabs on possible deviate colonies, and is augmented from time to time by special squads of plainclothesmen from districts — notably North Beach and South of Market — where homosexual invasions may begin.”

Deputy Police Chief Al Nelder told reporters, “The San Francisco Police Department has always had a special squad to check on sex deviates. They are doing a good job. Since the first of January they have made over 150 arrests. San Francisco is not the headquarters for sex deviates.”

“If anything,” added Chief Cahill, “they know from our sustained drive they’re not wanted here, and most take the hint.” He also added that police police had cracked down on seventeen gay bars in the last two years.

From The San Francisco Chronicle

The Chronicle took severe umbrage that Wolden would stain the city’s reputation so carelessly. Wolden’s “charge that San Francisco officially condones flagrant moral corruption is preposterous. … He has degraded the good name of San Francisco. A man who would recklessly and spuriously do this shows himself unfit for the office he seeks.”

The Examiner fumed, “He succeeded only in smearing the city he professes to love.”  It added, rather defensively, “The situation here differs not one whit from that in any large city of like size and makeup. … Mr. Wolden’s taking of this socio-police problem to make of it a piece of political sensationalism was an act of the most sordid and unforgivable kind.”

The News-Call Bulletin just screamed, “Get out, Wolden!”:

“Want some feelthy campaign issues?” San Francisco Chronicle editorial cartoon.

Russell L. Wolden has slandered San Francisco in a radio speech containing an amazing perversion of fact and has thus disqualified himself as a serious candidate for mayor.

He should withdraw from the campaign.

The speech was the most distasteful pottage of slime, innuendo and falsehood ever cooked up and piped into San Francisco homes at the dinner hour.

His wild charge that a moral offender finds easy tolerance in San Francisco is a resort to the extremes of irresponsible demagoguery and an affront to the truth.

Wolden has deviated from the path..of political responsibility and shown himself incapable of the role of sober civic servant.

He has insulted San Francisco with gross and desperate distortions. He should get out of the race.

Mayor Christopher defended his city and everyone in it. “In a blind drive for office, my opponent has degraded the city,” he charged. “I am deeply regretful that his sordid campaign material has been thrown on the doorstep of every home.” Christopher cancelled a planned televised debate on KQED. “I want no formal arrangement with Mr. Wolden of any kind.”

William P. Brandhove (left) with Russell L. Wolden

Wolden claimed he didn’t know Brandhove. “I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.” The News-Call Bulletin published that denial under a friendly-looking photo of the two together. Wodlen’s financial backers began wishing they didn’t know Wolden. Ben Swig, owner of the Fairmont Hotel and Wolden’s finance chairman, was in Sacramento when the story broke. “I don’t want any mud slinging,” he said. “I don’t want any part of it.” Adolph Schuman, a prominent women’s clothing manufacturer, remained a Wolden supporter. But he complained, “If I’d known we were going to go around saying how many homosexuals were running around San Francisco, I would have stopped it.” Those Democrats and labor leaders who had endorsed Wolden quickly, loudly, and angrily withdrew their support.

“And You Parents of Daughters”

There’s a cynical saying: when you dig yourself into a hole, dig deeper. That’s what Wolden did. But now, his campaign’s desperation became glaringly obvious. He took to the airwaves again, and accused the downtown papers of conspiring against him. He claimed they were suppressing public opinion polls showing him in the lead. “San Franciscans,” he pleaded, “if they destroy me, we will never have another free and open democratic election in this city in your lifetime, or in mine. … then, Russian-type elections have come to San Francisco.”

Meanwhile, his ally, The Progress, printed another “exposé.” This one named most of the  gay bars and cited arrest statistics. His campaign printed up transcripts of his radio speech and sent them to PTAs, religious groups and civic leaders. He also distributed leaflets door-to-door with another warning about deviates. This time, it was the lesbians’ turn:

And you parents of daughters — do not sit back complacently feeling that because you have no boys in your family, everything is all right as far as you are concerned. To enlighten you as to the existence of a Lesbian organization composed of homosexual women, whose purposes are the same as the Mattachine Society, the male counterpart, make yourselves acquainted vlith the name “Daughters of Bilitis”.

The Examiner responded to all of this with a retraction of sorts.  Its first editorial called on Wolden to withdraw from the race. Now the Examiner said Wolden should stay in. “The public should not be denied its right to pass judgment on a man … who would openly defame his city. … on the basis of ‘evidence’ planted by one of his supporters.”

San Francisco’s judgment was harsh. On November 3, Christopher won in a landslide, 141,644 to 90,268. Another 8,231 votes were split among six minor candidates. Interestingly, about 9,000 voters cast ballots for the Board of Supervisors, municipal judges, bond proposals, and city charter amendments, but left the choice for mayor blank. Mayor Christopher reassured the city in his victory speech: “It is time to forget the unpleasantness that has occurred in the past few months. San Francisco is on the move in the eyes of California, the nation and the world.”

Epilogue:

The newspapers’ lining up against Wolden meant that they wound up being more or less on Mattachine’s side. This was a very unusual position for Mattachine to be in. This was the first time homosexuality was injected into a major city’s political campaign, and Mattacahine (and to a lesser extent, the Daughters of Bilitis) received neutral to positive coverage.

The Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society both were happy to publicly report that neither organization suffered from the campaign. The Ladder, the DOB’s official magazine, bragged, “Actually, the publicity brought the groups to the attention of potential members who had not otherwise been aware of their existence.” Hal Call, in a letter to Wardell Pomeroy of the Kinsey Institute, said much the same thing:

None of our members have resigned or panicked. All are behind us. We have gained some 10 memberships in the past three weeks. We have continued our schedule of activities as planned, canceling nothing — and we even had a fund-raising party last Saturday night at which 64 persons were present (including a UPI feature writer and his wife). … The telephone has run incessantly. Many have called seriously — to learn about the Society and to ask for help with problems. Many others, though, have been cranks and crackpots, some of them shouting obscenities when we answered.

Despite the bravado, there were some tense moments behind the scenes. Historian Alan Bérubé wrote in 1981:

Such hostile publicity, while certainly bringing DOB to the attention of many lesbians for the first time, also made DOB more vulnerable to attack. The organization responded by calling an emergency meeting to prevent a panicked exodus from their ranks. But instead of an exodus, the crisis brought together an unexpectedly large number of DOB members, who voted to put out a special issue of The Ladder, their national magazine, and to remove mailing and membership lists from their office. For the duration of the mayoral race, DOB operated out of the back of a station wagon, with boxes of their papers hidden under a blanket. DOB founders Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon later discovered that San Francisco police had in fact attempted to search their empty office as a result of Wolden’s expose.

Bérubé also wrote that Brandhove’s actions drew the FBI’s attention:

Recently uncovered US Justice Department memos, though heavily censored, suggest FBI involvement in the Brandhove affair. Following Wolden’s broadcast, the FBI monitored Brandhove’s activities in Denver and San Francisco, and stepped up their ongoing surveillance of both the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.

San Francisco did move on from that election, just as Christopher promised. And Christopher learned a valuable lesson. Never again would he leave himself vulnerable to accusations of being soft on homosexuals. The police department’s anti-gay campaign intensified. In the next two years, nearly every gay bar in town saw its license revoked or threatened. In 1962, police arrested more a hundred men and women in the biggest gay bar raid in the city’s history. By 1965, police antagonism towards the gay community reached its zenith with the California Hall raid. That raid would finally unify the gay community with religious leaders to demand substantive changes in police relations.

Russell Wolden, Jr., returned to his job as City Assessor. He held that post from 1940 to 1967. He had taken the office over from his father, Russell Wolden, Sr., who held the office since 1916. In l965 rumors began circulating that dozens of businesses were enjoying lower property taxes due to “arranged” assessments by Wolden’s office. Deputy assessors were undervaluing property in return for bribes. A portion of the payments were then kicked up to Wolden. A grand jury indicted him for bribery and conspiracy, and he was convicted on nine felony counts. Wolden was sentenced to state prison from one to 14 years. Authorities gave him a medical release after only eight months due to a heart condition. 

On the Timeline:

Oct 7: San Francisco mayoral candidate charges incumbent with allowing the city to become “deviate headquarters.”

Periscope:

The Philco Swivel-Screen Consolette, starting at $199.95 (about $1,750 today).

Headlines for October 7, 1959: President Eisenhower invokes the Taft-Hartley Act and asks for an 80-day back-to-work order in a bid to end a dockworkers’ strike on the East and Gulf coasts. A summit between steel executives and union leaders collapse, ending efforts to end a twelve-week strike; Eisenhower is expected to invoke Taft-Hartly to reopen the mills. Herbert M. Stempel and James Snodgrass, former contestants on the TV quiz show Twenty-One, testify before Congress that the show had been rigged.

The Soviets extend their lead in the space race by launching Lunik III, a satellite which is expected to allow people on earth to see the dark side of the moon for the first time in human history. It’s the last full day of campaigning in Britain as voters prepare to retain Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government. Popular opera singer and actor Mario Lanza dies of a heart attack at the age of 38. Berkeley’s Board of Education approves a policy allowing corporal punishment. An unidentified woman leapt to her death off of the Golden Gate Bridge; it is the 189th known suicide from the span.

On the radio: “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin, “Put Your Heard On My Shoulder” by Paul Anka, “Sleep Walk” by Santo and Johnny, “(‘Til) I Kissed You” by the Everly Brothers, “The Three Bells” by the Browns, “Teen Beat” by Sandy Nelson, “I’m Gonna Get Married” by Lloyd Price, “Mr. Blue” by the Fleetwoods, “Red River Rock” by Johnny and the Hurricanes, “Poison Ivy” by the Coasters, “Sea of Love” by Phil Phillips with the Twilights.

Also on October 7: Pillow Talk, starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day, is released in Theaters

On television: Gunsmoke (CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), The Andy Griffith Show(CBS), The Real McCoys(ABC), Rawhide (CBS), Candid Camera (CBS), The Price is Right (NBC), The Untouchables (ABC), The Jack Benny Show (CBS), Bonanza (NBC), Dennis the Menace (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS) The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS), My Three Sons (ABC), Perry Mason (CBS) The Flintstones (ABC), 77 Sunset Strip (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction:  Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (Pulitzer Prize winner), Exodus by Leon Uris, The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Non-fiction: The Status Seekers by Vance Packard, For 2c Plain by Harry Golden, The Years With Ross by James Thurber.

Sources:

“Sex deviates make S.F. Headquarters: ‘Enlightened’ city rule earns praise.” San Francisco Progress (October 7, 1959). As reprinted in The Mattachine Review (November 1959): 15-24.

“‘Smear Campaign’ backfires in S.F.” Oakland Tribune (October 9, 1959): 8.

“Wolden may lose labor’s support.” Oakland Tribune (October 10, 1959): 2-B.

Editorial: “Wolden Should Withdraw.” San Francisco Chronicle. As reprinted in The Mattachine Review (November 1959): 32.

Editorial: “Unforgivable Slur on San Francisco.” San Francisco Examiner.  As reprinted in The Mattachine Review (November 1959): 32-33.

Editorial: “Get Out, Wolden!” San Francisco News-Call Bulletin. As reprinted in The Mattachine Review (November 1959): 30.

“‘Organized Homosexuals’ Issue in S.F. Election.” The Ladder (November 1959): 5-10.

“S.F. Election Aftermath.” The Ladder (Deember 1959): 23.

Christopher Lowen Agee. The Streets of San Francisco: Policing and the Creation of a Cosmopolitan Liberal Politics, 1950-1972 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014): 90-91.

Allan Bérubé. “Behind the Spectre of San Francisco.” The Body Politic (Toronto, ON; April 1981): 25-27.

Nan Alamilla Boyd. Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003): 204-206.

George Draper. “Praise of Mayor’s policy on deviates engineered by ex-police informer.” The San Francisco Chronicle (October 9, 1959). As reprinted in The Mattachine Review (November 1959): 26-29.

Wes Knight. “Smear Drive.” The Mattachine Review 5, no. 11 (November 1959): 12-15.

Dal McIntire (pseudonym for Jim Kepner). “Tangents: The Campaign that Deviated.” ONE (November 1959): 6-12.

James T. Sears. Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2006): 418-423.

Yancey Smith. “‘Mystery man’ seen in ‘smear’.” The San Francisco News-Call Bulletin (October 8, 1959). As reprinted in The Mattachine Review (November 1959): 24-25.

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Miami Police Raid “Deviates’ Den”

Miami residents woke up on Easter morning to the news that Metro police overnight had raided the “E Club,” located at the corner of Tamiami Trail and SW 37th Avenue in East Coral Gables. Police conducted the raid “at the request of a citizen,” and hauled in twenty-three, including the manager. They were charged with disorderly conduct “by being in a known homosexual hangout.” According the Miami News:

Habitues of the place were reported to embrace each other, wear tight-fitting women’s pants and bleach their hair, (Metro Capt. Patrick) Gallagher said.

When Gallagher and six other officers descended on the place Friday night, they found the dim-lit bar full of men, some of them paired off in “couples” he said.

The only woman in the place told police she just dropped by for a drink, and she was not detained.

Officers took all the men in the place to headquarters. Several were released after a screening and 22 were booked.

It’s telling that the disorderly conduct charged was based on “being in a known homosexual hangout.” If that the case, then the one woman in the bar was just as guilty as the men. But, of course, none of the men were afforded the excuse of having just dropped by for a drink.

The Miami News, which had never passed up an opportunity to instigate an anti-gay witch hunt, dutifully printed the names, addresses, ages and occupations of everyone arrested. It also contacted the employer of one of the men, who taught at Miami Military Academy:

Superintendent C.E. Sampson of the military school said “we will drop him immediately … without question […]

“We just can’t have a thing like that,” Sampson said. “We have enough headaches as it is. I will get in touch with him tomorrow and find out if he was arrested.”

Another man from Coral Gables told police he was a teacher. But the News was terribly disappointed to learn that he was actually a former teacher who hadn’t taught since 1956.

On the Timeline:

Miami Police raid “Deviates’ Den”

Periscope:

Headlines for April 16, 1960: Paris kidnappers release unharmed 4-year-old Eric Peugeot, son of a wealthy French auto family, after the family pays a $100,000 ransom. French President Charles de Gaulle arrives in Gettysburg to meet with President Eisenhower. South Africa is rocked by strikes after the government banned the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is established at a meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, to help coordinate lunch counter sit-ins across the South. A bomb damages an Atlanta home recently purchased by an African-American family in an all-white neighborhood. Miami civil rights leaders suspend a threatened boycott of Miami stores pending negotiations with the Miami City Commission.

On the radio: “The Theme from ‘A Summer Place’” by Percy Faith and His Orchestra, “Puppy Love” by Paul Anka, “He’ll Have To Go” by Jim Reeves, “Wild One” by Bobby Rydell, “Greenfields” by the Brothers Four, “Sweet Nothin’s” be Brenda Lee, “Sink the Bismark” by Johnny Horton, “Mama” by Connie Francis, “I Love the Way You Love” by Marv Johnson, “Footsteps” by Steve Lawrence.

Currently in theaters: The Unforgiven.

On television: Gunsmoke(CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), The Andy Griffith Show(CBS), The Real McCoys(ABC), Rawhide (CBS), Candid Camera (CBS), The Price is Right (NBC), The Untouchables (ABC), The Jack Benny Show (CBS), Bonanza (NBC), Dennis the Menace (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS) The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS), My Three Sons (ABC), Perry Mason (CBS) The Flintstones (ABC), 77 Sunset Strip (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: Hawaii by James Michener,  Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (Pulitzer Prize winner). The Constant Image by Marcia Davenport. Non-fiction: May This House Be Safe from Tigers, by Alexander King, Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health by D.C. Jarvis, Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart.

Source:

“Trail bar raided as deviate’s den.” Miami News (April 17, 1960): 12A.

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The Los Angeles Cooper Do-Nuts Riot

One upon a time, a time when queers were afraid and the police, always on the take and always looking to haul the queers down to the station, those queers finally had enough and fought back. When the cops tried to arrest some drag queens, onlookers threw trash at police and forced them to retreat. The queers poured out into the streets and began rioting.

This uprising took place ten full years before Stonewall, in May of 1959. The exact date is lost to history. It took place in downtown Los Angeles, in a small three-block area between Pershing Square and Skid Row. “The Run,” as gay people called it, consisted of almost a dozen gay bars, and several small eateries and diners.

Two of those gay bars on South Main, Harry’s and the Waldorf, sat on either side of Cooper Do-Nuts, a 24-hour coffee and doughnut shop. Cooper’s was especially popular with transwomen and drag queens because Harry’s and the Waldorf routinely turned them away. They attracted too much attention from police. Cooper’s was also popular with butch lesbians, hustlers and other non-conformists. That May night, two Los Angeles police officers entered Cooper’s and demanded patrons show their IDs. This was a common practice. If an individual’s gender presentation didn’t match their ID, that person was taken to jail.

.The officers arrested two drag queens, two male sex workers and a gay man, and tried to stuff all five of them into the back of the police car. The detainees protested, and onlookers began throwing coffee, cups and trash at police. The detainees escaped and the police to flee in their car. People then begin rioting in the streets. Police backup arrive, block the street for the rest of the night and make several arrests.

Novelist John Rechy was one of those initially arrested. He gave it a brief mention in his 1963 novel City of Night. This riot predated Stonewall by a decade, It may have been one of the first LGBT uprisings in the U.S. In 2006, Rechy warned against ignoring pre-Stonewall uprisings like it:

But pride and courage were not born at Stonewall, although even the few history books that attempt to document our long but largely unrecorded struggles place the birthplace of defiance there and then. In doing so, they divide our resistance into two steadfast periods, “pre-Stonewall” and “post-Stonewall,” the former judged as repressive, the latter extolled as liberated.

Over-emphasis on that single event distorts our history and renders as lesser other acts of equal — and even greater — courage, when circumstances of the time of occurrence are considered.

On the Timeline:

May 1959: LGBT people riot at Cooper Do-Nuts in Los Angeles.

Periscope:

Headlines for May 1959: Sir Winston Churchill travels to Washington for a private visit with his old friend, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Three-week long Foreign Ministers conference in Geneva ends with the Soviets and the West no closer to resolving the West Berlin stalemate. The daily deathbed vigil conducted by American newspapers ends on May 24 when former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles dies of cancer. After three members of the Little Rock school board walk out, the remaining three members, all segregationists, vote to fire 44 teachers who had supported integration. Three weeks later, Little Rock voters approve a recall against the three segregationists. Eddie Fisher marries Elizabeth Taylor just three hours after his divorce from Debbie Reynolds is finalized.

On the radio: “Come Softly To Me” by the Fleetwoods, “Kansas City” by Wilbert Harrison,  “The Happy Organ” by Dave “Baby” Cortez, “Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home)” by the Impalas, “Pink Shoe Laces” by Dodie Stevens, “Guitar Boogie Shuffle” by the Virtues, “A Teenager In Love” by Dion and the Belmonts,  “The Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton, “(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such As I” by Elvis Presley, “Tell Him No” by Travis and Bob, “Venus” by Frankie Avalon, “Turn Me Loose” by Fabian.

Currently at the Paramount, next to Pershing Square: The Naked Venus. “A French girl joins an American nudist Colony. Recommended for Adults.”

On television: Gunsmoke (CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), The Rifleman (ABC), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS), Maverick (ABC), Tales of Wells Fargo (NBC), The Real McCoys(ABC), I’ve Got a Secret (CBS), The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (ABC), Father Knows Best (CBS), The Red Skelton Show (CBS), Perry Mason (CBS).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, Exodus by Leon Uris,  The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Non-fiction: Mine Enemy Grows Older by Alexander King, Only in America by Harry Golden, What We Must Know About Communism by Harry and Bonaro Overstreet, The Status Seekers by Vance Packard.

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