Secret city The hidden history of gay Washington

James Kirchick

Book - 2022

"For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret "too loathsome to mention" paradoxically held enormous, terrifying power. Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, from ...FDR through Clinton is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of "the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States," award-winning journalist and author James Kirchick illuminates how the idea of homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration, impacting everything from the creation of America's earliest civilian intelligence agency to the rise and fall of McCarthyism, the struggle for African American civil rights, and the conservative movement. Celebrating the men and women who courageously decided that the source of their private shame could instead be galvanized for public pride, Kirchick offers a reinterpretation of American history told from the perspective of the citizens who lived in its shadows. Sweeping in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history"--

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Subjects
Published
New York : Henry Holt and Company 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
James Kirchick (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xviii, 826 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781627792325
  • Dramatis Personae
  • Introduction: Comrades
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • 1. "No Comment"
  • 2. "Worse Than a Murderer"
  • 3. Senator X
  • 4. Patriotic Homosexuals
  • 5. "The Greatest National Scandal Since the Existence of the United States"
  • Harry Truman
  • 6. The Concealed Enemy
  • 7. "This Moral Leper"
  • 8. Lavender Lists
  • 9. "A Government Within a Government"
  • 10. The Homintern
  • Dwight Eisenhower
  • 11. "No More Bohlens!"
  • 12. The Heterosexual Dictatorship
  • 13. Pixies on the Potomac
  • 14. "We Accuse...
  • 15. The Hunted
  • John F. Kennedy
  • 16. First Friends
  • 17. The Group of the Intrepid
  • 18. "That Old Black Fairy"
  • Lyndon B. Johnson
  • 19. A Long Way from Arp
  • 20. "A Quite Serious Situation"
  • 21. "Gone and Forgotten"
  • 22. The Fruit Loop
  • 23. Scandal in Sacramento
  • 24. The Thrill of Treason
  • Richard Nixon
  • 25. "Destroy Your Opponent"
  • 26. Fags
  • 27. "We Are Impatient"
  • 28. The City of Conversation
  • Gerald Ford
  • 29. The Ultimate Democracy
  • 30. "Too Good an Opportunity"
  • Jimmy Carter
  • 31. Out of the Closets, into the White House
  • 32. Code Breakers
  • Ronald Reagan
  • 33. "The Homosexual Thing"
  • 34. The Manchurian Candidate
  • 35. An Enclosed and Enchanted Garden
  • 36. Sodom-on-the-Potomac
  • 37. "I Don't Have It. Do You?"
  • 38. "Them" Is "Us"
  • 39. "Our Sebastian"
  • 40. Mr. Green
  • 41. The Wonderful, the Creative, and the Brave
  • George H. W Bush
  • 42. Naming Names
  • Bill Clinton
  • 43. A Profoundly Important Strength
  • Conclusion: The Gay Century
  • Acknowledgments
  • Photography Credits
  • Sources
  • Notes
  • Index
  • About the Author
Review by Booklist Review

For anyone who ever served in government, President Biden's appointment of Pete Buttigieg as the first openly gay cabinet member was, as Joe himself would say, "a big f-ing deal." Throughout most of the country's history, the phrase "gay government employee" was an oxymoron. Not that there weren't gays in government, of course, just that the civil-service closet was cavernous. Careers were threatened and destroyed based on the slightest allegations, fueled by people whose motivations ranged from casual to calculated. Prolific journalist Kirchick chronicles the decades-long evolution of the LGBTQ administrative community, from subversive political extortion during the FDR years to groundbreaking if inadequate same-sex legislation under Bill Clinton. What emerges is a web of informants and blackmailers, often abetted by political operatives at the highest levels, all determined to expose what was considered "deviant" behavior that could topple administrations. While Kirchick's analysis of political skulduggery throughout earlier presidencies is microscopic and keenly researched, the proffering of positive changes beginning with George H. W. Bush's term is insubstantial by comparison. Still, Kirchick's history is an inspiring and overdue tribute to the brave individuals who fought for acceptance in a city and government long pitted against them.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

From the 1940s to the 1990s, "America's global preeminence transformed what had been a private vice into a public obsession as homosexuality assumed an ideological cast and treacherous, world-historical significance," according to this ambitious history. Tablet columnist Kirchick (The End of Europe) examines the forced closeting of LGBTQ government officials from the FDR administration through the Bill Clinton era, detailing how rumors that State Department official Sumner Welles (whom Winston Churchill credited with coining the phrase "No comment" in the 1940s) propositioned male train porters when drunk sowed the seeds for the Lavender Scare, which resulted in government employees losing their jobs due to belief that they could be easy targets for blackmail and coercion by foreign enemies. The official exclusion of gay people from national security access lasted until Bill Clinton overturned an Eisenhower-era executive order in 1995, Kirchick notes. Extensive research, including original interviews, delves into rumors that Alger Hiss was falsely accused of espionage because he rejected Time magazine editor Whittaker Chambers's sexual advances and reveals that the Iran-Contra affair was facilitated by a conservative "gay network." Despite losing momentum and depth in its coverage of the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, this is a valuable and often fascinating revision of U.S. political history. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Gay history is American history. But for much of American history, particularly in 20th-century Washington, DC, being gay was something hidden, something secret. That is Kirchick's (The End of Europe) thesis as he relays the stories of gay men and women who existed and persisted while working in every presidential administration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's through Bill Clinton's. The blacklisting of communists, the battle for civil rights, and the birth of the American conservative movement can trace a foundation back to gayness and how it was viewed, Kirchick maintains. This astonishing history, based on thousands of recently declassified documents, tells a bold story of how gay Americans, against great odds, made a lasting impact on the U.S. government. Chapters move chronologically through 11 presidential administrations and chronicle the federal officials and civil servants working behind the scenes, and sometimes in the public eye, who received scrutiny because of hearsay or rumor about their sexuality. Kirchick's writing is compelling throughout, and the fast pace of his story makes a lengthy book accessible for a wide audience. The "cast of characters" at the beginning of the book is a bonus. VERDICT Readers who enjoy inside-the-Beltway thrillers or American history, particularly regarding civil rights, will have a common interest in this fascinating and comprehensive work.--Keith Klang

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A comprehensive history of key political power struggles and controversies of the past century, focused on those Americans "whose obscurity was the consequence of their being forced to hide." In this absorbing and well-documented book, Kirchick, author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, engagingly draws attention to a variety of gay histories that have been largely lost to mainstream history. At the same time, he shows how Americans' deep-seated fear of homosexuality was often amplified by political leaders. "Nothing posed a more potent threat to a political career, or exerted a more fearsome grip on the nation's collective psyche, than the love expressed between people of the same sex," writes the author. "While America fought fascism, political and cultural leaders associated [homosexuality] with the nation's Nazi enemies. During the Cold War, voices from across the political spectrum linked it with communism." Kirchick diligently tracks each presidential administration from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill Clinton. The author discusses the sexual scandal that would force Sumner Welles, FDR's undersecretary of state, out of office; the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic during the Reagan and Bush administrations; and the policies of the Clinton administration, which were more open-minded despite the ill-advised "don't-ask, don't-tell" policy. Throughout, Kirchick sheds light on the stories of several individuals whose efforts bravely contributed to gradual acceptance and an expansion of opportunities for gay Americans, including civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and John Ford, Reagan's deputy assistant agriculture secretary. While ambitious and convincing, the narrative goes slack in certain areas; some readers may get the sense that the book would have been better presented as a multivolume history, affording Kirchick the opportunity to examine specific elements without losing momentum. In particular, the early chapters--about how the fear of homosexuality became entangled with the fear of communist influence--are worth further study. Though overlong, the book offers countless illuminating stories that have been grossly underserved in past political histories. The author also includes a "historical map of gay Washington" and a cast of characters. Not without flaws but an important addition to American history nonetheless. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.