Book review of Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton by Jam Kirchick - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON KDLE EDN
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON PAPERBACK – MAY 16, 2023
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON HARDVER – MAY 31, 2022
• JAGUARS ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU
• FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG
• WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
• SECRETS OF GAY WASHGTON (W/ JAM KIRCHICK)
• BEG GAY WAS DC’S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET DURG 20TH CENTURY
• ‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
• SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON
• IN 'SECRET CY,' THOR JAM KIRCHICK TRAC THE UNKNOWN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON
• BEG GAY WAS THE GRAVT S WASHGTON

A HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON THAT LETS HOMOPHOBIA STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT

Wh his new book, “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, ” Jam Kirchick tri to retrof the trope to a very specific subset of the District’s famoly diverse LGBTQ muny, ultimately verg a bewilrg amount of old ground whout offerg the rear much that n be lled new. Apart om notable appearanc by a handful of otherwise unrexplored gay and lbian polis — scrappy CIA officer Carmel Offie, Office of Strategic Servic trailblazer Cora Du Bois and Kennedy nfidant Lem Billgs, among others — “Secret Cy” largely foc on the pa experienced by, and at the hands of, faiar gay men like FBI Director J. Most gay voic, however, are drowned out by, even treated as ls credible than, those of homophobic straight people: Gossip lumnists, yellow journalists, embattled prints, nnivg senators, obsequ FBI agents and a rotatg st of ais all are relied upon as primary sourc a history that is not primarily theirs to tell.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON KDLE EDN

Prs rps, how such homophobia has long manifted as mor and nuendo (pag and pag of which are here reproduced), the fluence of such homophobia on an enormo st of almost exclively Whe gay men, and how more than a few of those men played not-signifint rol the GOP’s long march to the far are not unimportant topics.

At one pot, for example, Kirchick attribut a “lack of Black participatn” an early gay rights anizatn, at least part, “to the fact that Washgton’s Black rints were mostly lols … and associatg wh a gay anizatn was signifintly harr while livg the cy where one’s fay rid.

Siarly, while “Secret Cy” has ltle to say about lbians, the thor attempts to expla the silence away wh qutnable, and ultimately unstaable, claratns of how “persecutn generally targeted male homosexuals more severely than female on, a nsequence, part, of patriarchal attus privilegg men over women. Equally troublg is the book’s uneven approach to the plited polics of “the closet, ” lurchg whout warng om requise portrayals of survival-by-secrecy to scribg, language both hackneyed and harmful, the ne gay victims of D. Riemer is a -thor of “We Are Everywhere: Prott, Power, and Pri the History of Queer Liberatn” and a -creator of the onle rource CyThe Hidn History of Gay WashgtonBy Jam KirchickHenry Holt.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON PAPERBACK – MAY 16, 2023

)And yet the very skills gay people had to velop to survive — studns, partmentalizatn, discretn, erancy — ma them uniquely skilled, Kirchick pots out, to sensive tasks like pnage or high-level advisg. Fil, rrponnce, terview transcripts and prs clippgs — you n almost hear the old microfiche sheets tickg by — Kirchick holds the most dited persecutors, some of whom were themselv the closet, to sthg Morigi“Even at the height of the Cold War, was safer to be a Communist than a homosexual, ” he wr. ” Later, as tolerance grew (thanks part to the efforts of the Mattache Society, the gay rights anizatn whose evolutn is traced here), some nfirmed bachelors took the important seat once occupied by Perle Mta, the cy’s famed “hosts wh the mosts.

Kirchick wr of Nancy Reagan: “Her own persona is pably, irreprsibly gay, embodied by the retue that signed, drsed, rted, entertaed, flattered, hoed, humored, pampered, styled and tillated her.

It would be bt read at the vlet hour wh a snifter of brandy a wood-paneled library, one of those wh a rollg ladr to brg down some of the fad midcentury bt-sellers rurfaced the pag, like Vidal’s “The Cy and the Pillar” — the narrative perks up nsirably whenever this ntent, urbane wrer arriv on the premis — “Washgton Confintial, ” by Jack La and Lee Mortimer (1951), wh s fabled “Garn of Pansi”; and “Advise and Consent, ” by Allen Dry (1959), which won a Pulzer and was ma to a movie by Otto ’s also a Baeker of important plac (map clud): the rollickg Chicken Hut bar where Teboe met his murrers; the “F Loop” of the Dupont Circle pickup scene that veloped the 1960s; the Cema Folli, the pornographic theater where ne men died a 1977 fire; the “gay rner” of the Congrsnal Cemetery; and, more hopefully, the Lambda Risg is overwhelmgly a gallery of the whe male gaytriarchy, wh lbians and people of lor mostly on the sil. ”―TIME“Throughout Secret Cy, Kirchick do a masterful job of nveyg the flavor of homophobia each historil era, while g impecble rearch to vividly characterize the dozens of var dividuals at play the stori. Much like the gay muny self, the book ntas people om every social class, lor, personaly, and profsn, om disabled and impoverished veterans to the untry's send most powerful preachy, self-nsc, or borg, Secret Cy has raised the bar for the genre, portrayg s subjects and their cy all s ntradictns.

WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'

In this spellbdg journey om the New Deal to the end of the Cold War, Jam Kirchick draws to the mimon of Gay Washgton: a dangero world swirlg wh rmers, sndal sheets, blacklists, clanste works, and brave fighters for equaly.

”―Gee Stephanopoulos"In Secret Cy, Jam Kirchick tells a Washgton DC Cold War story that few have heard: How the polil obssn wh secrecy together wh the fear of munist fluence distorted perceptns not only of gay people, but of realy self.

Lovers of Washgton lore will enjoy the pictn of gay life the natn's pal when was entirely unrground, and lovers of jtice will take pleasure the fact that some of the most repulsive characters morn polil history who ed so many liv and reers are brought to jtice the only way they n be now: the historil rerd. Farrell, thor of Richard Nixon: The Life“Kirchick has wrten a mmerizg and movg acunt of gay proximy to power, and the shockg ristance to , Ameri's pal cy long before the morn gay-rights movement began. “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, " by Jam Kirchick, is a 654-page tome that took years of rearch and an exhstive vtigatn to printial archiv, historil terviews and once-classified ernment rerds.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON HARDVER – MAY 31, 2022

“I realized that all the stori I was readg, and the personali and phenomena, whether was McCarthyism or the Reagans, FDR or JFK, that there were the gay stori lurkg the background, ” Kirchick said. “It was the specter of homosexualy that provoked the first and only suici by a member of Congrs his Capol Hill office, ed Lyndon Johnson to et that his historil lead would evaporate, and seized the paranoid md of Richard Nixon send only to the plots of his ever-expandg enemi list, ” Kirchick wr. ” Rumors of homosexualy were tastrophic to those who were acced of , but Kirchick also asks the rear to nsir the broar human and societal impact of such wch hunts on gay Amerins workg ernment.

“To asss the full sle of the damage that the fear of homosexualy wrought on the Amerin polil landspe, one mt take to acunt not only the reers ed and the liv cut short, but somethg vaster and unquantifiable: the possibili thwarted, ” Kirchick wr. Although openly LGBTQ people have ma their way to the hight ranks of ernment today, was not long ago that spected homosexuals workg for the feral ernment were hunted down, publicly huiated and termated wh the full force of the ernment.

JAGUARS ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR U.S.-BASED PRO LEAGU

The possibily that Kemp uld jo the ticket was evince that there was a “homosexual rg” around Reagan and that he was “the ventriloquized pawn of shadowy and sister forc, ” Kirchick wr. ” Wh those words, Clton would do somethg that would have seemed unfathomable to most, if not all, of his precsors: make an explic appeal to gay Amerins for their support a printial electn.

Court of Appeals for the 4th Circu Richmond is an early tt of how that major Supreme Court cisn ptg ee speech agast anti-discrimatn laws will play out beyond the hypothetil suatn that se, which volved a platiff who had never actually ma weddg webs or been asked to do so by a gay person. “The Court rejected the dissent’s assertn that s cisn opened the door to discrimatn employment, ” ACLU attorney Josh Block wrote a reply to Becket’s the exampl raised the Supreme Court did not clu a relig anizatn or a gay employee, and Gorsuch repeatedly voked a 2000 cisn allowg the Boy Suts to expel a gay volunteer on “exprsive associatn” grounds. “We all said that thoands of relig anizatns all across the untry ask their employe to uphold their tradnal view of marriage word and ed, and if you terpret the statute that way, ’s gog to unleash lots of lawsus agast them, ” Goodrich the Supreme Court has specifilly said preventg racial discrimatn is a pellg ernment tert that jtifi rtrictg First Amendment eedoms, he noted that the Supreme Court has rejected such a fdg on discrimatn agast gay or transgenr people.

FIRG OF GAY CATHOLIC SCHOOL TEACHER ULD TT LATT SUPREME COURT LG

Blick arrived to share telligence about a new threat, one that, he suggted, uld stabilize Amerin natnal secury om wh: the existence of gay staffers at the hight levels of began by explag that “a well-known pnage tactic” entailed lurg female ernment staffers “to the munist unrground by volvg them lbian practic. Blick kept the list locked a metal safe at police ’s gay list quickly took on mythic stat, a now largely fotten rollary to Joseph McCarthy’s famo “list of nam” of Communists the State Department.

Ngrspeople, eager to stop Ronald Reagan om wng the Republin Printial nomatn, gathered to discs whether a “homosexual rg” ntrolled the “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton” (Henry Holt & Co.

(Relayg the fear exprsed by the Republin senator Bob Livgston 1980 that a “bal of right-wg gay hmen” was on s way to assassate him, for stance, Kirchick not that this “may seem far-fetched” to the ntemporary rear. C., was “simultaneoly the gayt and most antigay cy Ameri, ” a place which queer people were omniprent—but so, too, was the risk of you went lookg for the prototypil queer staffer among the book’s st of characters—Kirchick helpfully lists the dramatis personae at the ont of the book—you might settle on Carmel Offie, who, spe a most background, got a job wh the Ambassador to Honduras when he was jt twenty-two, the early neteen-thirti.

WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”

A lleague of Offie’s once lled him “as homosexual as you n get, ” and Kirchick reunts mors that Offie, who reportedly scribed his bedroom as “the playg fields of Eton, ” had a romantic relatnship wh William Bullt, the Ambassador to the Soviet Unn, for whom he eventually went to work. Though not que to the level of a “homosexual rg, ” a notable ntgent of high-level gay iends and staffers worked for Reagan, for stance, and queer people ma up a signifint share of other Admistratns throughout the middle and latter parts of the twentieth century. Roosevelt vociferoly fend his iend and the Unr-Secretary of State, Sumner Well, followg revelatns that Well was a homosexual, askg for Well’s rignatn only unr mountg prsure om his Republin rivals.

For years, the prs went along wh this discretn, but that mutually assured silence began to unravel durg Roosevelt’s third term, when a New York Post article that acced the Massachetts senator David Walsh of visg a “hoe of gradatn”—the Post never ed the word “homosexual”—gurated outg as a polil weapon. Kirchick posns “Secret Cy” as a lightly revisnist work, notg that “most narrativ of the movement for gay equaly” emphasize the Stonewall uprisg, the assassatn of Harvey Milk, and the mpaign agast the antigay activist Ana Bryant before sistg that “the spark for the revolutn was l, and s flame was tend, Washgton, DC.

Kameny subsequently built up the cy’s first staed gay anizatn and is rightly regard as a pneer for equal the tth most clearly revealed by Kirchick’s foc on Washgton is one that queer historians have emphasized for years: that change was prompted not by those the halls of power but by activists workg well outsi of them.

SECRETS OF GAY WASHGTON (W/ JAM KIRCHICK)

And almost no one “Secret Cy” who had a job a Printial Admistratn phed for equal rights, quietly or otherwise, while still employed—even after activists had succeed makg gay rights a natnal story. The high pot of his si fightg seems to have arrived 1982, when Dolan wrote to the Admistratn to cricize the Fay Protectn Act, which banned any anizatn that st homosexualy as an “acceptable life style” om receivg feral fundg, and a month later, when he apologized for g antigay language his N. Uniquely Nasty, a Yahoo News documentary om 2015, explored the ltle known story of the US Government’s relentls persecutn of gays the Cold War era, focg part on how the FBI unr Hoover’s directn, tracked the nam of tens of thoands of spected gays and lbians workg for t.

Uniquely Nasty, a Yahoo News documentary om 2015, explored the ltle known story of the US Government’s relentls persecutn of gays the Cold War era, focg part on how the FBI unr Hoover’s directn, tracked the nam of tens of thoands of spected gays and lbians workg for the Feral Government. GUESTS:Jam Kirchick, (@jkirchick), Author of the book Isikoff (@Isikoff), Chief Invtigative Corrponnt, Yahoo NewsDaniel Klaidman (@dklaidman), Edor Chief, Yahoo NewsVictoria Bassetti (@VBass), fellow, Brennan Center for Jtice (ntributg -host)RESOURCES:Pick up Jam Kirchick's book The Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton - the groundbreakg Yahoo News documentary "Uniquely Nasty: The U.

BEG GAY WAS DC’S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET DURG 20TH CENTURY

Government's War on Gays - on Twter: @SkullduggeryPodListen and subscribe to "Skullduggery" on Apple Podsts, Spotify, Google Podsts or wherever you get your wh feedback, qutns or tips: See for privacy and opt-out rmatn.

‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS

“Beg a bachelor was a somewhat easier stat to mata, and you might draw ls attentn to yourself as a bachelor Washgton than you might other ci, certaly the small towns and many gay people were fleeg, ” Kirchick explas. As is a history of Washgton as experienced by s gay power players—figur who were workg alongsi their straight lleagu to put the untry on a post-World War II footg, addrs the risg Civil Rights Movement, and ntend wh a Cold War that left everyone paranoid.

SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON

So he was the first person to e out, whereas leadg up to him, there were untold hundreds or maybe thoands of gay people who lost their jobs, who jt sort of melted away back to obscury. I was aware of the whole gay OSS [Office of Strategic Servic, an early eratn of the CIA] thg bee there’s a chapter on a book about the early years of the OSS, and there’s a chapter about Donald Down that kd of refers to him as beg gay. Begng wh the tragic story of Sumner Well, Frankl Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of “the greatt natnal sndal sce the existence of the Uned Stat, ” Jam Kirchick illumat how homosexualy shaped each succsive printial admistratn through the end of the twentieth century.

Cultural and polil anxiety over gay people sparked a s-long wch hunt, impactg everythg om the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the stggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the nservative movement. Among other revelatns, Kirchick tells of the World War II–era gay spymaster who pneered sctn as a tool of Amerin pnage, the voted ai whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexualy was disvered, and how allegatns of a “homosexual rg” ntrollg Ronald Reagan nearly railed his 1980 electn victory.

IN 'SECRET CY,' THOR JAM KIRCHICK TRAC THE UNKNOWN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON

(@jkirchick)Interview HighlightsOn the unknown history of gay Washgton“The skills or the tras that make you succsful Washgton, thgs like discretn, beg able to keep secrets, beg able to work long hours for a boss. And so particularly wh the New Deal and the rise of the feral burecracy, you had lots of gay people movg to Washgton, particularly om ral areas, tryg to pe perhaps more nservative small town life, and seekg a life the big cy, which really is the story of gay people 20th century Ameri, leavg small towns and g to big ci. And the fears that gay people or, you know, homosexuals wh the term that was ed at the time are really sexual viants or perverts, that they have the worst possible secret imagable and that they would go to any length to keep .

And then 1980, one of the thgs that I unvered, really one of the big sops the book, is that a group of Republins, actually morate Republins, brg new accatns of gay advisers surroundg Ronald Reagan to the Washgton Post. Jo Kirchick as he illumat how the midcentury ia of homosexualy shaped succsive printial admistratns, impactg everythg om the creatn of Ameri’s earlit civilian telligence agency to the rise and fall of McCarthyism, the stggle for Ain Amerin civil rights, and the nservative movement.

BEG GAY WAS THE GRAVT S WASHGTON

From World War II until the end of the Cold War, untold thoands of gay men and women were eher purged om ernment service or nied employment altogether, solely bee of their sexual the same time, some of the most important prerequis for succs the natn’s pal—the abily to work long hours on a low ernment salary, a willgns to travel at a moment’s notice, prrizg reer over fay—are more easily attaed by those whout a fay to support, a set of circumstanc that ma Washgton an pecially attractive place for gay people, gay men particular.

The cy has long attracted the archetypil “bt ltle boy the world, ” the thor Andrew Tobias’s term for a certa type of gay young man who diligently channels the adversy engenred by his secret to amic pursus, so many of whom have ma their way to Washgton bee of s peculiar appete for the skills that secret Kirchick: The stggle for gay rights is overBob Waldron was one such man. Waldron’s experience, ptured now-classified ernment rerds and told full here for the first time, reveals jt how much the gay Amerins sacrificed—and how even someone unwavergly loyal to one of the untry’s most skillful policians was vulnerable to the fall of 1963, Johnson had cid to brg Waldron onto his executive-branch staff. Phillips seemed to take the matter stri, as evinced by his cisn to stay at Waldron’s home, and sleep Waldron’s bed, for the rt of the A glimpse to 1970s gay activismIn reuntg the experienc to the ernment vtigator, though, Phillips imbued them wh a forebodg he had not seemed to feel when they occurred.