Secret Cy: behd the untold gay history of DC polics | Books | The Guardian

Contents:

• ADAPTED OM SECRET CITY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON BY JAM KIRCHICK. PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY JAM KIRCHICK. ALL RIGHTS RERVED.
• THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS
• RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER
• THE ULTRANSERVATIVE BROTHERS PULLED STRGS REAGAN’S WASHGTON. THEN ONE OF THEM WAS OUTED AS GAY
• OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN
• WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY
• HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS
• WHAT MA WASHGTON, D.C., THE “GAYT AND MOST ANTIGAY CY AMERI”
• SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS
• NANCY AND THE GAYS

ADAPTED OM SECRET CITY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON BY JAM KIRCHICK. PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. COPYRIGHT © 2022 BY JAM KIRCHICK. ALL RIGHTS RERVED.

It was 3:15 on the morng of June 26, 1980, and Congrsman Bob Livgston was extraordarily dnk, hidg the ngrsnal gym beneath the Rayburn Hoe Office Buildg, petrified that a team of highly traed right-wg homosexual assasss workg on behalf of Ronald Reagan was about to kill him.

This acunt of the alleged “homosexual rg” that ntrolled Ronald Reagan, and the efforts to expose on the eve of the 1980 Republin Natnal Conventn that nomated him for the princy, is piled om terviews wh several of the survivg participants and documents unvered the papers of former Washgton Post Executive Edor Ben Bradlee.

“That stuff, ” or what Kemp adviser Ju Wanniski termed “the homosexual thg, ” had dogged the upstate New York ngrsman and former profsnal football player sce the fall of 1967, when the syndited newspaper lumnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anrson published a piece lkg Kemp to a “homosexual rg” operatg wh Reagan’s gubernatorial office.

THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS

” The “slanr” and “old lumny” that the virile ex-football pro and father of four might be gay, journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak wrote at the time, was a “vic nard, ” the sort of “poisono” “garbage” one found “submerged the polil sewers” and other “gutter munitns” that “not only do gross jtice to their victims but also mean and pollute mocratic ernment.

An Eisenhower-era executive orr barrg gay people om holdg feral ernment jobs (on the grounds that they were supposedly more sceptible to blackmail) had led to a purge of thoands of workers, and while the civil service lifted s ban 1975, gays were still prohibed om holdg secury clearanc (a rtrictn that would not be lifted until 1995). Livgston’s md began to procs the jumble of thgs he had seen and heard over the past few weeks: the long-standg mors about Kemp; the supposed gay work encirclg Reagan; McCloskey’s ntact who claimed that he, too, had been h on by gay Reagan; Bouchey’s ti to var Lat Amerin juntas and paraari.

Over the urse of the followg week, McCloskey typed up everythg he knew about the trigu ncerng the prumptive Republin printial nomee — the 1967 “homosexual rg” sndal Sacramento, the repeated sexual importung of Bill Bt by var Reagan ais, Bob Livgston’s dramatic pe om a dread homosexual h squad — to a two-part, 13-page, 33-pot nfintial memorandum. The prence of a closeted homosexual, Peter Hannaford, a potential Reagan admistratn uld pose a threat to natnal secury, McCloskey believed, and so he took his ncerns directly to Reagan’s longtime adviser and mpaign chief of staff, Ed Mee. “Wh the growg numbers and polil volvement of the homosexual muni across the natn, ” a velopment McCloskey weled, “ would be my judgment that there will be very few secrets about who has and who has not engaged homosexual nduct.

RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER

While he did not “specifilly” rell the meetg wh McCloskey, “the implitn that Pete [Hannaford] had anythg to do wh homosexualy is absolutely false, and the reason, if I said [he was not jog the admistratn] at the time was that there was no pot gog to bee Pete wasn’t gog to the admistratn anyway. In light of this rerd, his last-dch effort to torpedo Ronald Reagan wh a tale portrayg him as the dupe of a right-wg homosexual nspiracy looks like jt another episo a reer spent tiltg at wdls — his unlikely iend John Ehrlichman scribed him as “a latter-day Don Quixote” — though one much ls honorable than challengg Richard Nixon for the princy.

For as difficult as might be to image today, when an openly gay man n mount a ser mpaign for the princy and gay people have never been more visible Amerin public life, there was only one offense that rivaled murrg a member of the oppose sex, and that was lovg a member of the same one.

Twelve days before Reagan was elected print November, 1980, Christians for Reagan, a supposedly pennt lobby anized to pture the fundamentalist vote for the Republin nomee, announced that would pay for a barrage of advertisements throughout the South, which attacked Print Carter for “terg” to homosexuals. Homophobia led many cisn makers to disunt the AIDS epimic, partly bee they didn’t re much about those who were sick, and partly bee they believed that as long as they were straight, they themselv would never have to worry about . The only real hero were a few scientists si the CDC, who lobbied early and often for more money to fight the epimic, and a very small group of ngrsmen om California and New York, cludg Philip Burton, Henry Waxman, and Ted Weiss, whose openly gay staff members nvced them to take the epimic serly.

THE ULTRANSERVATIVE BROTHERS PULLED STRGS REAGAN’S WASHGTON. THEN ONE OF THEM WAS OUTED AS GAY

In April 1982, Wtmoreland wrote a statement for Waxman to read which clared, “There is no doubt my md that if the same disease had appeared among Amerins of Norwegian scent, or among tennis players, rather than gay mal, the rpons of both the ernment and the medil tablishment would have been different.

Insi the Reagan admistratn—at the Whe Hoe, at the Office of Management and Budget, and wh the Department of Health and Human man Servic—there were no openly gay staffers, and therefore, very ltle will to attack the problem forcefully. This attu was another ditn of the persistence of the myth that homosexualy was ntag—even though Reagan himself had publicly rejected that ia durg the battle over the Briggs amendment that would have banned gay teachers om California’s public schools. Ronald Reagan feared his son was gay when he dropped out of Yale to bee a ballet dancerThe 40th print's son went on to marry wife Doria 1980, and the two are still together livg Seattle wh their ts Published: 21:14 BST, 3 June 2014 | Updated: 22:52 BST, 3 June 2014 It has been revealed that Ronald Reagan secretly feared his son was gay when the younger Ron dropped out of Yale 1976 to bee a ballet dancer.

In the new book Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, thor Jam Kirchick expos how fears and prejudic around homosexualy shaped printial polics for s, om the Cold War-era purge of gays and lbians om every level of ernment to the rise of the nservative movement. Dolan spent a lot of time at the templ of bodily self-perfectn (three hours the weight room every morng and sometim a quick rd exercise durg lunch) to mata his footg what thor Randy Shilts lled the “aristocracy of bety” that fed the 1980s urban gay male subculture. One eveng, after addrsg a bs tra associatn at a Denver hotel, Dolan scend to the lobby for a night of prowlg the lol leather bar scene cked out the era’s “gay clone” uniform (tight jeans, leather wboy boots, flannel shirt, and studd leather wristband), the atten to whom he had, jt moments earlier, served up a genero helpg of right-wg rhetoril red meat none the wiser.

OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN

Dolan’s anizatn, meanwhile, sent out fundraisg letters like the one signed by far-right Republin ngrsman Dan Crane, clarg, “Our natn’s moral fiber is beg weakened by the growg homosexual movement and the fanatil ERA phers (many of whom publicly brag they are lbians).

WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY

” At one pot before Terry’s ath, the brothers discsed the se of Father Charl Curran, a theologian who had recently been fired om a teachg posn at Catholic Universy over his qutng church doctre on homosexualy and other matters pertag to sexual ethics. In Wgh’s novel, Sebastian leav the fay homtead to shack up wh a German serter om the French Foreign Legn Tangier — a statn popular wh generatns of gay European men search of sexual eedom — where he nearly di of pnmonia, which happened to be the leadg opportunistic fectn among AIDS victims. “I’m sure he ma some limp-wristed jok along the way, he’s a creature of his time, ” remembered Ted Gup, one of the Post reporters Bradlee assigned to vtigate a supposed “homosexual rg” ntrollg Ronald Reagan the summer of 1980.

The day after Terry Dolan died, an edor on the Post assignment sk told a reporter the Style sectn, Elizabeth Kastor, to start gatherg rearch materials for a possible story about the life and ath of a closeted gay nservative activist the age of AIDS. Dolan and Bradlee’s disagreement over the newsworths of Terry’s secret life boiled down to a set of issu — the boundary between the public and the private, the role of hypocrisy polics, the vastatg effects of an epimic — all stemmg om the creasg visibily of homosexualy Amerin life. Somehow, amid his heavy duti as chief speechwrer to the print of the Uned Stat, he found the time over the urse of the followg week to dash off an 8, 000-word say, prised mostly of a pastakg rehash of his teractns wh var Post staffers and a diatribe about the pernic place of homosexualy journalism and public life.

” He further charged that “homosexual trigue” the Post newsroom was so tense that “poor Ben Bradlee has no one on whom he dar turn his back” and that the paper “subordat s public and journalistic rponsibili to s role as a polil and iologil power-center promotg an anti-nservative, pro-gay agenda.

HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY RIGHTS

” Phg that agenda was “a special tert who wanted to claim my brother as well as other proment people as one of their own, ” an ultimately futile enavor bee, as he lay dyg, “my brother had a eply relig nversn and had pletely rejected homosexualy. This narrative was further rerced recently the HBO film The Normal Heart, which Reagan is basilly held personally acuntable for the lack of progrs fightg the disease durg his picture that people like to pat of Reagan the LGBT muny is that he was a ferocly antigay zealot who believed that AIDS was a punishment brought down by God upon the gay muny. Whatever his mistak were when me to HIV and AIDS, she suggts that the former print kept a live-and-let-live attu when me to gay people, le wh the broar pro-eedom prcipl he poed for father once said that Reagan was "the most thentic man" he'd ever met and that "he didn't have a mean-spired bone his body.

HIV had been spreadg, untected, through Ameri’s gay populatn sce around the early 1970s, a rult of sexual transmissn among a mographic whose promiscuy was not only a nventn of queer sociabily but a revolutnary polil act the wake of the 1969 Stonewall rebelln.

It was not until 24 September, 1982 that the CDC would e the acronym Aids; medil practners had up to that pot signated the novel vis Grid (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), or more lloquially ‘gay ncer’, or ‘gay plague’ – the implitn beg that this was an exclively gay disease. Havg begun his reer as a Hollywood screenwrer before movg to wrg for the stage, Kramer, who died May aged 84, had never nceived of himself as a gay activist – fact his 1978 novel, Faggots, a sthg crique of the then norms of queer promiscuy, had ma him persona non grata New York’s gay muny the early 1980s. The play h me like a tsunami – Craig LusThe roman-à-clef rells the first years of the North Amerin Aids crisis om the perspectiv of a rag tag group of gay activists, together formg the Gay Men’s Health Crisis agast a backdrop of polil actn; the play’s protagonist, Ned Weeks, is a thly veiled analogue for Kramer himself.

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

That he was surround by bigots, however, is a matter of historil rerd: Pat Buchanan, who served as the Whe Hoe Communitns Director om Febary 1985 to March 1987, scribed the crisis as nature “exactg an awful retributn agast gay men” a 1983 op-ed for the New York Post; the Whe Hoe Prs Secretary Larry Speak, scribed as “the public face of the Reagan Era”, repeatedly sparred briefgs wh journalist Lter Ksolvg on qutns of Aids, oft wh the pejorative implitn that the latter was gay. Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by crics, the legislatn would mandate that “classroom stctn by school personnel or third parti on sexual orientatn or genr inty may not occur krgarten through gra 3 or a manner that is not age appropriate or velopmentally appropriate for stunts acrdance wh state standards.

SECRET CY: BEHD THE UNTOLD GAY HISTORY OF DC POLICS

Gay stunts and the children of same-sex upl, for stance, would likely be hibed om talkg about their liv, and teachers uld face the wrath of angry parents simply for discsg historil events volvg gay people, such as the adly 2016 attack on a gay nightclub bill’s proponents sist that the measure has nothg to do wh harmg the digny of gay dividuals but rather is aimed at ensurg age-appropriate sexual tn. Ten years later, the Rsian Duma unanimoly passed legislatn “for the purpose of protectg children om rmatn advotg for a nial of tradnal fay valu” prohibg the dissematn of “propaganda” of nontradnal sexual Asenc-Rhe/Tampa Bay Tim, via Associated PrsWhile brandg gay people as child molters has been a staple of right-wg rhetoric around the world, there has long existed a stra of Amerin libertarian nservatism that ems the legal enshrement of such prejudic as an vasn of privacy and a dangero enhancement of state power. The measure was part of a natnal backlash agast the advancement of gay rights that began the prev year wh a mpaign by the Florida Cs Commissn spokwoman and gospel sger Ana Bryant to repeal an ordance Miami’s Da County that prohibed discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn.

A Field poll published September 1978 found 61 percent of California voters supported banng gay teachers, a figure nsistent wh natnal proponents of Proposn 6 lookg at what seemed like an unobstcted path to victory, those opposn wonred what one of the state’s most popular Republins, s former ernor Ronald Reagan, thought about the measure. ” He ma a more substantive se his syndited lumn published a week before the electn, refutg the claim that gays had a greater propensy to be child molters and the nard that they joed the teachg profsn to rec imprsnable Electn Day, voters rejected Proposn 6, 58 percent to 42 percent, a nearly exact reversal of what the polls dited jt two months earlier. But moral panics, by fn, eventually lose their steam, and Republins of nscience should not let the passns of the moment overwhelm their stated mments to dividual rights, personal privacy and limed Kirchick is the thor of the forthg book “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton.

"Many loyal Amerins, by reason of stabily, alholism, homosexualy, or prev tennci to associate wh Communist-ont groups, are untentnally secury risks, " Ike himself wrote, although he also admted feelg guilty over his treatment of Vannberg. " Its Office of Civil Rights will therefore vtigate such claims, offerg a means of relief for transgenr and, to some extent, lbian, gay, and bisexual CarterCarter, who intifi as a "born-aga" Christian, is proof that ep relig fah need not go hand hand wh homophobia.

NANCY AND THE GAYS

He has famoly said, "I never knew of any word or actn of J Christ that discrimated agast anyone, " and has endorsed marriage ReaganReagan's greatt effect on the gay populatn was undoubtedly his rponse, or lack thereof, to a disease that took the liv of many gay men. Although the former actor was apparently personally fortable wh gay people, he drew much of his support om the antigay relig right, such as Jerry Falwell and his so-lled Moral Majory, and officials his admistratn clud such notor homophob as Gary Ber and Pat Buchanan.

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. 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. 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.