Nancy and the Gays

Contents:

• RON JR. ON THE RERD: THE SON OF RONALD REAGAN BREAKS HIS SILENCE REGARDG THE WHISPER MPAIGN THAT HE IS GAY.
• 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
• OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN
• NANCY AND THE GAYS
• RONALD REAGAN WORRIED HIS SON WAS GAY

RON JR. ON THE RERD: THE SON OF RONALD REAGAN BREAKS HIS SILENCE REGARDG THE WHISPER MPAIGN THAT HE IS GAY.

Pretty good for a gay guy, " lghs Ron Reagan over iced tea recently Los Angel. Gay buzz has surround the reed-th son of former print Ronald Reagan sce he dropped out of Yale Universy his hman year 1976 to dance wh New York Cy's Jofey Ballet.

It follows him still, even though he and his longtime wife, clil psychologist Dorta Reagan, appear to be happily married, ensnced Seattle wh their three typed as gay "has never bothered me, " says Reagan, 46, a polil mentator for MSNBC and dog show host for Animal Pla. " Also, beg portrayed as a closeted gay man "n be ed as a weapon agast my father, even posthumoly.

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.

" He plans to vote for John outspoken cric of Bh, Reagan ma headl July when he addrsed the Democratic Natnal Conventn support of feral fundg for stem cell is equally passnate about gay marriage. 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. For most of the 20th century, the worst thg one uld possibly be Amerin polics was gay.

The mere suatn of homosexualy was sufficient to stroy a polil reer, and thgs uld get particularly vic between traparty adversari.

THE REAL RERD OF THE REAGANS ON GAYS AND AIDS

While public attus have bee far more open, the suatn that someone is gay — whether te or not — remas a potent weapon (as elements of the mpaign agast North Carola Republin Rep. 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 “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. Behd those closed doors, McCloskey suggted strongly that the possibily of Kemp as a nng mate was proof that the “homosexual rg” around Reagan, long dismissed as mor, might be somethg all too real.

RONALD REAGAN FEARED SON WAS GAY WHEN HE BEME BALLET DANCER

Bt began llg him antilly to report that “homosexual people were very close to Reagan’s mpaign learship, ” that they were “nng” Reagan’s mpaign, and that “the suatn is absolutely out of ntrol.

” It was not until a boozy lunch wh a man claimg to have been a “long time Reagan associate, ” however, that Bt found what he believed to be the “smokg gun” provg that Reagan was ntrolled by homosexuals. ” After hearg om Bt, McCloskey agreed that a Kemp nomatn would revive the 1967 “Sndal Sacramento, ” possibly leadg to revelatns about the other homosexuals Reagan’s orb and thereby imperilg the GOP ticket. As far as homosexualy self was ncerned, McCloskey was more progrsive than the vast majory of his lleagu.

As a lawyer Palo Alto the 1960s, he had reprented men arrted for homosexual solicatn, and when New York Rep. Bella Abzug troduced the first bill Congrs prohibg discrimatn agast gay people, he was s only Republin sponsor. “I am heterosexual, I thk, ” the quirky ngrsman told The Advote, a gay magaze, 1977.

OP-ED: THE GAY TTH ABOUT RONALD REAGAN

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). “There is nothg herently wrong wh [homosexualy], ” McCloskey was later to wre, wh a veat, “ any office which do not have natnal secury rponsibili.

” And sce the alleged homosexuals Reagan’s orb were all closeted, they were prumably vulnerable to ducement by foreign powers. Over dner at The Palm, some five weeks after the exchange McCloskey’s office, Livgston apparently uld not get the salac stori volvg Kemp and the homosexual Reagan ais out of his md. ” At one pot, however, Bouchey might have volunteered the possibily that Kemp and Reagan himself had both engaged gay sex.

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. Three months earlier, a tragedy volvg polics, murr and homosexualy had occurred when former New York Rep. ” He “has the pacy to ‘h’ people both Lat Ameri and here” the Uned Stat, and he “dited to me durg the eveng that Kemp was certaly a participant homosexual nduct and that he thought possible Reagan was also.

NANCY AND THE GAYS

Apprised of a clanste homosexual bal reachg all the way om Washgton to Sacramento, and om San Salvador to Santiago, Livgston had balked at s iatn r and th put himself grave danger.

When Bill Bt first told McCloskey back 1976 about the homosexual advanc ma to him by the two Reagan ais, he had given McCloskey and four other people sealed envelop ntag a statement about one of those enunters. 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.

Controllg Reagan this scenar was a “work” of homosexuals who “shared an almost relig zeal agast munism and [on] behalf of right-wg .

RONALD REAGAN WORRIED HIS SON WAS GAY

As to the story’s newsworths, “the foc was that there uld be a circle of people tryg to ntrol Reagan and there may be a monaly of gay-ns, ” Tyler relled. The sence of Bt’s allegatns, Armstrong wrote a memo to his lleagu, was that submissn to the sexual mands of an fluential circle of gay men was “the se qua non of succs the Reagan anizatn. “Count me out until someone on this list [of alleged homosexuals] is actually servg a printial admistratn wh accs to natnal secury rmatn or until a more current pattern of some group is evint, ” Armstrong nclud.

He was ls surprised, however, about the suggted existence of a “gay work” surroundg Reagan. That gmble asi, Livgston was ncerned about the hidn gay work, which he even suggted to Woodward uld possibly be tied to the office of Sen. Jse Helms, the vicly anti-gay North Carola Republin and nservative ally of the Reagan mpaign.