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
• ‘THE REAL VILLA IS THE CLOSET’: A NEW HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON DEALS WH SOCIETY AS IT TLY WAS
• KIRCHICK’S ‘SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY WASHGTON’
• BEG GAY WAS THE GRAVT S WASHGTON
• WASHGTON, D.C.'S HIDN GAY HISTORY IS UNVERED 'SECRET CY'
• WHAT IT MEANT TO BE GAY POLICS DURG THE LAVENR SRE
• WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY

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. 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.

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

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. 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. 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.

KIRCHICK’S ‘SECRET CY: THE HIDN HISTORY OF GAY 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. “I believe that he is very much a loyal Amerin cizen, and even though he has homosexual tennci, I would still remend him for a posn volvg natnal secury on the basis of his past rponsible ernment work and other personal characteristics.

BEG GAY WAS THE GRAVT S WASHGTON

But while he was helpg Johnson assume the rponsibili of lear of the ee world, a group of men a buildg a few blocks away were pilg a report that would throw his life to the urse of nductg s background check, Space Council Executive Secretary Edward Welsh told the longtime Johnson ai Walter Jenks, the CSC disvered that Waldron had participated “homosexual activi.

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

The “Lavenr Sre, ” the purge of gays and lbians om the feral ernment that had begun the early 1950s, was still grdg on well to the followg ; jt a few months after Waldron was jettisoned om the Whe Hoe, the State Department announced that had fired 63 people as “secury risks” the prev year, 45 of them on acunt of a wele prence Washgton’s most exclive salons and at the apex of Amerin polil power, Waldron was now persona non grata.

Scerely, Bob WaldronIronilly, the man rponsible for rryg out Waldron’s dismissal, Walter Jenks, himself beme the subject of a gay sndal when, three weeks before the 1964 electn, he was arrted for solicg another man for sex the basement bathroom of the YMCA around the rner om the Whe Hoe. Jt a few months later, nnectn wh a Senate Internal Secury Submtee vtigatn that lled more than 100 wns and generated some 20, 000 pag of ttimony, a senr State Department official asserted that “homosexualy is the most disturbg secury problem” the agency faced.

He unted among his clients a diplomatic register full of ambassadors, the Organizatn of Amerin Stat, the Johnsons after they left the Whe Hoe, and numero other proment Washgtonians and storied stutns—a tribute to his genuy and perseverance, perhaps, but also a utnary tale for any gay person wh polil ambn. In 1995, at age 68, Waldron died of AIDS, another agent of stctn agast gay his anguished 1964 letter to Phillips, Waldron explaed that, once intified, homosexuals were “marked by our society—which do not perm a return.

WHAT IT MEANT TO BE GAY POLICS DURG THE LAVENR SRE

A homosexual was forever weeks after the 1964 electn, savorg his historic landsli victory, Johnson discsed Waldron’s fate wh Deke DeLoach, the puty associate director of the FBI and the bure’s liaison to the Whe Hoe. “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.

“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. “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. 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.

WHEN REAGAN SAID GAY

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. 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. In his new book Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, journalist and historian Jam Kirchick explor homosexualy polics, om World War II to the Cold War, and unravels the Lavenr Sre, the panic surroundg and persecutn of gay people polics.

Secret Cy explor the prevly untold liv of queer people posns of power, and the nsequenc they faced for livg their tth — as Kirchick wr, “An timated 7, 000 to 10, 000 feral employe lost their jobs owg to homosexualy the 1950s alone, a figure that, extrapolated over time, is parable to the timated 14, 700 people who were fired or rigned due to their polil associatns durg the Red Sre. Jt a uple of weeks after the assassatn of Print Kennedy, Waldron was helpg LBJ move his thgs to the Whe Hoe when the civil service missn vtigatn disvered evince of Waldron beg gay — they terviewed a man who told them that Waldron ma a pass at him.

But the purpose of the book was to wre about this era of the specter of homosexualy, and started wh FDR, wh the rise of the natnal secury state, and end wh the llapse of the Soviet Unn at the end of the Cold War. Jam Kirchick has wrten an epic narrative history, Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, which exam Amerin polics alongsi and through the experienc of gays and lbians Washgton, om the New Deal through the end of the 1990s. In this podst episo, Kirchick discs the multiple dimensns which homosexuals and homophobia impacted Amerin polics, particularly the mid-20th-century “Lavenr Sre, ” the purge of gay employe om feral service which took place alongsi (and outlasted) the Red Sre.