By David K. Johnson
Winner of 3 ebook awards, The Lavender Scare masterfully traces the origins of latest sexual politics to chilly struggle hysteria over nationwide protection. Drawing on newly declassified files and interviews with former govt officers, historian David Johnson chronicles how the parable that homosexuals threatened nationwide safety decided executive coverage for many years, ruined hundreds of thousands of lives, and driven many to suicide. As Johnson exhibits, this fable not just outlived McCarthy yet, by way of the Nineteen Sixties, helped release a brand new civil rights struggle.
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The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
In chilly battle the US, Senator Joseph McCarthy loved super aid within the struggle opposed to what he referred to as atheistic communism. yet that help stemmed much less from his wild fees approximately communists than his extra substantiated fees that "sex perverts" had infiltrated govt organizations. even though now remembered as an assault on suspected disloyalty, McCarthyism brought "moral values" into the yankee political arsenal.
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This was not merely the thinking of psychologists and psychiatrists; it permeated the culture. When a Georgetown University professor was questioned by an FBI agent in a routine loyalty/security investigation about one of his students, he attributed both her lesbianism and her affinity for leftist ideology to her psychological problems. ” Since she had “sought and practiced extremes in all phases of her living,” as shown in her “homosexual problem,” the professor feared that she would make “excellent material for Communist front or Communist activity,” and therefore he could not recommend her for a sensitive position in the government.
Many studies from the period of both Communist spies and homosexuals pointed to psychological causes such as a doting parent, a sheltered life, a sense of alienation from the norm, or other childhood traumas. This was not merely the thinking of psychologists and psychiatrists; it permeated the culture. When a Georgetown University professor was questioned by an FBI agent in a routine loyalty/security investigation about one of his students, he attributed both her lesbianism and her affinity for leftist ideology to her psychological problems.
13 While criticizing McCarthy for his “reckless accusations” and the damage they had done to the nation’s ability to conduct foreign policy, Bridges was also outspoken about the need to clean out the State Department. ” Calling Hiss and the homosexuals “foul enemies of our Republic,” Bridges insisted that their presence in the State Department was no accident but part of a vast conspiracy. “They did not get there by osmosis, or by accident. They got there because Russia wanted them there,” Bridges charged.