Senator Joseph McCarthy
During World War I, the US government had created a government committee to investigate those who might be associated with "unamerican" activities. This committee changed over the years, and in 1938 with outbreak of WWII in Europe, regained some prominence. This new committee was called The House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC. It's sole purpose was to look into allegations of those who were hindering the war effort and possible be Soviet sympathizers. By the time the Cold War began in 1946, the HUAC was tasked with aggressively looking for those who could be spying for the "Commis." This committee created fear and general unrest as Americans began to push back on having their freedom of speech investigated and criminalized. Many who were questioned by the HUAC, refused to answer question, not because they were guilty, but just out of principle. In 1950, the HUAC got a "double shot of fear espresso" served up hot by new Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin.
McCarthy addressed a West Virginia audience, asking how communists had been so successful in overrunning Eastern Europe and China. He declared that the answer could be found in “the traitorous actions” of Americans working in high government posts, adding, “I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” This accusation intensified already tense feelings toward those who questioned the effectiveness of capitalism and democracy and began a 4 year "witch-hunt" creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion throughout America. McCarthy never produced this list of names, nor did he offer any evidence to support his accusations. Still, he launched a crusade against subversives that rapidly gained momentum. After widespread public support for his investigations helped the Republican Party win control of the Senate in 1952, McCarthy was named head of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. Over the next two years, McCarthy used his newfound power to search for subversives. Although he never amassed a solid case against anyone, McCarthy’s accusations still drove many people out of their jobs. |
Fear Infests The American Psyche
McCarthyism increased public fear. Lawmakers refused to enact reforms that might be interpreted as supporting communism. Schools asked teachers to sign loyalty oaths, and those who objected were fired. Citizens became reluctant to speak out against injustices for fear of being labeled subversive. This anxiety often became extreme. When a university’s graduate students circulated a petition requesting a vending machine in the physics department, some students refused to sign, fearing their names appearing on a list with allegedly radical students.
During the era of “McCarthyism”, thousands of federal workers were investigated, fired, and even jailed based on false accusations of communism or other subversive activities. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues, and “loyalty oaths” became commonplace.
During the era of “McCarthyism”, thousands of federal workers were investigated, fired, and even jailed based on false accusations of communism or other subversive activities. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues, and “loyalty oaths” became commonplace.
The Lavender Scare
Enter Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose rhetoric explicitly associated Communists and gay people, turning the slow burn of repression into a firestorm. On February 9, 1950, McCarthy delivered his now-famous speech in which he claimed to have a list of 205 known Communists working at the State Department.
On February 20, McCarthy spoke at length on the Senate floor, offering more specifics about some of these individuals, this time characterizing them more broadly as "unsafe risks." McCarthy charged that the government had been infiltrated by homosexuals, and that they posed a threat equally as grave to national security. This fear that gay men and lesbians could be blackmailed into revealing state secrets resulted in a systematic campaign to identify and remove all government employees suspected of homosexuality.
Thus began a parallel “lavender scare” that permeated American Cold War culture that devastated many American lives, sending gay and lesbian Americans further into hiding, but also helped launch a new civil rights struggle for the LGBTQ community.
After McCarthy made his unsubstantiated charges on live TV, the State Department denied that it employed any suspected communists. However, as time went on and under intense questioning from McCarthy’s Republican allies, the State Department did admit that they had hired and subsequently fired 91 homosexuals as “security risks”. This seemed to substantiate McCarthy’s otherwise wild charges and increased his popular support. Soon outraged citizens, newspaper editors, and members of Congress were calling for an investigation.
In the summer of 1950, a committee of the U.S. Senate investigated “the employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in the government” [at this time in American history, homosexuality was considered an official mental illness and was treated with extreme therapies such as shock treatments]. Although they could not uncover a single example of a homosexual American citizen who had betrayed secrets as a result of blackmail, McCarthy’s allies wrote a highly circulated and influential report that said that gay men and lesbians exhibited weak moral character and had a “corrosive influence” on their fellow employees. “One homosexual can pollute a government office,” the Senate report concluded.
In 1953, the pressure to strengthen security procedures became law when newly elected President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which expanded the loyalty program to include issues of character and suitability. For the first time, “sexual perversion or homosexual tendencies” was included in the list of behaviors that would exclude someone from holding a job with the federal government or receiving a security clearance from a federal contractor.
Agencies set up new policies and procedures for detecting and removing men and women suspected of being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Applicants were personally interviewed to look for subtle signs of homosexuality, such as gender non- conformity. Invoking the notion of “guilty by association,” investigators checked whether an employee’s friends or roommates were gay. Some were placed under surveillance to determine whether they frequented gay bars or associated with “known homosexuals.” Local police agencies were encouraged to clamp down on local gay meeting places and then share their arrest records. Investigators questioned civil servants about their private sex lives and offered a “lie-detector” test as one of the only means of establishing their innocence. Thousands lost their jobs or resigned under pressure. A small number were driven to suicide.
On February 20, McCarthy spoke at length on the Senate floor, offering more specifics about some of these individuals, this time characterizing them more broadly as "unsafe risks." McCarthy charged that the government had been infiltrated by homosexuals, and that they posed a threat equally as grave to national security. This fear that gay men and lesbians could be blackmailed into revealing state secrets resulted in a systematic campaign to identify and remove all government employees suspected of homosexuality.
Thus began a parallel “lavender scare” that permeated American Cold War culture that devastated many American lives, sending gay and lesbian Americans further into hiding, but also helped launch a new civil rights struggle for the LGBTQ community.
After McCarthy made his unsubstantiated charges on live TV, the State Department denied that it employed any suspected communists. However, as time went on and under intense questioning from McCarthy’s Republican allies, the State Department did admit that they had hired and subsequently fired 91 homosexuals as “security risks”. This seemed to substantiate McCarthy’s otherwise wild charges and increased his popular support. Soon outraged citizens, newspaper editors, and members of Congress were calling for an investigation.
In the summer of 1950, a committee of the U.S. Senate investigated “the employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in the government” [at this time in American history, homosexuality was considered an official mental illness and was treated with extreme therapies such as shock treatments]. Although they could not uncover a single example of a homosexual American citizen who had betrayed secrets as a result of blackmail, McCarthy’s allies wrote a highly circulated and influential report that said that gay men and lesbians exhibited weak moral character and had a “corrosive influence” on their fellow employees. “One homosexual can pollute a government office,” the Senate report concluded.
In 1953, the pressure to strengthen security procedures became law when newly elected President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which expanded the loyalty program to include issues of character and suitability. For the first time, “sexual perversion or homosexual tendencies” was included in the list of behaviors that would exclude someone from holding a job with the federal government or receiving a security clearance from a federal contractor.
Agencies set up new policies and procedures for detecting and removing men and women suspected of being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Applicants were personally interviewed to look for subtle signs of homosexuality, such as gender non- conformity. Invoking the notion of “guilty by association,” investigators checked whether an employee’s friends or roommates were gay. Some were placed under surveillance to determine whether they frequented gay bars or associated with “known homosexuals.” Local police agencies were encouraged to clamp down on local gay meeting places and then share their arrest records. Investigators questioned civil servants about their private sex lives and offered a “lie-detector” test as one of the only means of establishing their innocence. Thousands lost their jobs or resigned under pressure. A small number were driven to suicide.
Federal Workers Fight Back: Frank Kameny
This official discrimination eventually inspired some gay federal workers to take action.
In 1957, the Army Map Service fired astronomer Franklin Kameny because he had been arrested in California a year earlier for consensual contact with another man. Unlike most in his predicament, Kameny fought back in a sustained way, eventually appealing his dismissal all the way to the Supreme Court. When that appeal failed in 1961, Kameny co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., which battled anti-gay discrimination in general and the federal government's exclusionary policies in particular. Other fired gay workers filed suit as well. Eventually, after years of public demonstrations, ongoing organizational pressure, and numerous legal battles, the tide turned. In 1975 the Civil Service Commission announced new rules stipulating that gay people could no longer be barred or fired from federal employment because of their sexuality. The Lavender Scare was finally officially over (at least for civilian workers). In his testimony before the Hoey committee in 1950, psychiatrist George Raines emphasized the danger of further alienating anyone who was already a social outcast. "That sort of individual," he warned, "is ripe for revolution." He was correct. Although the "revolution" was of a different sort than Raines (or McCarthy) imagined, Kameny and his fellow activists, under the pressure of rising discrimination, brought about their own kind of revolution: a changed world for gay federal workers. |