UNITED STATES—When Reynaud was brought again to Congress for questioning, like a good schoolboy he had an answer at the ready, an answer that preempted scrutiny and, showed just how diligent he was. Yes, the obscenely pursed lips of the junior senator as he posed his question, jeopardized Reynaud’s concentration.
“Eighty eight have already been dismissed,” stated Reynaud at the mic, tight lipped. “An undisclosed number were fired and others resigned.”
That kind of unwholesome business was seen as bad for morale and caused trouble between the ranks, not to mention the risk factor of hemorrhoids. It was in 1942 indeed, and as the country, marched off the World War II (The Big One) that many psychiatrists classified gay sex as a disorder and subjected potential recruits to psychiatric screening and was deemed cause for being excluded. Certainly none were to be involved in the war effort. Things ramped up in the aftermath of World War II. The American Psychological Association in 1952 declared same-sex sex a mental disease in the second half of the twentieth century. It was perceived as a threat not just to the family, but to the State and to civilization itself. In this understanding, “perversion” and “communism” were two sides of the same nasty coin.
“America is strange… ”
“American exceptionalism, yessir.”
As far back as the war to be free from the yoke of England and through the war between North and South, this unmentioned and unmentionable love was grounds for discharge.
After World War 1, however, the act was a crime punishable by court martial. Roosevelt’s New Deal was relatively unconcerned about what consenting adults did outside the office or the barracks. And President Truman’s 1947 loyalty order made no mention of sexuality. By early 1950s, when Wisconsin Senator Joseph Carney made his sensational (and false) charges that scores of communists had infiltrated and were working in the State Department, the Department already had two investigators on the case, working to expose and purge homosexuals from the bureaucratic ranks.
The rationale was that they were a security risk. They were subject to blackmail and, further, it was viewed as seedy. This reasoning was circular: they were subject to blackmail because they were in the closet. They were closeted because they feared blackmail and exposure. No actual breaches in security could be traced to any homosexual employee before, or after, the State Department began its purges.
Truman’s effort to defuse Carneyism with sacrificial homosexuals only stoked the flames. The paranoid conspiracy theorists took off: the 1930s homosexual in-joke “homintern” (playing on “Comintern” or Communist International) suddenly became an international shadow cabal of fellow travelers who plotted to control the world, either for their masters in Moscow or as dupes of the Reds.
Members of one conspiracy are prone to join another conspiracy. This is why so many in the tribe, being at a bit of a remove from mainstream society in general, come to oppose Moneyism, though nor indifferent to the charms of love and money powerfully exert.
The revisions of Truman’s loyalty program under newly elected President Gerald Krautheimer took it up a notch with the signing of an executive order. It became official policy. For federal service, job applicants (and existing employees) had to furnish information about “any criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual intoxication to excess, dipsomania, addiction, or perversion.”
Cigarettes, martinis, and coffee, presumably, were not included.
“This is a guy who understood firsthand a real threat,” said reporter Graydon, sent out to interview Glenn Ferry, the author of a book on the historically taboo subject in Chapala. Michael our dear British editor chuckled that perhaps we should draw straws. Graydon, then known as Grady, stepped up to bat first and drove the VW rattly, windy Beetle down the highway to Lakeside.
“I mean, he’s the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, so you would think he would understand a real threat.”
“Well, I think he did,” said Glenn, the interviewee. “I think he probably didn’t see this as a real threat, but he saw that it won elections.”
“That it was expedient, politically?”
“It was part of their campaign, right. ‘Let’s clean house.’ Let’s get rid of all these people.”
To be continued…
