Today in History, 1950: Senators Demand “Homosexual Probe”

Jim Burroway

May 20th, 2016

HeadlinesThese days, probe can be such a funny word. In days gone by, it was a handily short idiom that headline writers could use that didn’t take up nearly as much space as investigation. So headlines like these were common during the Lavender scare of 1950. Go ahead. It’s safe to snicker today, but in 1950, this was serious stuff.

I think one of the most unconscionable gaps in our understanding of American History is the fact that everyone knows about McCarthy’s Red Scare. But what nobody knows about — and what never gets talked about in the documentaries and history books — is that for most of the first year of that national obsession over subversives in government, homosexuals were the focus of everyone’s fears much more so than communists. (Feb 28Mar 14,Mar 21Mar 23Mar 24Apr 14, Apr 18Apr 26, May 2, May 15, and May 19). After all, this was the era when the epithet “pinko fag” became one of the worst insults one could deliver.

Sens. Kenneth Wherry (R-NE) and Lister Hill (D-AL)

Sens. Kenneth Wherry (R-NE) and Lister Hill (D-AL)

Just one day before headlines about Senators demanding a “pervert probe” hit the papers, Senate Majority Leader Kenneth S. Wherry (R-NE) and his counterpart in a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, segregationist Sen. Lister Hill (D-AL) engineered the release of supposedly secret testimony which gave what was considered a rather shocking figure of “3,750 sex perverts” — their term for gay people — in federal employment, with “300 to 400” of them in the State Department alone (May 19). What was buried in most of those reports was that those figures were nothing more than wild guesses put forth by Police Lt. Roy Blick, head of the D.C.Police Department’s vice squad.

But with those headlines blasted in newspapers across America, Wherry had the momentum they needed to put on the floor of the Senate a resolution calling for what the Associated Press described as “a speedy Senate inquiry into federal employment of sexual perverts described as likely tools of Communist conspirators.” The previous day, Wherry and Hill tried to plant another link between gay people and communists by claiming to have uncovered a conspiracy linking “a nest of homosexuals” to the Soviet embassy, where, if a war broke out, a “Red Fifth Column” would sabotage Washington, D.C. using “sex degenerates for subversive purposes.” Few details were forthcoming, but on May 20, the United Press provided this sketchy account:

The purported “blueprint for disaster,” an inch-thick volume, contained detailed instructions for bombing key government offices, destroying public utilities and poisoning the city’s water supply. The aim of the plan would be to paralyze the government, particularly Congress, the military establishment and the State Department.

The volume is currently in the custody of Sgt. James K. Hunter of the Washington police subversive squad. It has been examined already by Senators Kenneth S. Wherry (R-Neb.), and Lester Hill (D-Ala.) … “It looks genuine,” Wherry said.

To put his spin on things, Wherry released a statement which said:

“Only the most naive could relive that the Communists’ fifth column in the United States would neglect to propagate and use homosexuals to gain their treacherous ends in view of the resort to every conceivable form of sabotage revealed in every enemy country infiltrated and finally taken over by the ruthless Communists.”

Hill also chimed in:

It is accepted and agreed that persons who are homosexuals are bad security risks and should not be in sensitive positions or in any positions on the government where they might in any way aid or abet or be a party to subversive activities.

On May 20,  Wherry introduced Resolution 280, with the co-sponsorship of Sen. Lester Hunt (D-WY), asking for a committee “to make a full and complete study and investigation of (a) the alleged employment by the departments and agencies of the Government of homosexuals and other moral perverts, and (b) the preparedness of authorities of the District of Columbia, as well as the appropriate authorities of the Federal Government within the District…for the protection of life and property against the threat to security, inherent in the employment of such perverts.” Crucially, the resolution didn’t specify which committee would do the investigation. And this is where some inside baseball is important to understand what’s happening.

There were two separate motivations for pursuing an investigation like this that would potentially be problematic for the Truman Administration. For the Republican side of the aisle, the motivation is obvious: any time they can successfully sling mud at a Democratic president, Republicans win. But there were also Truman enemies within his own party. Remember, before the Southern political re-alignment of the 1980s, Southern Democrats were often Democrats in name only, what with the Republican brand still so closely identified with what was still being called in more polite circles, “Mr. Lincoln’s War.” And many of those southern Democrats, ardent segregationists that they were, had walked out of the 1948 Democratic Convention over a civil rights platform adopted by the Democratic Party and Truman’s 1948 order to end racial segregation in the military. These Dixicrats failed in their bid to derail Truman’s re-election, and just two years later, those memories were still raw.

And so that’s how Wherry was able to get a Democratic co-sponsor and garner Democratic support in what was still a Democratically-controlled Senate. But in order to secure that support, Wherry dropped his preference that it go to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat McCarran (D-NV, who, by the way, was well known for his xenophobia and admiration for Spain’s Fascist dictator Francisco Franco). His resolution instead left the committee’s designation open. The Senate passed Wherry’s resolution on June 8. The presiding officer, freshman Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) ruled that Vice President Alben Barkley would decide on the committee referral. Barkley referred the investigation to the Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditure in the Executive Departments, headed by Sen. Clyde Hoey (D-NC), who in 1948 supported Truman over the Dixicrat challenger, Sen. Strom Thurmund (R-SC), and who Democrats believed would conduct the investigation in a manner that would result in an outcome less damaging to the Administration.

[Additional sources: Randolph W Baxter. “‘Homo-Hunting’ in the Early Cold War: Senator Kenneth Wherry and the Homophobic Side of McCarthyism,” Nebraska History 84 (Fall 2003): 119-132. Available online here (PDF: 2MB/16 pages)

Roger McDaniel. Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt (Cody, WY: Wordsworth, 2013): p 160.]

Gene in L.A.

May 20th, 2016

Jim, just a quick heads-up: I know Sir Paul loves him some publicity, but I don’t think he wants to take this rap. It wasn’t McCartney’s Red Scare, but McCarthy’s! As always, thanks for the history posts; they’re what I value most about BTB.

Jim Burroway

May 20th, 2016

I’ve corrected the typo. Thanks.

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