Box Turtle Bulletin

Today In History, 1982: “The Advocate” Investigation Uncovers Decades of FBI Surveillance

In news that surprised no one, The Advocate’s Washington, D.C. editor Larry Bush revealed “a concerted nationwide surveillance and investigation program by the FBI into the lives of wealthy, prominent, closeted homosexual men as well as into gay civil rights groups, and the collection of thousands of names of suspected homosexuals in the course of nearly 30 years.” According to FBI spokesman Lane Bonner, the surveillance began in 1954 and involved the national headquarters and every FBI field office. Bonner said that the surveillance ended in the late 1970s under Attorney General Edward Levi, but not before collecting thousands of pages of information on gay activists and private citizens.

The Advocate learned that the investigations had actually begun as early as 1943, when the FBI paid informants to report on the loyalty of gay Americans. The surveillance was expanded drastically in the early 1960s during project HOMEX, short for Homosexual Extortion. HOMEX investigated prominent, wealthy, closeted gay men who the FBI believed were potential extortion targets who might not come forward if they were being blackmailed. HOMEX generated twelve volumes of material kept at FBI headquarters, with each volume about two inches thick and containing some 200 entries. Another “25 or 27” volumes were kept in the New York FBI field office. It was anybody’s guess how much more was maintained at other field offices. To collect all of that information, the FBI conducted what it called “fugitive-style investigations,” which involved monitoring personal mail and bank accounts, interviewing neighbors, friends and employers, and the occasional surveillance of the targets’ movements. Bonner tried to explain HOMEX in the best possible light: “In the HOMEX investigation, it was necessary for us to do extensive investigations into homosexuals, because of their reluctance to come forward. There may be some people confused by that. We were not surveilling people to see if they engaged in homosexual acts. But also, in connection with other counterintelligence activities, we had a responsibility to disseminate information on those who held government employment.”

Bush wrote, “The HOMEX program resulted in only one arrest: of a commercial rabbit breeder from a Denver suburb on charges of extortion, in January 1978.” But HOMEX also produced other benefits for the FBI. Through HOMEX, they could identify people who the FBI could “develop” as informants for the FBI. In other words, a project that was ostensibly supposed to protect gay people from blackmail wound up being a tool of blackmail for the FBI. One 1967 memo addressed “To All Agents” spelled out what they were looking for: a “Baby Doll — A victim who exhibits a real fear of being caught and exposed as a homo and who is particularly vulnerable to extortion (possibly on a continuing basis).” The memo directed all agents “to submit names or identifying information on persons who may be logical persons to include in this album, so their photographs and background information may be obtained.” The memo closes with the request that “Any agent knowing of anyone coming under the category of ‘SHAKEMEN,’ ‘CHICKEN,’ or ‘BABY DOLL’ who could be developed as informants should route information to [redacted].” [Emphasis mine]

If the FBI was looking for gay people they could blackmail into becoming informants, they also feared that the Soviet Union and other hostile intelligent services might be doing the same. In a memo titled, “Homosexual Hangouts Throughout the United States, Criminal Intelligence Program,” dated December 23, 1965, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover directed each field office to “index locations” in its territory of all gay bars and meeting places “in order to conduct thorough interviews and for use in setting out leads” of foreign agents looking to entrap gay people into their intelligence services. According to The Advocate, FBI spokesman Bonner wouldn’t comment on whether its surveillance of gay bars was still underway as of 1982. “We know that representatives of the Soviet Union routinely cruise so-called gay bars. We know that for a fact. This matter would fall within the internal security mandate of the FBI. It would certainly be a matter of investigative interest to the FBI, to determine the targets of their contacts and their efforts. We certainly are interested in any effort on the part of hostile intelligence groups to expose or use any person’s sexual preference who would have access to national security information.”

That’s not the only thing the FBI was worried about. Until 1975, gays were banned from federal employment, and they were also banned from serving in the military long after. To aid other agencies in ferreting out homosexuals from their offices and mail rooms, the FBI established “control files” to collect any and all information on homosexual activities. Field offices were ordered to collect news clippings and any other material relating to the arrests of gay people charged on “morals” offenses. Special annotations were made for those who were later identified as being employees of the U.S. government or who may have held security clearances with federal contractors. A November 23, 1956 memo from the San Francisco FBI field office notified headquarters that “a 53-page memorandum, listing the names of individuals and places suspected of homosexual activity,” had been placed in its files. “Some of these individuals have been identified as having homosexual tendencies, others have been identified as associates of homosexuals.” Another report on November 2, 1960, described “individuals of obvious interest to the Department of Defense [who] are marked with red tabs. In all cases where a member of the Armed Forces has been arrested, a copy of the arrest report has been furnished the Armed Forces Police for appropriate action.” Another report from later that month praised the Salt Lake City vice squad for its “excellent cooperation” by circumventing a municipal ordinance requiring that arrest records be made available only under a warrant. The same report indicated that many of those who were arrested were turned free by the court in protest of the methods used by police to entrap the suspects.

As you might expect, the FBI was particularly interested in gay rights groups, which the FBI considered to be as subversive as the Community Party, the American Nazi Party and the KKK (Jul 6). The FBI sought papers of incorporation, lists of officers, membership and mailing lists, magazines, newsletters, posters, leaflets and anything else they could find. They actively monitored pickets and rallies, and often had informants planted in key meetings to report participants’ names and discussions back to the FBI. Some groups were  monitored long after the FBI formally decided they weren’t a threat. A January 29, 1974 memo ending the investigation of the San Francisco Tavern Guild said: “No information developed indicating organization involved in any activity within the investigation jurisdiction of the FBI. Activities of this group will continue to be followed by above source [name redacted]” even while recommending “this matter be placed in a closed status.” The Advocate also had these examples from San Francisco:

By 1959, when San Francisco’s mayoralty race first raised the possibility of a tolerant attitude towards homosexuals (Oct 7), the FBI memos show infiltration of the Mattachine Society and an effort to determine whether the group favored one political candidate over another, and particularly whether there was any ground for believing the incumbent mayor was sympathetic to the call for an end to harassment of homosexuals. In the early 1960s, a memo noted that a homosexual rights group had endorsed then-San Francisco Sheriff Richard Hongisto for office. The files also indicate that all officials of the Committee on Religion and the Homosexual (Jan 1), including prominent San Francisco ministers, had been marked for name indexing and the establishment of separate files.

The Advocate found evidence that similar investigations took place in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, Birmingham, New Orleans, Miami, New York City, Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Records indicated that those investigations slowed by the mid-seventies. None of the files provided to The Advocate, however, shed any light on the FBI practice of planting anonymous charges of homosexuality to smear public officials or civil rights leaders. Bayard Rustin (Mar 17), who had co-founded the Congress for Racial Equality and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, often found his homosexuality being used against him. But others who had filed Freedom of Information Act requests to see their own FBI files found plenty of evidence of this tactic. One was Dr. Laud Humphreys, a sociologist and author of Tearoom Trade, a 1970 book about sexual encounters between men in public toilets:

“I filed for my FBI records under the Freedom of Information Act,” Humphreys told The ADVOCATE, “and that’s where I learned what they had done to me. They sent anonymous letters to university officials where I worked, calling me a homosexual, saying I should be dismissed.” Humphreys said he found the accusation interesting, since there was nothing in his files to indicate he was in fact homosexual or even rumored to be so.

“My concept of these data is what I call a freeze-dried stigma,” Humphreys said. “It involves all sorts of data, punched up and flattened, and all the distinctions disappear. You just add hot water to it, and you have a person who immediately looks guilty.”

Historian (John) O’Emilio said he had found the FBI documents “surprising, yet I really shouldn’t be surprised. No matter how aware I become of how unscrupulous people with power are, I am always shocked when I see the actual instance. Thirty years ago what made it especially pernicious was that we were sitting ducks, and we still haven’t counted up the costs of individual lives that were ruined because of it.”

[Source: Larry Bush. “Investigations of Gay People Confirmed: Has the FBI Been In Your Closet?” The Advocate Issue 346 (July 8, 1982): 16-20, 24.]