Today In History, 1977: “The Advocate” Reports Another FBI Document Dump On Gay Rights Groups

Jim Burroway

August 24th, 2016

Screen Shot 2016-08-23 at 5.50.49 PMJust two days after The Advocate published its exposé on decades of FBI surveillance of thousands of gay men and gay rights groups (Jul 8), the FBI responded to another Freedom of Information Act request by releasing another twenty-four pages from its files on the Gay Liberation Movement. The documents span the period from August 22, 1969 to April 22, 1972, and report on gay rights groups in San Antonio, Austin, Ann Arbor and New York City.

The Advocate found the documents “unrevealing, except as indicators of FBI thinking during the period,” namely, that the FBI “did not consider the gay movement particularly worthy of its attention.” This was in sharp contrasts to earlier files from the 1940s to the 1960s which demonstrated the FBI’s pre-occupation that gay people might be blackmailed into becoming Soviet informants. Those earlier files also revealed that the FBI, in turn, also sought to coerce gay people into becoming informants for the FBI. The latest release, on the other hand, revealed that whatever worries the FBI may have had about homosexuals in previous decades, radical “New Left” civil rights and anti-war movements on the nation’s campuses and major cities were now the focus of FBI surveillance.

If the latest release wasn’t particularly revealing in its details, the process the Advocate had to go through to get those files under the Freedom of Information Act was:

A bout a year and a half ago, The ADVOCATE mailed out a flurry of FOIA requests to nearly two dozen federal spy agencies, seeking proof of a gay informant’s claims that files were kept on the publication and its employees. After a year-long wait, most of the agencies replied that the publication was not on file. The Military Intelligence group of the U.S. Army, however, reported that at one time it had a file titled “Advocate,” but didn’t know if it referred to this publication or another Advocate because the file, it said, had been destroyed.

We followed these turn-downs with detailed appeals and were again told we just weren’t listed. Additionally, we requested the files of two ADVOCATE employees who, the government agencies finally said, also were not on file.

Taking inspiration from the success of the Los Angeles Times in locating some 1,500 pages of flies in a request for material on the”Women’s Liberation Movement,” we then filed for information on the “Gay Liberation Movement,”

The FBI indicated in its cover letter that all it had on “GLM” was what it had sent. Deletions, so common in most FOIA-processed documents, were few, generally involving only the names of “sources” or its information.

Apparently, to get the full story of what the FBI or other agencies actually have on file about the gay rights movement, it will be necessary to file numerous requests, specifically naming a variety of organizations and individuals. The agency wilt not release files on specific people to us because this would be an invasion of those persons’ privacy. Additionally. there is some doubt that it will release information about organizations to anyone except representatives (past or present) of those organizations.

The Advocate suggested that the best avenue for future FOIA requests would be for those organizations aligned with the so-called “New Left.”

"Fag Liberation Movement"

“Fag Liberation Movement”

As for the documents in this latest release, only one was derogatory. “Whether in jest or from prejudice,” one memo described the New York Gay Liberation Front as a “Fag Liberation Movement.” The memo went on to described two GLF protests before concluding: “In view of the nature of subject organization, it is recommended that no further investigation be conducted, and that this case be placed in a closed status.”

The FBI’s interest in the Ann Arbor GLF stemmed mainly in that group’s connections to other campus leftist groups which, the FBI Detroit field office said, “use the GLM (gay liberation movement) as a device to further ‘New Left’ agitation.” A later 1970 memo pointed out the the University of Michigan had enjoyed “an unusually quiet summer,” and by October, the Detroit office reported that the GLF was “small in number and ineffectual as an independent group… They, as a group, have not taken any independent aggressive action on a New Left project or activity. They have no regular membership, dues or meetings, and it is felt that their purpose remains social rather than political.” By 1971, the Detroit office placed the GLF “in a closed status to be re-opened at such a time when the group again becomes active in New Left matters.”

The last two documents mentioned, in passing, the participation of the San Antonio and Austin gay rights groups in anti-war demonstrations. Overall, the tone of the documents released to the Advocate seemed to indicate an overall disinterest on the FBI’s part in gay rights groups and movements. In fact, later FOIA releases would show that the FBI maintained a watchful vigilance on the Gay Activists Alliance and on GLFs around the country through the early 1970s, with the main focus being on discovering any ties they may have had with other leftist groups.

[Source: Sasha Gregory-Lewis. “Gay Liberation Movement FBI Files Released to ADVOCATE.” The Advocate issue 222 (August 24, 1977): 36-38.]

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