Secrets of Gay Washington (w/ James Kirchick)
Skullduggery
Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Victoria Bassetti
4 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2022
⏱️ 57 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Uniquely Nasty, a Yahoo News documentary from 2015, explored the little known story of the US Government’s relentless persecution of gays in the Cold War era, focusing in part on how the FBI under Hoover’s direction, tracked the names of tens of thousands of suspected gays and lesbians working for the Federal Government. And then took steps to have them fired. It was just one piece of a so-called lavender scare that left in its wake a trail of fear, paranoia, and destroyed lives. The full story of the US Government’s jihad against gay America is now being told in a landmark book, The Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, by journalist James Kirchick. Kirchick’s book brings to life the largely invisible stories of senior government officials at the State Department, the White House, and in Congress, who lived in fear that their secret lives would become publicly known. And how their careers were shattered when their homosexuality was exposed, often for political or bureaucratic advantage. It’s a shocking story that is a reminder of how much about America’s dark past of persecution has been obscured yet remains highly relevant to themes in our current politics. Kirchick joins to discuss the excruciating agony that denizens of the secret city experienced. And why it is a crucial chapter in American history.
GUESTS:
- James Kirchick, (@jkirchick), Author of the book Gunfight.
HOSTS:
- Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff), Chief Investigative Correspondent, Yahoo News
- Daniel Klaidman (@dklaidman), Editor in Chief, Yahoo News
- Victoria Bassetti (@VBass), fellow, Brennan Center for Justice (contributing co-host)
RESOURCES:
- Pick up James Kirchick's book The Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington - Here.
- Watch the groundbreaking Yahoo News documentary "Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government's War on Gays - Here.
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| 0:00.0 | June 20th, 1951. |
| 0:03.7 | Upon the receipt of an allegation that a present or former employee of any branch of the United States government |
| 0:10.7 | is a six-deaf yet, such information in all cases should be disseminated. |
| 0:16.6 | We get J. Edgar Hoover, six-deaf yet program MMO of 1951. |
| 0:21.7 | For us, it was an aha moment that we've got J. Edgar Hoover in our sites and we're seeing him provide |
| 0:28.2 | his brand of sick, obsessive focus on gay America. |
| 0:35.1 | Each supervisor will be held personally responsible to underline in Green Pencil, |
| 0:41.1 | the names of individuals who are alleged to be six-deafians, very truly yours, J. Edgar Hoover. |
| 0:48.9 | He's instructing his people to become plants in each arm of the federal government |
| 0:57.4 | to identify potential accused homosexuals, report back to him, and then let them investigate. |
| 1:05.1 | The plants were also instructed to leak the names of gays, in some cases anonymously, to their employers. |
| 1:11.9 | In terms of FBI abuses, this ranks at the top. |
| 1:15.1 | It was an effort to silence them. It was an effort to ruin their lives. |
| 1:19.3 | Because if you were exposed as gay in the 1950s or 1960s, your life as you knew it was over. |
| 1:25.8 | That was an excerpt from a Yahoo News documentary in 2015 called Uniquely Nasty, |
| 1:31.2 | with the actor George Tchaik of Star Trek fame voicing the very real words of the longtime director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. |
| 1:39.9 | Uniquely Nasty explored the little-known story of the US government's relentless persecution of gays in the Cold War era, |
| 1:46.0 | focusing in part on how the FBI, under Hoover's direction, |
| 1:49.6 | track the names of tens of thousands of suspected gays and lesbians working for the federal government, |
| 1:55.4 | and then took steps to have them fired. |
| 1:57.9 | It was just one piece of a so-called lavender scare that left in its wake a trail of fear, paranoia, and destroyed lives. |
| 2:05.8 | The full story of the US government's g-hot against gay America is now being told in a landmark book, |
... |
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