The Foreign Service Journal, May 2004

events in Afghanistan serve to under- score the association between nar- cotics and terrorist activity, with the twin perils rising in parallel. This dis- heartening trend renders Charles’ arguments all the more compelling. Jonita I. Whitaker is a program officer in the Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement. The Pink Purge The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government David K. Johnson, University of Chicago Press, 2004, hardcover, $30.00, 277 pages. R EVIEWED BY S TEVEN K ERCHOFF In February 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisc., delivered a now- famous speech claiming that 205 card-carrying communists were work- ing for the State Department, a claim that would fuel the so-called Red Scare. A week later, Deputy Under Secretary of State John Peurifoy testi- fied before Congress, denying that the department employed any com- munists. He noted, however, that State had dismissed 202 individuals considered “security risks,” including 91 homosexuals. Like a pebble setting off an avalanche, that comment would help lead to the ouster over the next quar- ter-century of thousands of employees from their jobs with the State Department and other federal agen- cies, for no reason other than their (perceived) sexual orientation. Yet for all its ongoing impact on the lives of gays and lesbians, this purge has remained far less widely known than the contemporaneous Red Scare, both in popular memory and in his- torical scholarship — until now. In The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government , David K. Johnson documents the sheer vehemence of the campaign. He begins by noting that “in 1950s culture, lavender was the color com- monly associated with homosexuality, as evidenced by references to the ‘lavender lads’ in the State Depart- ment.” (Such notions also played off longstanding popular notions of the diplomatic corps as effete intellectuals more inclined toward negotiation and appeasement than action and war, a band of “cookie pushers in striped pants.”) McCarthy frequently asserted that “practically every active communist is twisted mentally or physically in some way,” and identified homosexuality as a prime maladjustment providing the impetus toward communism, thereby giving the Red Scare a lavender tinge. So the news that State had fired 91 homosexuals gave credibility to these vague charges, even though McCar- thy himself had no part in the employ- ees’ removal. Faced with mounting congressional pressure, Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s Personnel Security Board quickly established security principles with a dual test for loyalty/security. The board excluded communists and their associates, and also individuals who exhibited signs of character weak- ness, including “habitual drunkenness, sexual perversion, moral turpitude, financial irresponsibility or criminal record,” from eligibility for security clearances. This dual standard would become the model for other federal agencies during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, and would last into the 1990s in some parts of the government. This was true even though a 1950s investigation by Sen. Clyde Hoey, D- N.C., failed to find a single example of a homosexual American citizen who had been blackmailed into dis- closing state secrets (nor has one ever been identified). Yet his committee reported that all government intelli- gence agencies “are in complete agreement that sex perverts in gov- ernment constitute security risks.” Those findings fueled the Eisen- hower administration’s “clean up the mess in Washington” campaign, which focused most sharply on the State Department. Shamefully, State officials, con- cerned that homosexuals fired from the department would find employ- ment with international organizations, urged the United Nations to carry out similar purges. The Eisenhower administration also began to pressure its NATO allies to exclude homosexu- als from government positions. Johnson’s meticulously researched book, a revision of his dissertation submitted at Northwestern Univers- ity, sheds new light on this shadowy episode. He makes masterful use of primary source material not available until 2000, when the full records of what Johnson deems “the most exten- sive congressional investigation into the employment of homosexuals in government” were finally released. Johnson also conducted oral history interviews with gay and lesbian Americans who lived and worked in Washington during the purges, such as Frank Kameny. This valuable work contributes to a new body of diplomatic history research which illuminates how Americans’ “... anxieties about gender and morality affected the formation of America’s Cold War foreign policy.” Steven Kerchoff is a Foreign Service Information Resource officer with the State Department. He is currently assigned to the Bureau of International M A Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 67 B O O K S