You would be sent to mccarthys committee and blacklisted, deported somewhere. They decided to adhere to nonviolence when they were marching. The people we associate most with nonviolence like dr. King, he often had armed bodyguards surrounding his home. Its a fellowship of reconciliation, went to visit Martin Luther king in the early days of the montgomery bus boycott. He had decided on being gandhian. He wrote back and said, this place is an arsenal. You had so many guns around the house, and they convinced him not to do it great its a mess, i think. It. Its a mess, i think. Questions . Thank you all so much for coming. [applause] coming up next on American History tv, historian and author Douglas Charles discusses his book, hoovers more on days, war on gays. Thanbi accumulated more sex000 pages on socalled deviants. These files were destroyed in 1977 and 1978. Professor charles discusses his research into the history of the program and the public and official perception of gays during hoovers time at the fbi. The program is cohosted by the National Archives that kansas city, the day and lesbians archives of midamerica, and the Truman Center at the university of missouri. Dr. Charles is an associated professor of history. Hes the author of j edgar the rise of the domestic Security State in 1939. His other book is j. Edgar hoover and the bureaus crusade against smut. Tonight we will hear from him. He will regale some information in his third book, hoovers wa ror on gays. Please welcome dr. Charles. [applause] dr. Charles thank you very much. J. Edgar hoover. Two one hears the name, images usually come to mind. The first is the long serving fbi director with his files targeting communists and leftists, using his files to get his way oftentimes with politicians. The second image is a secretive man festooned in a black cocktail dress and feather boa, sashaying around washington, d. C. Verifiable. Is , historicalifiable evidence, the other is not. Nevertheless, it has become an irrepressible cultural meme rooted in innuendo, sexual stereotypes, and supposition. Both images still capture the two major hoover era of sessions , communists and gays. Until now the fbis preoccupation with gays, the nature of it and the means by which it targeted gays has not been very well documented. Otherwise, popularly at least, public discourses over the fbi and gays often center on the targetinggay hoover his own through overcompensation. The fact of the matter is, we dont know. We cannot know, unless were willing to use stereotyping as evidence of a persons character or nature. Not knowing, having no convincing evidence means hoovers sexuality as a causal factor in explaining why is fbi targeted gaze for 40 gays for toyears is not helpful understanding what the fbi did. Let me take you on a whirlwind tour of my book. I cannot cover everything, but that allows you plenty of time to read it. Theall, the evolution of fbis targeting, obsession, and politics surrounding gays and lesbians from the mid1930s to the mid1990s. Why did it start in the 1930s . It started than because americans reassess gender roles. They also reassess perceptions of those gender roles, particularly when it came to people attracted to those of the same sex. Prior to the 1930s, americans did not regard homosexuality is something serious, a serious threat, something necessitating a systematic federal response. Instead it was regarded as an nothingal sinful act, overly concerning. After the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression set in by 1930, americans reassess those views. A patriarchal, masculine american culture, as the previously valued husbands, father, head of households suddenly fulfilled failed to fulfill his assigned role, could not care for his children, lost his home, became homeless, americans change their views about gender. If the ideal heterosexual men was failing socially and alreadyly, gays, who stood outside expectations for men, were sudden regarded as a serious threat. After a series of child kidnappings and murders in the mid1930s, gay men in particular were singled out as dangerous, predatory animals. For the fbi it started just after christmas, 1936, when a 10yearold was kidnapped, abused, brutalized, and murdered. Childsion era kidnappings, murders were nothing new. Instance, there had been a reevaluation of gender roles, and hoover had declared an end to child kidnappings in 1935, and now looked foolish. Even more, the story shocked americans from coast to coast and even led Franklin Roosevelt to publicly promise the fbi would never stop until the killer was captured. A conservative bureaucrat holdover from a republican Calvin Coolidge and herbert administration, now had to react because one, his liberal boss, fdr, publicly demanded it, and two, he had to rectify his previous. Claims about child kidnappings claims about child kidnappings. Fbi agents focused on finding a quote unquote sex offender. At the time, popular perception had it that gay men targeted children. That is who they targeted most and in particular, they focused on hobos. Were the mostbos, visible and iconic symbol of the Great Depression. Thest forgotten today, at time it was widely revealed that sexual perversion was common in mainlyo community because hobos commonly traded sexual favors for food or money. Fbi agents not only focused on hobos, they focused on exconvicts who similarly at the time were perceived to be a population among who homosexuality was common. Fbi agents finally focused on mental patients, given the view that homosexuality was a psychiatric disorder, and investigating all these avenues, fbi agents eliminated a staggering 24,000 subjects, yet never solved the case. For the first time, the fbi began systematic monitoring of gaze which happen to fit a larger pattern of the federal discovert coming to homosexuality and attempting to regulate it. For the first time, because new deal programs and new deal government bureaucrats were working directly with common americans to affect depression relief, they found themselves weeding gays out of these new deal programs, which always had a family focus. The fbi failed to solve the case, thus failing to satisfy president roosevelt process roosevelts public programs. To achieve some level of success hoover use that information in educational campaign. If he could not solve the murder, and they investigated it all the way through the 1980s, by the way, he could warn and educate the American Public about the threat of gays. This also fit the period. In 1935, hoovers fbi created its prime records division, which famously propagated the idea that morally upstanding, professional fbi agents used to scientific investigative techniques and always captured their prey. 1936, 1937, the fbi shifted that effort andtions began focusing on educating americans about the threat of domestic fascists and communists and other subversive influences like sex offenders. After only a few years 1937 when the fbis perceptions and targeting of gays evolved. With the advent of world war ii, within the United States, suddenly perception of days beingd gays evolved to a National Security threat. Why . Woman was man or found in government, holding an influential position, they could be targeted by subversive elements into betraying wartime secrets, leading to failure and the loss of military lives. Thus we see for the second world the fbi investigating homosexuality among top government officials either because of stories of sexual impropriety or because they were by political enemies. These include under secretary of state sumner welles, who famously got drunk on a train and solicited sex from a male africanamerican train porter. It included senator david walsh, chair of the committee of Naval Affairs who was gaybaited because he did not fit the mold of a mans man at the time, and was accused of frequenting a gay brothel in new york city that allegedly was targeted by nazi agents. It finally included the lend lease coordinator of moscow, who also did not fit the common masculine mold of the time. He hated sports and he liked music. [laughter] leading his political enemies to him because he worked closely and successfully with the soviets, whereas his political enemies failed, and they hated the soviets. By the cold war era, the fbis interest in days evolved yet again. To 1937 in that then, economic disasters had led and new perception of gays, now with the cold war, after the second world war, the rise of the soviet union as a superpower, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and fears of domestic subversion led to another focus on gays as threats. With ait coincided second sex crime panic in which americans perceived children being targeted for murder. Seen as a gays were threat to the cold war homefront and a subversive threat because communist agents supposedly could blackmail any in government into betraying the country. Seen asarly, gays were medical, criminal, and moral quote unquote deviance. Deviants. A popular Magazine Article in 1950 argued that gays sought to recruit children into their deviancy. Not just boys, all children. The article quoted one socalled expert on gays, all too often we loose sight of the fact that homosexual is an inveterate seducer of the young of both sexes, and presents a social problem because he is not content with being degenerate himself. He must have degenerate companions and is ever seeking younger victims. End quote. Another text from the time on sexuality claimed because gays were a shunt part of society, quote, the homosexual will murder his victim during an act of sexual frenzy and afterwards rob him. The quickly evolved a public witchhunt for gays in the 1950s, one that was similar to yet distinct from the witchhunt for communists in government. Today the gay witchhunt is known as a lavender scare. The state department had begun purging gays from its ranks in 1947. Public witchhunts began in 1950 after senator mccarthy singled of sexualses subversion in the state department, which led the state department to purge itself of gays, firing 91. Soon after this, americans focused on the topic for years. When american wrote president truman, quote, if the state department can acquire and harbor 91 homosexuals who presumably had something to do with shaping our Foreign Policy or slanting the information on which it is based, the state department is capable of anything. The lavender scare long outlived the red scare. Short order, j got edgar hoovers fbi responded. Was responsible for domestic security and for protecting americans from subversive influences. President ,ate to the the fbi was on top of the issue, in april 1950 hoover forwarded the white house a list of 393 people arrested in the capital for quote unquote sexual irregularities. Concurrently, hoover created the first version of the fbis sex deviance program. This was based on arrest records and fingerprint records. Anytime a person was arrested on a morals charge, which was soliciting gay sex, his arrest record and fingerprints were forwarded to the fbi, who forwarded them to the Civil Service commission. This limited program did not work very well. The Civil Service noted many irregularities and errors. This was compounded by two Senate Committees forming at the time to investigate the gays and government issue. Both of them popularized the 11 to her scare, energized this, and let it to become commonplace. Hoover was forced to reconsider and dramatically expand his sex byiance program, and he did june 1951. The reconfigured sex deviance pr moved to include collecting any and all information about gays, including simple allegations. The information would be collected, compiled, that fbi Source Information added to it, and then be disseminated widely across government to ensure gays and lesbians were fired from their jobs. In time, recipients outside of government were added, including Police Departments and universities. Today is the 60th anniversary of the fbi writing a memo that yes, we sent this to universities today. The program was neither authorized by the attorney general or the white house. Placingbi efforts hoover and the fbi in the vanguard of the lavender scare. The fbis careful effort can be gayrelated information was disseminated. When Forwarding Information to the Civil Service commission, house of representatives or the senate, including the library of gardens,and botanical fbi policy mandated the use of fbi letters. This is the document about the university today. That is the fbis letter. Particular fbi documents mean different things. Fbi letters are clearly identified as being from the fbi. The fbi seal is on there, theres a signature on there, its clear where the information is coming from. That tells us something. When Forwarding Information to to the government accounting office, Government Printing office, the Judicial Branch or military branches, fbi policy mandated the use of something called blind memos. Documentsranda are with no letterhead, no signature, no watermark, nothing revealing the fbi as a source. This is a blind memo, this one happens to be redacted. The targets name is on their. Sexual allegations, which are blacked out. Otherwise theres no indication this is from the fbi. Dont worry, because i found this. The first one was from an fbi file. This one came from the eisenhower library. In this case they sent the exact document to the president so it has the fbi seal on it. What we find out is carmel off the was arrested across the street from the white house for soliciting gay sex. The on this, fbi supervisors were directed to index from all reports, letters, memos, newspapers, and other sources, all names of suspected sex deviants. They would do this by underlining the name with a green pencil. Central to the fbi dissemination and purging effort was a comprehensive fbi file. Ts file. Eviant file was on sex offenders dating from 1937. Another was captioned sex perverts in government service, dating from 1942. A third, called sex deviance in washington, d. C. Contained the fingerprints and arrest records. It was made obsolete in 1953. A fifth socalled Research File captioned sex to generates and sex offenders constituted the information the fbis crime records division, its Public Relations arm, would use to educate and influence the public about the threat of socalled sex deviants. Even more, fbi field offices in cities with large gay and lesbian population such as San Francisco maintained Research Files in which they kept information about gays in their particular locations. In total, by 1977, the fbis sex deviance files had grown to be hundreds of thousands of pages in size. I would estimate the main file and related files probably upwards of 500,000, half a million pages. I dont have the time here to cover all government officials the fbi targeted, but thats why i wrote a 400 page book. Some included the a atementioned carmel off he, least evenson, adley ,tevenson, charles they are, stateas nabokov, Department Official and future ambassador to the soviet union, theles bolin, samuel reber, federal Security Agency itself, three low level Eisenhower White house correspondents, among many, many others associated with all of these individuals. In reality, because the fbi sex deviants file was destroyed in 1977, 1978, we can never know exactly how many people were targeted. A tinynstitutes sampling. Concurrent with the fbis hunt for gays in government at the start of the lavender scare, fbi agents also targeted the first early gay Rights Groups on the west coast. Another group was called one incorporated, which had an eponymous magazine, and it was being group and the lesbian group. Here they are, looking very subversive. The first of the socalled by 1952, itps had caught the attention of journalists. The public charges initiated an fbi investigation under its to see if communists had infiltrated the groups. Checking all sources from local Police Departments, credit bureaus, post offices, and interviewing informants, the fbi decided after months of investigation that both groups are clean. Somehow the fbi seem to miss the group was founded by former members of the communist party, but there are Different Reasons for that very deaf bia agents then pause their surveillance, except for collecting the publications of both groups. By 1956, all that changed. The magazine published an intemperate article. Was veryt the fbi concerned with. The magazine claimed to not only that gays worked in the fbi, but suggested, hinted that hoover was gay. This kind of public charge led hoover to target one using federal antiinsanity anti obscenity law. The magazine did when a legal case, win a legal forever protecting the rights of to use thegroups mail. On daughters are spotty at best. They also suggest the nature of the fbis efforts against early gayRights Groups, because men were commonly perceived to be the greater threat, the greater violation of gender roles in a patriarchal, hyper masculine culture, gay men received greater scrutiny and focus than women did. Thats at least on the fbi side of things. The Civil ServiceCommission Im sure it was a completely different story. The fbi surveilled members, try to reconstruct daughters membership lists, collected its magazine, and was interested in where it opened new chapters across the country. Fbi retention was also drawn to the east coast of the United States went home a file groups groups formed. Le time, i likests of to focus on Donald Webster corey , the stude