“FEDERAL VIGILANCE ON PERVERTS ASKED – Senate Group Says They Must Be Kept Out of Government Because of Security Risk,” New York Times (@nytimes), December 16, 1950.
On December 15, 1950, sixty-six years ago today, a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Department issued an interim report on “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sexual Perverts” that became key to the federal government’s anti-gay witch-hunts of the 1950s.
As the New York Times reported, the subcommittee “labeled sexual perverts as dangerous security risks and demanded strict and careful screening to keep them off the Government payroll…Stressing the risks that the Government takes in employing a sex deviate or keeping one on the payroll, the subcommittee said: ‘The lack of emotional stability which is found in most sex perverts, and the weakness of their moral fiber, makes them susceptible to the blandishments of foreign espionage agents.’
The report also noted that perverts were ‘easy prey to the blackmailer,’ [and] criticized the State Department particularly for ‘mishandling ninety-one cases of homosexualism among its employees.’ It said that many of the employees were allowed to resign ‘for personal reasons,’ and that no steps were taken to bar them from other Government jobs.
The committee said that it was unable to determine accurately how many perverts now held Federal jobs. It added, however, that since Jan. 1, 1947, a total of 4,954 cases had been processed, including 4,380 in the military services and 574 on Federal civilian payrolls.”
In the decade that followed, as Senator Joseph McCarthy capitalized on the Red and Lavender Scares, the report described above served as the basis of efforts to seek out and terminate from federal employment anyone suspected of “sexual perversion.” #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory
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