The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government

A new edition of a classic work of history, revealing the anti-homosexual purges of midcentury Washington. In The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson tells the frightening story of how, during the Cold War, homosexuals were considered as dangerous a threat to national security as Communists. Charges that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were havens for homosexuals proved a potent political weapon, sparking a “Lavender Scare” more vehement and long-lasting than Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. Drawing on declassified documents, years of research in the records of the National Archives and the FBI, and interviews with former civil servants, Johnson recreates the vibrant gay subculture that flourished in midcentury Washington and takes us inside the security interrogation rooms where anti-homosexual purges ruined the lives and careers of thousands of Americans. This enlarged edition of Johnson’s classic work of history—the winner of numerous awards and the basis for an acclaimed documentary broadcast on PBS—features a new epilogue, bringing the still-relevant story into the twenty-first century.

About the Author :
David K. Johnson is professor of history at the University of South Florida and the author of Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement.

Review :
"The Lavender Scare, a phrase invented David K. Johnson, alludes to the systematic persecution of homosexuals (both men and women) in Washington, DC, that began in the early years of the Cold War and lasted until, roughly, the early 1970s. It was the Siamese twin of the notorious Red Scare, which had a similar lifespan and started for similar reasons. Given the degree of injustice and the scale of the suffering caused by the Lavender Scare, it seems astonishing that no one before Johnson has thought to write its history, whereas there is a small library of books dealing with the anti-Communist crusade. . . . Time has thus created an opportunity and Dr. Johnson has seized it. His book is detailed, accurate, and fair-minded. . . . It deserves to stand on the shelf next to The Great Fear by David Caute, and should be studied by everyone who is interested in the McCarthy era and its implications." "A valuable contribution to our understanding of the Cold War and those who became victims of the national security state. It highlights well, and in a very readable form, the origins and continuity of the gay rights movement which are located in the fight against the federal government's anti-gay policies." "Dr. Johnson has provided today's generation with disturbing details of the maltreatment that U.S. security agents visited upon thousnads of loyal American citizens, people who endured vile campaigns against their well-being, conducted by their own government. The Lavender Scare has great current significance as a work of history because it exposes the anti-gay fear-mongering that Republicans initiated during the Cold War Era....a stellar work, one of the most important published gay histories there is." "Instructive and insightful." "A gripping study of sanctioned homophobia in the McCarthy era and a celebration of the stubborn fight by a pre-Stonewall few that ultimately won rights for many, and of a cultural and sexual underground that survived even at the height of an unrelenting homophobia spanning the presidencies of Truman through Nixon." "David Johnson's engrossing study of the persecution of gays and lesbians during the Cold War, complete with a comprehensive picture of the gay culture that flourished in Washington, is an important addition to a subject all too often ignored." "The hoary rhetoric about the supposedly treasonous/treacherous nature of homosexuality that the historian David K. Johnson documents in his fine new book can initially strike a reader as amusing. The homophobic fulmination of varoius McCarthy-era senators and representatives he quotes are fatuous, if not ludicrous. But as The Lavender Scare goes on to reveal, the jaw-dropping extent of the federal government's persecution of its gay and lesbian employees in the '50s and '60s turns amusement into rage." "By demonstrating the extent to which gay history is part of mainstream history, [Johnson] continues the important academic endeavor of bringing the margins to the center." "The Lavender Scare provides a superb overview of this period in American history. . . . It's a must-read for gay and lesbian federal employees, and would serve as an excellent text for college or graduate-level courses in history, sociology, political science, or gay studies." "Keenly observed and elegantly written, with a sense of mystery and suspense indicative of the era, Johnson's book will reorient scholarship on the Cold War as it models a more complex method for integrating queer community history with economic and political history." "The Lavender Scare is a very readable and valuable work that clarifies the relationship between the Cold War and national security interests, and those victimized by the need to preserve said security. . . . This work will take its place beside those of George Chauncey and Allen Berube, and every serious student of 20th century American history should own it." "What does it say about the historical profession that it has taken nearly 30 more years to tell this story? Fortunately, David K. Johnson has done so with intelligence, sensitivity, and grace. We are all in his debt." "Johnson's work assures that we shall never again be able to think about the anticommunist crusade without acknowledging its fierce counterpart that affected the lives of so many people." “Fifty years ago, gays ‘confronted a degree of policing and harassment that is almost unimaginable to us today’ and which now is almost entirely forgotten. David K. Johnson’s The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government is a heart-wrenching reminder that homosexuals faced brutal employment discrimination and endless police hostility.” "A riveting history of gay-baiting in the McCarthy era" 2004 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights 2004 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, The Publishing Triangle 2004 Herbert Hoover Book Award, The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association "Johnson's dazzling social and political history puts the Cold War persecution of gays and lesbians center stage to highlight how the social and cultural anxieties around gender and sexuality dovetailed with the nation's state-building project in the post-World War II era." "An important book, one that promises to reorient the historical scholarship on the Cold War." “By utilizing an impressive array of primary sources and integrating political, social, and cultural history, historian David Johnson provides us with a much needed, in-depth analysis. . . . A valuable contribution to our understanding of the Cold War and those who became victims of the national security state. It corrects certain misconceptions about the targets of McCarthyism to reveal that homosexuals were a unique focus in a parallel witch hunt to those who did not conform to 1950s society and beyond." “An important work of gay scholarship that proves, once and for all, that the Lavender Scare was not a minor adjunct of the Red Scare, but a major government campaign in its own right. . . . The Lavender Scare is more than a great work of history. It is a cautionary tale.” “David Johnson’s riveting account of how the federal government ferreted out and purged its gay employees in the 1940s and 1950s is based on exhaustive research and careful analysis. It definitively establishes the central role antihomosexual politics played in the domestic Cold War and provocatively argues that this hostility drew on public anxieties about the rapid expansion of the federal government during the New Deal and Second World War. Johnson also offers a vivid portrait of the social world built by lesbians and gay men in Washington, D.C., and shows how the most enduring and unexpected consequence of the purges was to galvanize them to campaign for full citizenship rights.  After this remarkable book, we will never be able to view the McCarthy Era the same way again.” George Chauncey, University of Chicago, and author of Gay New York “David K. Johnson fills an important gap by presenting an important, detailed history of the McCarthy period in America. The cruel, secret psychological baiting and scapegoating of gay and lesbian Americans reached proportions that are shocking and this work makes all too clear the importance of disarming the right of their best weapon: the closet.” Elizabeth Birch, Executive Director, Human Rights Campaign “David K. Johnson has the rare ability to bring cultural, political, social, and sexual history together in telling a story that will alternately surprise and move readers. One of the most engaging and provocative studies I have read in recent years.” Leisa D. Meyer, College of William and Mary, and author of Creating G.I. Jane “Every once in a long while, a work of unprecedented scholarship comes along that promises to change the way America thinks for the better. By bringing to light a virtually unknown moral wrong, a national disgrace, David Johnson’s meticulously researched and documented The Lavender Scare does just that. While America continues to be plagued by the demonization of minority groups, particularly sexual ones, Johnson's book not only helps us understand the origin of that diabolical political tactic (and its relationship to anti-communism) but also charts the way to a future in which scapegoating is obsolete.” Chris Bull, Washington correspondent for The Advocate and author of Perfect Enemies