The Lavender Scare

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

By: David K. Johnson

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

In Cold War America, Senator Joseph McCarthy enjoyed tremendous support in the fight against what he called atheistic communism. But that support stemmed less from his wild charges about communists than his more substantiated charges that "sex perverts" had infiltrated government agencies. Although now remembered as an attack on suspected disloyalty, McCarthyism introduced "moral values" into the American political arsenal. Warning of a spreading homosexual menace, McCarthy and his Republican allies learned how to win votes.

Winner of three book awards, The Lavender Scare masterfully traces the origins of contemporary sexual politics to Cold War hysteria over national security. Drawing on newly declassified documents and interviews with former government officials, historian David Johnson chronicles how the myth that homosexuals threatened national security determined government policy for decades, ruined thousands of lives, and pushed many to suicide. As Johnson shows, this myth not only outlived McCarthy but, by the 1960s, helped launch a new civil rights struggle.

©2004 David K. Johnson (P)2019 Tantor

a history lesson worth knowing

A little dull the way the story goes (reads like a text book at times), but an exceptionally important story to know and understand.

Should be required reading

It's Pride Month so my goal is catching up on books with an LGBTQ+ theme. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the anti-queer movement that ran in parallel to the anti-commie movement of the 40s and 50s. The narrator had some seriously mispronounced words and this always makes me crazy. David K Johnson provides a well researched and clear road map of Washington DC in the middle of the 20th century and the fallacy that the mere fact of being LGBTQ+ automatically made you a security risk.

Chilling Injustice

The Lavender Scare is a work of history that captures a particular moment in time and resonates deeply with issues happening around the United States in 2023. As the country debates the possibility of a myriad of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, David Johnson's The Lavender Scare reminds us that homosexuality has at least at one other time been targeted as the nation's "boogy man". In a history that is riveting and scary, Johnson shows how "containment of sexuality was as central to 1950s America as containment of communism", resulting in the persecution and firing of hundreds of gay (and suspected gay) federal employees. It is fascinating, and horrifying, to see how politicians used their fear and ignorance of "the perverts" for their own political ends and used the fear of Communism as a cover for their attacks. This book is sensitive and engaging – at times it reads like a novel and by the end you wish it were. If you are not familiar with the “McCarthy Era” this lays it out in all of it’s bigotry and chilling injustice.