F.B.I. and Homosexuality: Chronology

Chronology, Part 1, 1910-1949

See also:

F.B.I. and Homosexuality: A History MAIN PAGE

F.B.I. and Homosexuality: Bibliography

F.B.I. and Homosexuality: Chronology, Part 2, 1950-1979

F.B.I. and Homosexuality: Chronology, Part 3, 1980-present

F.B.I. and Homosexuality: Persons and Groups Investigated

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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1910

1919, August 1

On August 1, 1919, Palmer put 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. It would investigate the programs of radical groups and identify their members.

1919, November 7

On November 7, 1919, a date chosen because it was the second anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, agents of the Bureau of Investigation, together with local police, executed a series of well-publicized and violent raids against the Russian Workers in 12 cities. The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

1920

1920s

“antique shows” and a “lightness in his step”

Potter, "Queer" (2006): refers to snickering newspaper gossip of the 1920s and 1930s that advertised the director’s attendance at “antique shows” and a “lightness in his step” as he made his daily rounds. Potter's note cites: "Oddly, these gossip items are preserved in a collection of newspaper clippings Hoover kept himself; see J. Edgar Hoover Scrapbooks, RG 65, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

1920, February

"moral perverts"

A. Mitchell Palmer, in his journal article The Case Against the Reds (1920), included in a list of those he opposed as "reds": the International Workers of the World, "the most radical socialists, the misguided anarchists, the agitators who oppose the limitations of unionism, the moral perverts and the hysterical neurasthenic women who abound in communism."

1921

By 1921 Hoover had set up an index system listing virtually every radical leader and organization in the United States, an index that contained upward of 400,000 names.

1925

The FBI's monitoring of "obscene or indecent" materials began this year.

1920s, late

"a dandyish dresser"

Fox, John (Historian on staff of FBI: In 2010, the FBI's Historian, Dr. John Fox, commented (in part) to retired Agents that "rumors regarding the Director's sexual preferences have been around since the late 1920s or early 1930s. The earliest was a newspaper blurb describing him as a dandyish dresser."

1926

"rumors of Hoover’s homosexuality had circulated in print from the moment he became director in 1926".

1928, April 2

Tolson first joins FBI.

1929, July 31

Hoover makes Tolson head of Buffalo, NY, office of FBI

1930

1930s

"assertion by Elliot Roosevelt (son of President Franklin D. and Eleanor) that his father knew about Hoover’s homosexuality in the 1930s but did not feel it was “grounds for removing him [from his directorship of the FBI] . . . so long as his abilities were not impaired.”

1930, August 16

Tolson named assistant director of FBI for Personnel and Administration.

DATE?

Hoover creates for Tolson the new post of assistant to the director of the FBI.

1933, July 30

"a Y.M.C.A. secretary"

J. Edgar Hoover appointed director of a new Division of Investigation which would include the Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Identification, and the Prohibition Bureau of the U.S. Attorney General's Office. Soon after this Newsweek magazine noted that in light of Hoover's activities as Palmer's assistant during the raids on reds, "some experienced Washington observers express astonishment" at Hoover's appointment as director of the new Division, while the new division chief's manner was described as less that of a cop than that "of a Y.M.C.A. secretary."

Describing Hoover's manner as that of "a Y.M.C.A. secretary" is a coded dig at his masculinity and indirectly at his heterosexuality. Compared with a policeman, a secretary (meaning a leader) of the Young Men's Christian Association was popularly seen as relatively lacking in aggressive masculinity and thus in heterosexual potency.

1933, August 19

"walks with a mincing step"

For a larger version of this illustration see: F.B.I. and Homosexuality: A History MAIN PAGE

Ray Tucker, Collier's magazine's Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, writes in an article about the FBI:

In appearance Mr. Hoover looks utterly unlike the story-book sleuth. He is short, fat, businesslike, and walks with a mincing step. His black hair, swarthy skin and collegiate haircut make him look younger than thirty-eight, but heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles give him an air of age and authority. He dresses fastidiously, with Eleanor blue as the favorite color for the matched shades of tie, handkerchief and socks. A little pompous, he rides in an expensive limousine even if only to a nearby self-service cafeteria." Gentry, , pages 158=159.</ref>

Tucker adds, later in his essay:

"at one time or another the bureau's files have contained reports on such prominent Americans as Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, the late Senator Thomas J. Walsh, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, Senator William E. Borah, Dean Roscoe Pound, Prof. Felix Frankfurter, Prof. Zechariah Chafeee Jr., Frank P. Walsh and John L Lewis." Research Request:Any homosexual associations or rumors about any of those people?

For a use of the term "mincing", in New York City, in 1842, to reference effeminate men who desired sex with men see Jonathan Ned Katz's Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (pages 49 and 357 note 29). Katz also sites another similar reference to "mincing" dating to January 5, 1892, in New York City (page 290). He also refers to a 1933 reference to "mincing" in Chauncey, Gay New York (page 67). For a use of the term "mincing" in association with homosexuality OutHistory.org provides a reference from 1965.

The reference to "Eleanor blue" associates Hoover with a feminine name, thus questioning his masculinity. As an extra dig, "Eleanor blue" also associates Hoover with the first name of the new Democratic president's wife.

"the Hoover stride

"Less than two weeks after the Collier's article appeared, a Washington gossip columnist inquired if anyone had noticed that since the Tucker charge "the Hoover stride had grown longer and more vigorous".

1935, June 10

Photo Hoover and Tolson: Original caption: 6/10/1935-Washington, D.C.- J. Edgar Hoover (wearing hat), head of the Department of Justice, is pictured here attending the Frankie Klick-Tony Canzoneri fight. Hoover, pleased with the work of his "G Men" who broke the Weyerhauser kidnaping with two arrests, is pictured with Clyde A. Tolson (hat in lap), Assistant Director of the department. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: BE052352. Date Photographed: June 10, 1935

1935, November 19

Photo Hoover and Tolson: Original caption: Clyde A. Tolson, assistant director, and John Edgar Hoover, director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: VV7769. Date Photographed: November 19, 1935

1936

Photo Hoover and Tolson: Original caption: "1936-J. Edgar Hoover (LEFT) and Clyde Tolson." [Identical hats and suits.] Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: BE027364

1936, April 28

Photo including Hoover and Tolson): Original caption: "The little matter of dividing the reward of $25,000 in the Lindbergh kidnapping will probably be referred to the New Jersey Court of Chancery. This was announced today (April 28) by Attorney General David T. Wilentz, after a conference of New York City, Federal and New Jersey Police officials in the office of Police Commissioner Valentine, of New York. One point was definitely settled by the conferees; i.e., that no member of the police departments of New York, New Jersey, or of the Federal Department of Justice, will be permitted to claim, or accept any of the money. Those who attended the conference are pictured, left to right: H. Norman Schwartzkopf, of the New Jersey State Police; Anthony M. Hauck, Jr., Hunterdon County, NJ prosecutor; Clyde Tolson, Director of Personnel of the Department of Justice; David T. Wilentz, Attorney general of new Jersey; J. Edgar Hoover. Corbis Images. Stock Photo ID: U770417INP

1936, May 1 <CHECK DATE AND INCLUDE CITATION>

the 'queer' talk" about Hoover"

Alvin Karpis caught by FBI. That "pretty much ended the 'queer' talk" about Hoover, according to Louis Nichols.

During Alvin Karpis's arrest, according to Karpis's nephew Albert Grooms <recorded when?>:

"Alvin told Hoover: 'You're a big, brave S.O. B., you let those agents do all the work, and you take all the credit. What makes me mad is that the number one queer in the FBI captured me." H. boiled and told those guys to get Karpis up to St. Paul: Alvin had embarrassed Hoover in front of his own FBI crew!"

The FBI is said to have claimed that while Karpis was a fugitive he sent a letter to Hoover threatening to kill the director. Alvin Karpis's nephew, Albert Grooms, said: "The letter [Karpis sent Hoover] said that Hoover was as queer as a three-dollar bill. Alvin and Ma [Barker] laughed and laughed about that letter. Alvin said, 'Just imagine how that queer blew his stack.'" Asked in 1994 to produce a copy of Karpis's letter, the FBI could not.

1936, May 8

"Mr. Hoover was in a gay mood"

Associated Press. "G-Men Get Two Kidnappers." New York Times, May 6, 1936.

"Mr. Hoover was in a gay mood as he greeted reporters waiting outside his office after his return from Cleveland this afternoon." (Times, page 8.)

For historical documentation of the term "gay" used as code for "homosexual" see History of the word "gay"

1936 June 21

"Hoover walks with a rather mincing step, almost feminine."

Walter Trohan, "Chief of the G-Men — Record of His Career," Chicago Tribune, June 21, 1936.

On Hoover walking with "mincing" step. Cited by Nash, Citizen Hoover (1972), page 35 of Chapter 4, "The Gangbusters." See also on: Hoover's distrust of women and his early male friendships.

1936, July 12

Photo Hoover and Tolson: FBI Officials Capture Alvin Karpis. (L-R) FBI officials W.R. Galvin, E.J. Connelley, Director J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson and Dwight Brantley participated in the apprehension of renowned criminal Alvin Karpis in New Orleans. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: 42-21707342. Date Photographed: July 12, 1936.

1936, August 18

Photo, Hoover and Tolson (note Tolson's left hand): Original caption:J. Edgar Hoover, Chief G-Man (right) and his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson, snapped at ringside as they attended the Louis-Sharkey fight, at the Yankee Stadium in New York City, August 18. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: U360070ACME

1936, August 18

Photo Hoover and Tolson Original caption:J. Edgar Hoover, Chief G-Man (right) and his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson, snapped at ringside as they attended the Louis-Sharkey fight, at the Yankee Stadium in New York City, August 18. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: U360070ACME. Date Photographed: August 18, 1936

1937

The FBI's monitoring of homosexual activity began this year.

1937-1977

According to historian Aaron J. Stockham: "Beginning in 1937 and continuing until 1977, the FBI investigated gays as potential security risks who could be blackmailed. Numerous men and women were removed from their government and non-government positions because of the information Hoover's bureau dug up. Only Communists were more systematically investigated by the FBI. In a forthcoming book, Douglas Charles explores these investigations more thoroughly.

1937, March 3

Photo, Hoover and Tolson. Original caption:Photo shows some of the Federal Agents who are in Miami, Florida, to set up a new bureau of the department as they recently relaxed in the sun, while enjoying a game of backgammon. Left to right are J. Edgar Hoover, Chief of the Department; Clyde Tolson, Assistant Director of the F.B.I.; and, standing, Guy Hottel, Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Division. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: U384154ACME

1937, June 22

Photo, Hoover and Tolson. Both in shorts. Hoover in sandles. Original caption: J. Edgar Hoover (right), chief G-man, with his assistant, Clyde Tolson, as they attended the Louis-Braddock heavyweight championship fight in Chicago, June 22. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: U399498ACME.

1937, September 26

Hoover, J. Edgar. "War on the Sex Criminal," New York Herald Tribune, September 26, 1937. 13.

1938

Hoover, J. Edgar. Persons in Hiding. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1938. ASIN: B000VJZM30

CHECK CONTENT. NOTE IRONY. See contents page and chapter: "My Boy Is Different".

1938, February 13

Van Gelder, Robert. "J. Edgar Hoover Discusses Crime and Criminals". [Review of Hoover's Persons in Hiding.] New York Times, February 13, 1938

1938, April - 1939

Photo, Hoover and Tolson. Appoximate date: Photo: Original caption:J. Edgar Hoover is seen here with Clyde Tolson at the KFS version of Hellzapoppin, at the Winter Garden. [Laughing.] Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: U875304INP.

1938, June 6

Photo Hoover and Tolson: Original caption:6/6/1938- FL: J. Edgar Hoover and aide (later presumed to be his lover) Clyde Tolson, to direct the hunt for the kidnapper of 5 year old James B. Cash, Jr. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: BE034390

1938, December 15

Photo Hoover and Tolson. Original caption: 12/15/1938-Miami Beach, FL: L to r Guy Hottell, special agent of FBI; J. Edgar Hoover, Chief of the F.B.I. and Clyde Tolson, Assistant to Hoover in pursuit in [of?] sunshine. Corbis Images:

Second version same photo shoot: Original caption:Miami, Florida: J. Edgar Hoover (center) combines business with pleasure on a recent trip to FL. He is shown with two of his Aides, Guy Hottell, (left) special agent of the Washington F.B.I. office, and Clyde Tolson (right), Hoover's assistant. Stock Photo ID: BE027691. Date Photographed: December 15, 1938

UNDATED

Photo Hoover and Tolson: Clyde A. Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover, and friends (l to r) relax on the water. [Hoover's hand over Tolson's shoulder.] Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: NA013085

UNDATED

Photo Hoover and Tolson: John Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson. Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: 42-21707351. Date Photographed: Unknown

UNDATED

Photo Hoover and Tolson Stock Photo ID: NA013089 Photo: J. Edgar Hoover relaxes with his friend Clyde A. Tolson. [Fishing, shirts off.] Corbis Images: Stock Photo ID: NA013089

UNDATED

Photo Hoover and Tolson. Original caption: Clyde Tolson and J. Edgar Hoover is [sic shown here arriving at the U.S. Supreme Court Building.] Corbis Images, no date: Stock Photo ID: U953892INP

1939

Photo, Hoover and Tolson: J. Edgar Hoover and his assistant Clyde Tolson sitting in beach lounge chairs. 1939 (publication date). Publication:Los Angeles Daily News.

1939, February 10

Persons in Hiding (film, 1939). Directed by Louis King. Writing credits: J. Edgar Hoover (book "Persons in Hiding") William R. Lipman, (screenplay) and Horace McCoy (screenplay). IMDB

1939, June 28

Photo, Hoover and Tolson: Original caption: Clyde Tolson (left) of the Department of Justice, and chief G-Man, J. Edgar Hoover, as they attended the Louis-Galento title fight at the Yankee Stadium, June 28. Corbis Images. Stock Photo ID: U510040ACME.

Sumner Welles

1941, January

The U.S. Secret Service learned in January 1941 that railroad officials were considering legal action against Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, for drunkenly propositioning a number of Pullman porters on two different train trips. President Franklin Roosevelt immediately asked Hoover to conduct a discreet investigation. Hoover did so, confirming that the incidents did occur. Hoover pointed out that many people knew of these incidents and that Welles' advances were the result "more of a mental condition than anything else and there could not be an assurance it would not be repeated in the future." Hoover suggested that if the President wanted to keep Welles, that someone should travel with him and prevent his drinking, and/or prevent his "endeavor to make propositions for such immoral relations." Roosevelt thought this a good solution and the matter was contained in 1941. It became an issue again in 1942-1943, when Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who resented Welles, became concerned about rumors of Welles's homosexual behavior. Roosevelt then accepted Welles's resignation.

1942, March

Donald Downes

By March 1942, Donald Downes, an agend for William Donovan's Office of Strategic Services. had come to Hoover's attention and the FBI director "reserved a special loathing for Downes" for spying for the British and for being a "sex deviate", as the FBI's many surveillance reports on Downes described him.

1942, May 7

David I. Walsh

On May 7, 1942, the New York Post, which had long favored U.S. involvement in the European conflict, implicated the isolationist Senator David I. Walsh in a sensational sex and spy scandal uncovered at a Brooklyn male brothel for U.S. Navy personnel that had been infiltrated by Nazi spies. See: David Ignatius Walsh: November 11, 1872 – June 11, 1947

1943

Potter "Queer" (2006): "Thousands of soldiers, many of them combat veterans, were drummed out of the military by psychiatrists beginning in 1943. Their dishonorable discharges made many homosexuals unemployable and ineligible for the government benefits that expanded the middle class after World War II even while it emphasized their presence in society."

Terry, J.: "FBI documents indicate that as early as 1943, agents under his [Hoover's] direction believed that Hoover was 'queer' and that his relationship with FBI official Clyde Tolson was homosexual in nature. Hoover attempted to suppress these rumors and kept his own private files on 'derogatory information' that named the culprits of such gossip.

Athan Theoharis reproduces FBI documents that show that in 1943 a woman remarked at her bridge party in Cleveland, Ohio, that she had heard that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual. Someone contacted the Cleveland FBI office about her remarks, and the Cleveland FBI contacted her and chastised her for spreading such rumors. She agreed that at the next meeting of her bridge club she would according to her FBI file: "point out to each of those present that her statement was not founded on fact and that she was deeply sorry that she had made it and it should not have been made at all."

Hoover to Tolson (1943): “Words are mere man-given symbols for thoughts and feelings, and they are grossly insufficient to express the thoughts in my mind and the feelings in my heart that I have for you,” Hoover wrote to Tolson in 1943. “I hope I will always have you beside me.”

1943, December 17

John Monroe: "J. Edgar Hoover is a fairy"

Theoharis, Sex, says: On this date an FBI agent reported to his superior that D.C. businessman John Monroe had allegedly bragged that he had "no fear of the F.B.I inasmuch as he 'was the only one who had positive proof that J. Edgar Hoover is a fairy.'" His report was not relayed to Hoover until January 18, 1944. (Monroe was being investigated for having used his government connections to secure dismissal of a suit by the Office of Price Administration against a Brooklyn baking company.)

On January 18, 1944, Hoover protested to the special agent in charge of the FBI's New York Field office about this "gross" mishandling of the rumor and demanded to know "why this matter was not reported from Dec 17 to Jan 18." Hoover simultaneously ordered his senior aides to take "vigorous action" to address this failure "to promtly report" the homosexual allegation to Hoover. The Director also asked that Monroe be made to "put up or shut up" concerning the allegation about Hoover. FBI Assistant Director Louis Nichols was sent to confront Monroe and "dress down" and threaten him with "crim[inal] slander unless can [he can] prove" the allged allegations. Monroe signed a statement denying to Nichols that he had made the aspersion about Hoover, claiming that he himself was the victim of character assassination. (Monroe was at that time involved in a libel suit with the columnist Drew Pearson, and told Nichols his suspicion that Pearson had passed this rumor to the FBI.) <Check Pearson's and Jack Anderson's FBI files?> Hoover did not believe Monroe's denial and he remained a subject of FBI investigations. Monroe was indicated in 1945 and convicted in 1946 for violating price ceilings set by the Office of Price Administration.

1944, June

This month an Office of Strategic Services employee named Towell contacted the FBI's wartime security divison to obtain permission for an OSS agent to "select copies of obscene material" from FBI files. The material was to be used to counteract a Japanese program which sent out obscene photos of American girls in an effort to show the lax morals of Americans. The OSS planned to disseminate similar photos of Japanese girls. He was advised that the FBI had "a collection of 25 to 30 photsgraphs of this nature" in its Obscene File. Hoover allowed an OSS agent to "obtain copies". See also: 1951, May.

1945, September 2

"the postwar rumors [about J. Edgar Hoover's homosexuality] were probably generated by one of Hoover’s political enemies in the CIA".

1946

Athan Theoharis provides FBI files about a Detroit businessman who, during a trip to New York City, made remarks to his host suggesting that J. Edgar Hoover was homosexual. An agent from the FBI's Detroit office, reporting on his interview with the businessman, said he had warned the man that if he ever again called Hoover a homosexual he "might take care of him right there on the spot." The Detroit agent predicted that the man "will not repeat such a statement in the future." The agent described the man has "scared to death" that the FBI was "going to investigate him".

1948

Kinsey report on the sexuality of human males.

1948-1971

FBI Surveillance of Mattachine Society, 1948-1971

1948, January

Anthony Leviero/Lawrence Spivak

Hoover receives a rumor that Anthony Leviero, a New York Times reporter, has been commissioned by the publisher of The American Mercury publisher, Lawrence Spivak, to write "a highly critical 'smear' article in the nature of a profile" which would charge Hoover "with perversion." The article would also allegedly contend that Hoover claimed "personal credit" for the accomplishments of local police, other government departments," and other FBI associates, and had taken sides in politically-relevant investigations. To respond to this alleged threat Hoover and his associates mounted a multi-pronged attack. Tolson accosted Spivak in a restaurant and asked how the "smear article" was developing. Louis Nichols contacted a former business partner of Spivak's, asking to kill the article. Nichols also met with Spivak and Leviero, who denied the piece on Hoover was a "smear".