Books

‘Secret City’ reveals long hidden stories of gay purges in federal gov’t

Gay journalist uncovers reports of closeted officials serving under 10 presidents

Published

4 years ago

June 1, 2022

(Book cover via Amazon)

A new book released this week called “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington” is drawing the attention of LGBTQ rights activists and longtime Washington insiders alike for its never-before-told stories about dozens of closeted mostly gay men and at least one lesbian who worked for 10 U.S. presidents beginning with Franklin Roosevelt through George H.W. Bush.

The book ends with the role LGBTQ people played under the 11th president it covers — Bill Clinton — by pointing out that Clinton was the first president to appoint openly gay or lesbian people to high-level administration positions.

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The book’s author, gay journalist James Kirchick, says he chose to end the book with his coverage of Clinton because Clinton, for the most part, ended the restrictions against gays and lesbians serving in sensitive civilian government jobs by lifting the longstanding ban on approving government security clearances for gays.

In an interview with the Blade, Kirchick said he began his research for the book over a decade ago in his role as a Washington reporter with a longstanding interest in the Cold War and the U.S. government’s struggle to address the perceived threat of communism promoted by the then Soviet Union at the conclusion of World War II.

He said that prior to that time homosexuality was perceived as a “sin, a very bad sin,” but not a threat to the safety and security of the country. But that changed at the start of World War II when the country developed what Kirchick calls a bureaucracy for managing military and governmental secrets needed to protect the country from outside threats.

“From the Second World War until the end of the Cold War that followed, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington,” Kirchick writes in the introduction to his book. “Nothing posed a more potent threat to a political career or exerted a more fearsome grip on the nation’s collective psyche, than the love expressed between people of the same sex,” he writes.

Kirchick notes the development widely observed by historians and LGBTQ activists that homosexuals in important government positions were perceived to be a threat to national security because societal bias and official government restrictions forced them to hide their sexual orientation and made them susceptible to blackmail by foreign government agents seeking to uncover U.S. military secrets.

In his 2006 book, “The Lavender Scare,” gay historian David K. Johnson reports how large numbers of gays were denied security clearances and forced out of their jobs because of fears of security breaches that Johnson said were never shown to have happened.

Kirchick, who said he was inspired by Johnson’s book, expands on “Lavender Scare’s” reporting by providing detailed stories of dozens of individual gay people or people incorrectly thought to be homosexual who became ensnared in investigations into their alleged sexual orientation while working for at least 10 U.S. presidents.

The presidents the book covers include Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

A statement announcing the release of the book says Kirchick obtained thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviewed more than 100 people, and viewed documents from presidential libraries and archives across the country to obtain the information he needed for “Secret City.”

Among those forced out of their job was Sumner Wells, a high-level State Department official and diplomatic adviser under Franklin Roosevelt. In “Secret City,” Kirchick tells how despite Wells’ reputation as an invaluable adviser to Roosevelt, the president made it clear Wells could not remain in the administration after word got out that he had solicited one or more young men for sex who worked as porters on passenger trains that Wells had taken to travel to different parts of the country.

Not all of the book’s stories involve government officials. In one story Kirchick tells about Oliver Sipple, a former U.S. Marine who saved the life of President Gerald Ford by deflecting the gun of a woman who attempted to shoot Ford as he emerged from an event in San Francisco. The widely publicized incident prompted some gay activists to publicly disclose that Sipple was gay and should be hailed as a hero.

The book reports that Sipple was not out publicly and became emotionally distraught after being outed. His parents reacted in a hostile way after learning from press reports that their son was a homosexual and told him he was no longer welcome to visit his parents, according to the book.

A far more positive story emerged during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. The book reports on a development reported by the Washington Blade and other media outlets at the time it became known in 1979 when Jamie Shoemaker, a gay man who worked as a linguist with the U.S. National Security Agency, or NSA, had his security clearance revoked and was told he would be fired after officials at the highly secretive agency discovered he was gay.

Shoemaker contested the effort to dismiss him and retained D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who was a recognized expert in helping gays contest efforts to revoke government security clearances, to represent him. In a development that surprised many political observers, former Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who Carter had appointed as director of the NSA, determined that Shoemaker was not a threat to the agency’s secrets and could retain his security clearance and his job.

Inman made that determination after Kameny and Shoemaker made it clear that Shoemaker was an out gay man who had no problem disclosing his sexual orientation at work if doing so did not jeopardize his job. Shoemaker became the first known gay person to be allowed to retain a high-level security clearance at a U.S. government intelligence agency such as the NSA and possibly at any government agency or department.

Shoemaker, who has since retired, told the Blade that in recent years, an LGBTQ employee group at the NSA has invited him to return to the agency’s headquarters as a guest speaker for the group’s LGBTQ Pride event with the full approval of NSA officials. The welcoming of Shoemaker at the NSA in recent years is viewed by activists as a development illustrating the dramatic changes that have taken place in support of LGBTQ workers at security agencies like the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI.

But Kirchick includes in his book a slightly less positive story about one of Carter’s White House aides, Midge Costanza, who Kirchick says was known by political insiders to be a lesbian who never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation. Costanza became widely known and praised by LGBTQ activists when she invited LGBTQ leaders from across the country to the White Houses to provide her and the Carter administration with a briefing on LGBTQ issues. The meeting became the first known time that gay and lesbian rights advocates had been invited to the White House for an official meeting.

Carter himself was out of town at the time of the meeting for a pre scheduled visit to the presidential retreat at Camp David, White House officials said at the time.

Kirchick reports that in the following year or two, during Carter’s first and only term in office as president, higher up White House officials who Kirchick says were known as the “Georgia Mafia” because of their association with Carter at the time he was Georgia governor, disparaged Costanza over claims that she was pushing positions too far to the left. Among other things, the White House officials moved Costanza’s office from a prestigious location near the Oval Office to an out of the way basement space. Costanza a short time later resigned and returned to Rochester, New York, where she began her political career.

Despite what Kirchick said was a setback of sorts for the LGBTQ cause by the outcome of Costanza’s tenure at the White House, he writes in his book that the situation soon improved for gay people working in the federal government in Washington.

“The story of the secret city is also the story of a nation overcoming one of its deepest fears,” Kirchick writes in the concluding chapter of “Secret City.”

“Only when gay people started living their lives openly did the hysteria start to become plain for what its was,” he writes. “Across the broad sweep of American history, no minority group has witnessed a more rapid transformation in its status, in the eyes of their fellow citizens, than gay people in the second half of the twentieth century,” Kirchick concludes.

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Books

New books reveal style trends for a more enlightened century

Guidelines that hint about gendering clothing are out

Published

6 days ago

May 3, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

Books about Fashion and Style
By various authors
c.2026, various publishers
$19.95 – $29.95

Don’t look now, but your legs are showing.

It’s OK, it’s almost summertime and you want to show both skin and style. So how about a few hints for looking your best? Check out these great books and get stylin’.

Who says there are rules about fashion? Wearing white before Memorial Day is OK; socks with sandals not so much? Fine, but in “Bending the Rules: Fashion Beyond the Binary” by Camille Benda with Gwyn Conaway (Princeton Architectural Press, $29.95), you’ll see that any guidelines that hint about gendering clothing are oh-so-last century.
Along with lively, fun narrative, there are lots of photos in this book, ads for how clothing used to be worn along male-female lines, and short biographies of some of today’s best designers. Here, you can check out prom dresses from the 1950s and new haute couture gowns practically right off the runway – and see how one parallels with the other. The timeline reaches back centuries, so you get a nice idea of where certain kinds of clothing originated and how it’s relevant today – making what’s inside here perfect for browsing.

Pick up this book, in fact, and you might also pick up some ideas for filling your closet and creating your very own style.

The fashion you wear on your body isn’t all you’ll find in “Pretend to Be Fancy: A Field Guide to Style and Sophistication” by Whitney Marston Pierce (Chronicle Books, $19.95). You’ll also read about other nice things you can have.

So you’re not a pinky-in-the-air kind of person, whatever. You can easily hang with those who are, once you read and absorb this book.

Tongue-tied at fancy soirees? Not anymore, there are tips for talking here. What do you know about canapes, hors d’oeuvres, and the kind of foods you don’t get at the corner c-store? How do you make a charcuterie that everyone will Ooooooh over? And how do you give a gift for the person whose taste seems scads better than yours? That’s all in here, along with what to drink, how to dress, and how to make every corner of your home look like something right out of a high-end magazine.

Will this book make you chic? Possibly, yes. Will it help you get invited to all the best parties? Maybe, but for sure, it’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you feel fabulous, look fabulous, and live your best life with the surroundings you deserve. Out May 5, so put it on your list.

But let’s say you need more ideas. You have questions or thorny issues with fashion that you really need answering. That’s when you ask for a talented fashionista at your local bookstore or library, that knowledgeable someone knows books and knows how to get what you need to be your most dazzling, best-dressed, finest-appointed self in a home you can be proud of, with comfortable furniture that will be the envy of everyone who sees it.

In the meantime, grab the above titles, because these books got legs.

Books

Susan Lucci on love, loss, and ‘All My Children’

New book chronicles life of iconic soap star

Published

4 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy of Blackstone Publishing)

‘La Lucci’
By Susan Lucci with Laura Morton
c.2026, Blackstone Publishing
$29.99/196 pages

They’re among the world’s greatest love stories.

You know them well: Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Abelard and Heloise. Phoebe and Langley. Cliff and Nina. Jesse and Angie, Opal and Palmer, Palmer and Daisy, Tad and Dixie. Now read “La Lucci” by Susan Lucci, with Laura Morton, and you might also think of Susan and Helmut.

When she was a very small girl, Susan Lucci loved to perform. Also when she was young, she learned that words have power. She vowed to use them for good for the rest of her life.

Her parents, she says, were supportive and her family, loving. Because of her Italian heritage, she was “ethnic looking” but Lucci’s mother was careful to point out dark-haired beauties on TV and elsewhere, giving Lucci a foundation of confidence.

That’s just one of the things for which Lucci says she’s grateful. In fact, she says, “Prayers of gratitude are how I begin and end each day.”

She is particularly grateful for becoming a mother to her two adult children, and to the doctors who saved her son’s life when he was a newborn.

Lucci writes about gratitude for her long career. She was a keystone character on TV’s “All My Children,” and she learned a lot from older actors on the show, and from Agnes Nixon, the creator of it. She says she still keeps in touch with many of her former costars.

She is thankful for her mother’s caretakers, who stepped in when dementia struck. Grateful for more doctors, who did heart-saving work when Lucci had a clogged artery. Grateful for friends, opportunities, life, grandchildren, and a career that continues.

And she’s grateful for the love she shared with her husband, Helmut Huber, who died nearly four years ago. Grateful for the chance to grieve, to heal, and to continue.

And yet, she says of her husband: “He was never timid, but I know he was afraid at the end, and that kills me down to my soul.”

“It’s been 15 years since Erica Kane and I parted ways,” says author Susan Lucci (with Laura Morton), and she says that people still approach her to confirm or deny rumors of the show’s resurrection. There’s still no answer to that here (sorry, fans), but what you’ll find inside “La Lucci” is still exceptionally generous.

If this book were just filled with stories, you’d like it just fine. If it was only about Lucci’s faith and her gratitude – words that happen to appear very frequently here – you’d still like reading it. But Lucci tells her stories of family, children and “All My Children,” while also offering help to couples who’ve endured miscarriage, women who’ve had heart problems, and widow(ers) who are spinning and need the kindness of someone who’s lived loss, too.

These are the other things you’ll find in “La Lucci,” in a voice you’ll hear in your head, if you spent your lunch hours glued to the TV back in the day. It’s a comfortable, fun read for fans. It’s a story you’ll love.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

Books

Risking it all for love during World War II

New book follows story of Black, gay expat in Paris

Published

1 month ago

April 5, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy Viking)

‘The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram’
By Ethelene Whitmire
c.2026, Viking
$30/308 pages

You couldn’t escape it.

When you fell in love, that was it: you were there for good. Leaving your amour’s side was unthinkable, turning away was impossible. You’d do anything for that person you loved – even, as in the new biography, “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram” by Ethelene Whitmire, you’d escape toward danger.

On Aug. 28, 1938, Reed Peggram boarded a ship from Hoboken, N.J., hoping to “become a proper gentleman” and fulfill his dreams. A prolific writer and Harvard scholar of comparative literature, he’d recently been awarded the Rosenwald Fellowship, which put him in the company of literary stars like Du Bois, Hurston, and Hughes.

Both Peggram’s mother and grandmother were then domestic workers, and they had big expectations for him. Reed himself was eager to study abroad, for professional and personal reasons; he was “determined to become a French professor and an accomplished linguist” and “He also hoped to find love.”

What better place to do it than in Paris?

Outgoing and confident, Peggram made friends easily and had no trouble moving “through the world of his white male peers.” Where he faltered was in his lack of funds. He relied on the kindness of his many friends – one of whom introduced Peggram to a “man who would become so pivotal in his life,” a Danish man named Arne.

Peggram and Arne had a lot in common, and they began to enmesh their lives and dreams of living in the United States. But there were complications: homosexuality was largely forbidden, World War II was in its early stages, and it quickly became apparent that it was dangerous to stay in Europe.

And yet, Peggram loved Arne. He refused to leave without him and so, while most visiting Black Americans fled the war in Europe, “Reed was trying to stay.”

There’s so much more to the story inside “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram,” so much to know about Reed himself. Problem is, it’s a long haul to get to the good stuff.

In her introduction, author Ethelene Whitmire explains how she came to this tale and yes, it needs telling but probably not with the staggering number of inconsequential details here. Peggram moved homes a lot, and many people were involved in keeping him in Europe. That alone can be overwhelming; add the fact that costs and other monetary issues are mentioned in what seems like nearly every page, and you may wonder if you’ll ever find the reason for the book’s subtitle.

It’s there, nearly halfway through the book, which is when the tale takes a tender, urgent turn — albeit one with determination, rashness, and a dash of faux nonchalance. Also, if you’re expecting an unhappily-ever-after because, after all, it’s a World War II tale, don’t assume anything.

Reading this book will take a certain amount of patience, so skip it if you don’t have that fortitude. If you’re OK with minuscule details and want a heart-pounder, though, “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram” might be a good escape.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.