Perverts Called Government Peril Gabrielson, G.O.P. Chief, Says They Are as Dangerous as Reds — Truman’s Trip Hit

Background: The Lavender Scare emerged simultaneously with the Red Scare, which was an attempt to demonize, locate, and remove Communists in U.S. government employment. The media as well as the government conflated communists and LGBTQ+ people as subversives. This New York Times newspaper article highlighted the Republican Party’s fears of homosexuality.

Washington, April 18—Guy George Gabrielson, Republican National Chairman, asserted today that “sexual perverts who have infiltrated our Government in recent years: were perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists.” 

He elevated what he called the ‘homosexual angle” to the national political level in his first news letter of 1950, addressed to about 7,000 party workers, under the heading: “This Is the News from Washington. 

Giving National Committee support to the campaign of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, against the State Department, but without mentioning him by name, Mr. Gabrielson said:

“As Americans, it is difficult for us to believe that a National Administration would go to such length to cover up and protect subversives, traitors, working against their country in high Governmental places. But it is happening. If there is one more (Alger) Hiss or (Judith) Coplon still in a key spot, he should be ferreted out. It’s no red herring.

“Perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists are the sexual perverts who have infiltrated our Government in recent years. The State Department has confessed that it has had to fire ninety-one of these. It is the talk of Washington and of the Washington correspondents corps.

“The country would be more aroused over this tragic angle of the situation if it were not for the difficulties of the newspapers and radio commentators in adequately presenting the facts, while respecting the decency of their American audiences.

Source: New York Times, April 19, 1950, page 25.