Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington

Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington

The New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 Named one of Vanity Fair 's “Best Books of 2022 ” “Not since Robert Caro’s Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret City is not gay history. It is American history.” ― George Stephanopoulos Washington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchick’s Secret City . For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power. Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of “the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States,” James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century. Cultural and political anxiety over gay people sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting everything from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the struggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative movement. Among other revelations, Kirchick tells of the World War II–era gay spymaster who pioneered seduction as a tool of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexuality was discovered, and how allegations of a “homosexual ring” controlling Ronald Reagan nearly derailed his 1980 election victory. Magisterial in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history. “ Secret City by James Kirchick, is a sprawling and enthralling history of how the gay subculture in Washington, D.C., long in shadow, emerged into the klieg lights...A luxurious, slow-rolling Cadillac of a book, not to be mastered in one sitting . As an epic of a dark age, complex and shaded, Secret City is rewarding in the extreme ." ― The New York Times “I devoured Jamie Kirchick’s riveting Secret City , a landmark that deserves companion histories for London, Paris and other capitals.” ― Bret Stephens, The New York Times “The truth most clearly revealed by Kirchick’s focus on Washington is one that queer historians have emphasized for years: that change was prompted not by those in the halls of power but by activists working well outside of them...So many of those whom Kirchick chronicles seem more compromised by their proximity to power than emboldened by it. That is also a part of the story of gay life in the United States, and Kirchick tells it well. ” ― The New Yorker “James Kirchick has written the definitive book on the intersection of Washington politics and gay and lesbian history. Insightfully written, astutely reasoned, and exhaustively researched through scores of interviews, archives, long-lost articles, and declassified documents, Secret City is an ingenious unicorn of scholarship.” ― Vanity Fair “A robust and meaningful history...Smartly written with a flexible aperture for capturing the big picture of a moment and narrowing in on the tiniest of details.” ―TIME “Throughout Secret City , Kirchick does a masterful job of conveying the flavor of homophobia in each historical era, while using impeccable research to vividly characterize the dozens of various individuals at play in these stories.” ―The Guardian “The existence and influence of LGBTQ people in our nation’s capital is as long as it is invisible. [ Secret City ] examines the unknown or barely known lives of gay people working and living in our nation’s capital, a city known for its mix of power and secrets...An example of the triumph of LGBTQ people in America.” ―NBC News “With Secret City …Kirchick will be catapulted into the ranks of those journalists whose work will be read for generations.” ― New York Sun “Kirchick’s Secret City researches and illuminates just how homosexuality shaped presidential administrations in the 20th century.” ― Parade “...An 800-page tour de force, certainly the most comprehensive history of gay Washington ever written. It’s also more than that. Tracing the strand of how the capital’s big shots treated gays across the decades, Kirchick provides a compelling account of how the bloodless, brutal Washington power game has always worked