Terry Gross, whose daily program "Fresh Air" appears on hundreds of NPR stations across America, dearly loves to interview current and former New York Times reporters. On Tuesday, the guest was former Times reporter Tim Weiner, and they discussed his new book on J. Edgar Hoover.
Naturally, since it was Valentine's Day, Gross tried repeatedly to get Weiner to agree with the common leftist insistence that Hoover was latently homosexual. Weiner said "This is a myth," but then Gross tried to twist her way around to a deeply submerged truth, that perhaps he had a "sexless" homosexuality. Maybe he wouldn't allow himself a personal life "because he couldn't accept his own homosexual orientation." Weiner wasn't buying.
He said: "Interesting theory. Interesting theory, but I will leave it to Hollywood, because it has no place in history. None."
While Weiner and Gross shared the belief that Hoover was paranoid and shredded the Constitution, they couldn't agree on the gay-slash-cross-dresser thing:
GROSS: Why was he -- to the extent that you can tell -- why was he so intent on destroying homosexuals and making sure that they couldn't teach, they couldn't serve in government?
Hoover didn't see a dime's worth of difference there. They were one and the same. This was hammered into him when the FBI dealt with one of the most famous informants in the history of American government, Whittaker Chambers, who helped bring down secret Soviet espionage rings in this country. He was a well-known writer at Time magazine, writer and editor. Chambers was a secret homosexual and a secret communist. Hoover saw a nexus there, and he never let that thought go.
GROSS: And President Eisenhower issued an order in 1953 banning homosexuals from government service. Who took the initiative on that? Was it Hoover or Eisenhower?
WEINER: Oh, it was certainly Hoover who brought this threat, as it were, to the president's attention. I mean, Dwight Eisenhower was in the military all his life. He could not have been unaware that, you know, there was a tradition of homosexuality in the military. But he also thought that it was an enormous security threat, and he authorized, through executive order, a formal ban on homosexuals in government service. Now, of course, the $64,000 question was: Did Hoover do this because he was a repressed homosexual closet case, and he was using his rage to destroy homosexuals?
GROSS: Thank you for asking that because I was about to...
WEINER: And the answer is...
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
GROSS: I was about to ask that. And it's certainly the case that the movie "J. Edgar" kind of makes.
WEINER: This is a myth. It's been around since 1937, since Hoover went after homosexuals and government. It was - gasoline was poured on the embers of this by Bill Donovan, Hoover's mortal enemy in government. It's been around forever. Now, what do we know that this? Hoover never married. He never had an adult relationship with a woman, other than his mother, whom he lived with until he was 43, the day she died. Hoover was also inseparable from his number two man at the FBI, Clyde Tolson.
Now, the evidence - if you can call it that - that Hoover was a secret homosexual rests almost entirely with an account by a British journalist who's only witness is a convicted perjurer. The evidence on the other side is strong. Hoover never loved anyone, except his dogs. He was married to the FBI. And the idea that he was a secret homosexual who, you know, wore tutus for fun is a myth. Unfortunately, that's the only thing anybody seems to know about him today.
GROSS: Putting the tutus aside for a second...
WEINER: Yeah.
GROSS: ...why isn't it possible that he was a really closeted homosexual who couldn't admit it to himself and therefore couldn't have a homosexual relationship, but was inseparable from Clyde Tolson in what you describe may have very well have been a sexless marriage?
WEINER: Well, that's one of his biographer's definitions. That may be close to the truth, but - and they did, you know, go on the road together and it's possible that, you know, somewhere in a hotel in San Diego there's evidence of this, but I doubt it. If you look at the man and you listen to people who knew him and worked with him, it's almost inconceivable for this man to have had a secret life. His entire life was devoted to the uncovering and collection of secrets on other people, including their sex lives. Could he have carried off a double life like that? When you read his work, when you listen to his tapes, when you investigate the great investigator, there's no there there.
GROSS: But no, a part of it would be not so much that he had a double life, but that he did allow himself to have a personal life because he couldn't accept his own homosexual orientation. That would be one of the arguments.
WEINER: Interesting theory. Interesting theory, but I will leave it to Hollywood, because it has no place in history. None.
