Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the 1960s, thousands of gay employees were fired or forced to resign from the federal workforce because of their sexuality. Dubbed the Lavender Scare, this wave of repression was also bound up with anti-Communism and fueled by the power of congressional investigation.
The largest of these investigations was launched by the Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments. Often called the Hoey Committee – after its chairman Clyde Hoey, of North Carolina – it heard testimony from federal officials, the military, and District of Columbia police.
This document contains Senator Hoey’s opening statement on the subcommittee’s investigation of the employment of homosexuals in the Federal workforce. Additional pages from the July 14th hearing are available in the National Archives online catalog.
