The Lavender Scare

In 1954, Senator McCarthy launched his own crusade to ferret Communist agents and homosexuals out of the US government. Roy Cohn was his chief counsel. Now, does it seem weird to you that Conan McCarthy would use the power of the Senate to hunt down both gays and communists? Well, lavender scare. It started in 1950 when Senator McCarthy had held up a list during a speech in West Virginia and claimed that the names of 205 card carrying communists who worked in the State Department were on it. A month later, congressional Republicans ordered an investigation into the homosexual problem and the infiltration of sexual perverts and government. And not just that, but before like all of these trials get going in earnest,