Posted on 02/21/2009 10:28:35 AM PST by kellynla
When Beltway insider Jack Valenti died two years ago at age 85, he was playing the role of intermediary between Washington and Hollywood as the theatrical, snowy-haired president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
But back in 1964, Valenti was a Houston ad executive newly installed at the White House as a top aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. And J. Edgar Hoover's FBI found itself quietly consumed with the vexing question of whether Valenti was gay.
Previously confidential FBI files show that Hoover's deputies set out to determine whether Valenti, who had married two years earlier, maintained a relationship with a male commercial photographer. Republican Party operatives reportedly were pursuing a parallel investigation with the help of a retired FBI agent, bureau files show. No proof was ever found, but the files, obtained by The Washington Post under the federal Freedom of Information Act, provide further insight into the conduct of the FBI under Hoover, for whom damaging personal information on the powerful was a useful tool in his interactions with presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard M. Nixon.
Johnson initially blocked the FBI from obtaining a sworn statement from Valenti or approaching the photographer, asserting that Valenti was "attracted to the women and not to the men," files show. But under FBI pressure, the president relented and approved an investigation of his close friend.
In the Washington of the early 1960s, allegations or proof of homosexuality could end a career. In October 1964, Walter Jenkins, another senior aide in the Johnson administration, was arrested for allegedly having sex in the men's room of the Washington YMCA. The news leaked just before the election, and Johnson, rushing to stem the political damage, quickly secured the resignation of Jenkins, then his longest-serving aide.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Actually, per Bill Clinton, he wasn't having sex, but going south on a young man in the YMCA bathroom. No truth the the rumors that Walter Jenkins inspired Jacques Morali to write "YMCA."
Why does it matter if he was gay or not? My nephew is gay, no big deal.
Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money.
Only applies to Republicans now. It's a badge of honor for Dems.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that Moyers and Hoover were cross dressing fetish buddies.
response: True. America still had morals then.
I dont’ care what anyone eats in bed.
The Hoover cross-dressing thing was KGB disinformation.
Look it up.
And he is standing :-)
Jack Valenti ........ Ted 'Baxter'
Anyway, I wish J. Edgar Hoover would have *leaked* JFK's and RFK's FBI files to someone, like the Chicago Tribune(1). That would have put an end to 'Camelot' pdq. And RFK would have had to spent his time hiding under rocks like the slimy CRIMINAL slug he was.
Which reminds me, when is Sirhan Sirhan getting paroled? All he did was allegedly shoot one guy. Normally that'd get you Manslaughter and about 10 years in CA.
(1) the Trib wasn't exactly 'Democrat Friendly' back then.
“Why does it matter if he was gay or not?”
If it wasn’t important the left would not have worked so hard to create the myth that J Edgar Hoover was a cross dressing homosexual, neither of which is true.
Even in this article they promote the idea and on every thread that mentions Hoover you will see freepers that believe it.
“Historians have suggested that Hoover himself may have been gay and that the bureau’s fascination with the sex lives of others was a manifestation of deeper currents in his psychology. Hoover never married and was a constant companion of his longtime FBI aide Clyde Tolson.”
Gee, I thought Hoover knew all the queers in Washington...so why would he need Moyers’ help? Or was he just subcontracting within the (Ah-oo-gah) community?
LOL!! Nice one! How's it going, RR?
Here's an oldie but goodie:
Q. What's five feet tall and a mile long?
A. An Italian parade.
(Or, may substitute any Celtic ethnic group as the occasion demands: Irish, Welsh, etc.)
Per Ex-FBI, I heard that Hoover was NOT a cross-dresser, but was a homosexual.
The bottom line is that Hoover was not homosexual and he was not a cross dresser period.
Thanks, I’ll check that out. I certainly don’t want to be propagating KGB crapola.
I’m doing great! Got more snow today but, oh well. We have our Lincoln Day dinner tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to that. How are you?
We had snow this week, but it went away quickly. I think spring is on its way! That is a great thing! I'm taking a break from cleaning the house, so how should I be? LOL!! Have a great Lincoln Day dinner.
It mattered a lot, just as JFK's numerous heterosexual affairs mattered a lot. If KGB or the mafia knew he was homosexual, they could use several tactics that would make him a very easy target for compromise, and he had access to a ton of government information. They could send a homosexual agent to start an affair and get information through pillow talk, or they could use the direct route and tell him, "You get us this information, or the whole world finds out and your career is DOA."
Same thing with Kennedy. If the affairs were outed, he would have been history, and contrary to press reports of the time, Kennedy was not a popular President. He barely won election, and was in big trouble in the polls for re-election when he was assassinated. If an affair had hit the front page, he'd have been out of consideration for re-election, and probably would have had to resign.
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