The article states that the Kennedys made fun of “Gay Edgar Hoover” but the term “gay” for homosexuals was not in wide use at the time and Hoover was regarded as eccentric more often than perverted.
Seymour Hersh’s THE DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT and Edward Klein’s ALL TOO HUMAN are still two of the great books on the 1000 days of scandals.
Another thing is that Soviet documents showed that they had started the rumors of J. Edgar’s perversion. That’s a pretty big detail to miss.
1938, Bringing Up Baby. Cary Grant in a lady's dressing gown explains "I just went GAY!!"
1949, A Connecticut Yankee, Bill Bendix, Cedric Hardwicke and Bing Crosby sang "Busy Doing Nothing," wherein "and then inspect the rainbows so they'll be bright and GAY!"
The latter can be heard here, in an unmistakeable tone: youtube.com/watch?v=j9oWIrRC7NA
It was in common use in the reel world, but not in the real world.