LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
PAST Out: Who Was Roy Cohn? |
by David Bianco |
Roy Cohn was the right-hand man of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose name recalls one of the most repressive eras in American politics. A ruthless, ambitious, and unethical attorney, Cohn was also a closeted gay Jew who used his power against other Jews and other gay people. Born in New York City in 1927, Cohn came by his fierce ambition naturally. His father was an assistant district attorney in the Bronx who entered a loveless marriage with a rich woman in order to "buy" himself a judgeship. Early on, Cohn acquired his taste for backroom politics by listening to his father's Tammany Hall cronies talk shop after dinner at the Cohns' apartment. An ace student, Cohn graduated from Columbia Law School at 20, passed the bar at 21, and became the youngest assistant U.S. attorney. The case that launched his career was the 1951 trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of leaking information about the atomic bomb to the Soviets. Cohn was one of four attorneys who successfully prosecuted them for treason, but it was he alone who convinced the judge, an old family friend, to impose the death penalty. Though the Rosenbergs' guilt has been the subject of much controversy in the ensuing decades, Cohn always maintained that he "never had two seconds doubt" about the case. Cohn's work in the Rosenberg trial earned him a position in the Truman administration working on espionage and subversion cases for the Department of Justice. His career soared even higher in January 1953, when Senator McCarthy chose Cohn over Robert Kennedy as chief counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. For the next 18 months, Cohn's vicious and single-minded ferreting out of suspected Communists and homosexuals in the government's employ made his name a household word. Cohn brought to the committee his good friend, G. David Schine, a wealthy young man whose family owned a chain of hotels. Schine's only qualification for his unpaid position as "consultant" seems to have been that he admired Cohn and McCarthy and had written an eight-page booklet called "Definition of Communism," which he placed in all the rooms of his family's hotels. Cohn lived by a strict code of loyalty to his friends. When Schine was drafted and came close to being sent to Korea, Cohn relentlessly attempted to get his friend an official assignment on the committee. Unable to pull the necessary strings, Cohn resorted to intimidating the Secretary of the Army, Robert Stevens. Charges and countercharges of bribery flew. The Army accused Cohn of threatening to investigate their ranks unless Private Schine got a cushy assignment. Cohn maintained that the Army was holding Schine "hostage" until Cohn agreed to ignore the Army's infiltration by Communists. The televised Army-McCarthy hearings, initiated by the Senate to explore the allegations, began in April 1954 and were viewed by an estimated 20 million people. Cohn's unwavering devotion to Schine (as well as their fact-finding trip to Europe together in 1953, compliments of taxpayers) suggested that they were lovers, though Cohn was probably just infatuated with the handsome Schine. During the hearings, several members of the Senate baited Cohn, pressuring him about his "special interest" in Schine. At one low point, Joseph Welch, the Army's attorney, demanded to know the origins of a doctored photo of Secretary Stevens smiling at Schine: Welch: Did you think this [photo] came from a pixie?... McCarthy: Will the counsel for my benefit defineI think he might be an expert on thatwhat a pixie is? Welch: Yes, I should say, Senator, that a pixie is a close relative of a fairy. Shall I proceed, sir? Have I enlightened you? The room erupted in laughter, to Cohn's humiliation. Cohn's biographer calls the photo McCarthy and Cohn's "smoking gun," the proof of their mendacity. By December 1954, Cohn had resigned and McCarthy was censured by the Senate. The senator died two years later of alcoholism. Throughout his life, Cohn called McCarthy "the greatest man I ever worked for." Over the next 30 years, Cohn built a high-powered law career in New York, with clients like John Gotti, Donald Trump, and Bianca Jagger. His successful technique was to bully his opposition. "I bring out the worst in my enemies," Cohn boasted, "and that's how I defeat them." Between 1963 and 1971, Cohn himself was indicted three times for crimes such as perjury and witness tampering, but he was acquitted in each case. During the 1980s, however, further allegations of unethical conduct finally led to Cohn's disbarment just weeks before he died of AIDS on August 2, 1986. Though he himself had been the target of homophobia, to his dying day Cohn refused to acknowledge being gay. He had a succession of young companions his friends dubbed "the nephews," but he often appeared at public gatherings with a "beard" on his arm. At one time, he fostered the belief that he was involved with his friend Barbara Walters. One of Cohn's final campaigns was lobbying against New York City's gay rights ordinance. He denounced the politicians who supported the bill as "defending the fags." Cohn also vehemently denied having AIDS, claiming to have liver cancer instead. His obituaries outed him as a person with AIDS. The AIDS quilt contains a panel embroidered with Cohn's name, his dates, and the words "BullyCowardVictim." David Bianco is the author of Gay Essentials ( www.alyson.com ), a collection of his history columns. He can be reached at DaveBianco@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 1, Feb. 4, 2000. |