Comic

Outed

Lbj's Confidant and the Arrest That Transformed a Presidency

"Perhaps Lyndon Johnson's closest presidential adviser, Walter Jenkins was arrested in 1964 for soliciting oral sex in a YMCA near the White House. This triggered a huge, if now forgotten, scandal that reshaped the Johnson presidency and the norms of Washington scandalmongering. Timothy Stewart-Winter shows that the impacts of such Lavender Scare persecutions were felt not only by the men but by their families, and in this case the First Family. Jenkins's subsequent political banishment had long-ranging effects, from how Johnson conducted his presidency to how DC reporters began to be more explicit and salacious in reporting on political and sexual scandals"-- Provided by publisher.