The list of evil queer Jews with any sort of public profile isn't long, but Roy Cohn, lawyer to the worst actors in mid-20th century America, amoral snake, and Svengali to Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump, easily comes out on top. (Although he was a bottom in his drug-and-money-fueled pursuit of the handsome blond men who tickled his fancy.)I had some hazy knowledge of Roy Cohn before the AIDS crisis because my father was vehemently against McCarthyism and all it stood for, fueling his hatred not only of "Tail Gunner Joe" but other slimy opportunists who used the Red Scare to further their political careers, notably Richard Nixon.Interestingly -- and this is little commented upon -- Cohn's homosexual proclivities landed McCarthy in the hot water that finally scalded his seemingly impenetrable skin. Cohn became infatuated with a rich, handsome young anti-communist crusader, G. David Schine, whom he brought onto McCarthy's staff as an unpaid "chief consultant." Though Schine was straight and probably never returned Cohn's sexual interest, that didn't stop the young lawyer from conducting a campaign of hectoring telephone calls and threats to military officials when Schine was drafted into the army. The military refused to grant Private Schine special privileges, and Cohn, maddened by encountering an entity that wouldn't cave, vowed to "wreck the Army" if his demands were not met. This led to the Army-McCarthy hearings, which exposed the senator's dishonest, bullying tactics before a wide television audience. (The Army's defense attorney publicly shamed McCarthy by angrily demanding, "Have you no decency?" -- a tactic that would get no traction in these postlapsarian times.) Losing his credibility, McCarthy was censured in the Senate and drank himself to death three years later.
All the while, Cohn and McCarthy destroyed the lives and careers of numerous homosexuals in a collateral Lavender Scare because, of course, identified sex perverts were susceptible to blackmail and had to be stamped out as yet another security risk. Leaving a disgraced McCarthy and having inflicted incalculable damage upon the struggling and inchoate gay community, Cohn returned to private practice as a New York attorney. Because I wasn't a mafia don (Carmine Galante) or following the antics of the uber-rich (Aristotle Onassis), the extremely corrupt (Roger Stone), and the rampant avariciousness of the rising fascist elite (he introduced Trump to Rupert Murdoch in the 1970s), I wasn't aware of Cohn's poisonous but extremely lucrative calling as lawyer and advisor to the richest dregs of humanity.
On some level, I knew that Cohn was a faggot. When he died of AIDS in 1986, protesting loudly to the end that he was afflicted with liver cancer, I consigned him to the same bin of self-hating homosexuals as Liberace and Freddie Mercury. Still, it was a shock to run across the panel in the AIDS quilt that some compassionate individual had fashioned for this rotted disaster whose evil against homosexuals surpassed even that of the gay Nazi, Ernst Röhm.
But for another queer Jew, Tony Kushner, the life and death of Roy Cohn led to the monumental achievement of Angels In America, first performed in San Francisco in 1991. Kushner's portrayal of Cohn as a closeted, power-hungry hypocrite (a different kind of screaming queen) has seared him forever into the American consciousness (probably with greater humanity than he deserved). Through the medium of the play, Kushner brought other facets of Cohn's evils to light. In his delirium, he is confronted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, whom he prosecuted by extorting a false confession from her brother-in-law and who was executed after Cohn illegally lobbied the judge for the death penalty. "I'd have pulled the switch myself if they let me," Cohn brags in the play.
Cohn conducted his professional life as a closeted gay man (although his homosexuality was very much an open secret), but he couldn't run away from his Jewish identity. His name and origins in the affluent Jewish community of the Bronx marked him indelibly. He was a mama's boy, of course, but that's a condition shared by both gay men and Jews. In Cohn's case, Mama was even more of a warping influence on her only child than the usual run of such characters. Mother and son lived together until her death in 1967 and she was constantly attentive to his grades, appearance and relationships. When Cohn's father insisted that Roy be sent to a summer camp, his mother rented a house nearby. Predictably, after his mother's death, Cohn's frenzied promiscuity reached almost visible heights.
Writing that Cohn's sins finally caught up with him would be nice. In 1975, Cohn entered the hospital room of a dying and unconscious client, forced a pen into his hand, and applied it to a document appointing himself as executor. (The gambit didn't work.) He beat three trials for unethical and unprofessional conduct before finally being disbarred in 1986, but by that time, he was on his way out. He died at age 59, seemingly without remorse or any self-awareness. But how could he hate himself as much as others did?
In 1950, communists were identified with two minorities–Jews and homosexuals. Cohn was both. What better way to inoculate himself against the slanders he knew would be coming his way than by proving himself the most resolute of red baiters and acquiring enough clout to silence those who threatened to out him or subject him to antisemitism? He perfected the techniques of bullying and passed his playbook on to his mentee, Donald Trump: never admit wrongdoing, never apologize, and attack attack attack.
What a legacy!
--Dr. Robert Philipson
Read more about Dr. Robert Philipson's personal connection to this foray in My Mother Scotches A Communist Smear Campaign
SHOGA FILMS is a non-profit production and education company. Please consider making a donation to help fund our efforts
Comments