Lavender Scare

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1:02My name is Helen Grace James. I was born in 1927 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and I was raised on a dairy farm. I was a very busy kid. I worked on a farm. I loved the animals. I was depended upon to do certain chores. When I was old enough, I was milking cows. I was driving the tractor. I was helping with the harvests. When she was old enough to drive, she delivered orders from her father's butcher shop every Saturday. It was a military family. Her great-great-grandfather was a Union soldier. Her father was in World War I. Her uncles in World War II. Her cousins were in the Army and Navy. So I liked the military because I would talk to them, and it just seemed like a wonderful place to be, to be helping our country, as I thought of it.

2:09They were there to help fight the wars or, you know, be engaged in taking care of us as civilians. She wanted to enlist, but she was too young. So she went to college and got a degree in physical education. She moved to Florida, where family friends helped her get a job as a teacher. But I always had a yearning. I taught there for three years and then decided to enlist. My parents, I don't know if they expected it or they were supportive. What year was this? I enlisted in 52. She was assigned to basic training in Texas and flew from Philadelphia to San Antonio. It was her first time on an airplane.

3:06You get your clothing, you get your shots, you get, you know, and you're assigned to a flight with airmen that are coming in at the same time. And what was your job in the Air Force? I was a radio operator. So I learned code. I learned to type code. I learned to take and type code and send and receive. Was it fun? Were you happy to be continuing this family tradition? Well, I don't know. I loved it. I met, you know, I grew up on a farm. I graduated in a class of 17. You know, it was farm country. It was, you know, I hadn't met a lot of people from other areas. I enjoyed what I did. I loved the Air Force.

3:57It was fun. It was exciting. and it was teaching me a job that I thought was really important. She was responsible for contacting military bases up and down the East Coast every hour, on the hour. They kept a close eye on each plane to see whether anyone deviated from a scheduled flight path. She was assigned to a permanent station, Roslyn Air Force Base on Long Island. We were part of the 26th Air Division Defense Command, and we had constant communication with other bases along the coast. Mitchell and Andrews, we had being, you know, alerting anything that might be untoward. It was Cold War.

4:50We were kind of on alert all the time. Helen spent her days watching and listening during a period of intense suspicion and paranoia in America. She had no idea that she herself was being watched. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

5:18We heard through other airmen from other bases that there was an investigation going on. And that was kind of a rumor. and, you know, come to find out they were already investigating us, which they had been doing for a while, which, of course, we didn't know. Investigating you for what? For where we went. We were being followed. We were being watched. I had a car, so at one point, And one of my friends and I went to get a sandwich at a little restaurant. And it was a place that was really busy, and so we decided to take our sandwiches and go find a place to talk. One of us had just gotten off duty, I think, and so we were hungry.

6:17And we parked and started to eat our sandwiches, and up behind us came an air policeman with the lights on and wanted to know what we were doing. And that was very eerie. That was very frightening. That was, you know, it's like, why are you asking me that? And why were you following me? And, you know, it came about really quickly. Sometimes we would go down to the village, and we could play music on a jukebox and dance. And these were places that were just for women. And so there was a jukebox, you could dance, and there was a guard outside so that it kept it safe and that they didn't allow meals in there.

7:23So, the OSI, the Office of Special Investigation, apparently had gotten permission somehow one night when we were there. And they were sitting in a booth, and they began to harass me and others. And... What were they saying? and asked me what I was doing there. And, you know, I was not very comfortable with them, and so I just turned away. But they wanted to know why I was there and what I was doing and how come I was in this place. And so they stayed seated, and I just knew that they didn't belong in there. And so it was eerie. It was frightening. It was, I knew that they were in there because we were there.

8:28They were investigating you because you were gay? Yeah. We were considered to be a threat to the security of the nation. How? Because we could be compromised, and in those days, it apparently wasn't okay to be gay or lesbian. It was frowned upon, and you could be outed and compromised by the enemy, so to speak. and tell any secrets that we had or, you know, we were just considered to be a threat to national security. So they wanted us gone.

9:29They had bugged our room, or they had someone in the room next to us, and they could hear, you know, they had their room bugged somehow. When we would get in late at night, there were airmen that were assigned, apparently, to watch us when we came in, and to, you know, if we stopped at the latrine, they would, you know, it might be 2 o 'clock in the morning, and we were washing our hands, and an airman would come in, which is usually unlikely because it's 2 o 'clock in the morning. So it became very unnerving, you know, to be followed and to be watched. Did you start to suspect that everyone was watching you?

10:20Yes. You can imagine. It's just a place that you worked and did your work, and people were watching you. People that didn't seem to notice you before were watching you. Once you realized you were being watched, did you change your behavior, stay away from people? I changed the way I felt. I wasn't sleeping very well. I was probably drinking so I could sleep. It wears on you. You don't know who's watching you, but it might be anybody. and we were scared all the time. And then finally we were, there were three of us that were arrested.

11:20They started to grill us about what our thoughts were,

11:28suspecting us of doing things, I guess, that we... I don't know. I don't know. It was constant. It was hours and hours. At one point, I needed to go to the latrine, and, of course, the officer went with me. I was and I think I threw up I didn't feel good we had been I had been there for I don't know how many hours and finally the threats began the the gentleman that was questioning us began to threaten to go to my parents to go to my friends to go to people that I knew to tell them that I was a threat to the nation and a bad person apparently and I finally said just write down whatever you want to write down and I'll sign it and that's what they did what he did he wrote it down I signed it I didn't read what he said what were the charges?

12:49I don't know what was on that paper I never looked at it. But, you know, it was because I was a lesbian. This was happening all over the country. Men and women who worked for the government were interrogated about their sex lives and fired. It was called the Lavender Scare. It coincided with the Red Scare, which gave rise to the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy's hearings to try to expose communists. Thousands and thousands of people were fired during the Lavender Scare, under an executive order signed by President Eisenhower. That order remained in place until 1995, when President Clinton implemented Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

13:38When they first came into the barracks that day, did you have any idea what was going on? No. I mean, I assume you'd never been arrested or questioned before. That's right. When they were asking you these questions, what kinds of questions were they asking you? Were they asking you about your whereabouts or movements or relations with other women?

14:09One of the things that they did was they involved, you know, how did I feel about my sister? How did I feel about my mother? I mean, it just, and that's why I threw up. I think I just got so upset with it that I decided, you know, just write something down. I'll sign it. So when they asked you about, you know, dating women, did you kind of say, yes, what's wrong with that? I probably did, you know. I can't recall all the things that I said. I just was feeling so put upon, you know, the very idea that they would consider my sister or anyone's schoolmate or, you know, that was, they wanted to know things that I didn't know.

15:11I didn't know how to answer, and I didn't have answers for, and they were just uncomfortable, and they got more uncomfortable, and then they began to threaten me with exposure to my family, to my friends. You know, in those days, and you're probably quite young, in those days it was not talked about that I remember. I didn't know about gay or lesbian. I don't think I ever heard the term when I was in high school.

15:56And feelings that I had, I enjoyed being, because I was on a farm maybe, I grew up doing all the things that the girls and boys did the farm work. So I loved being with boys and men because they talked about things that I liked and enjoyed. You know, I drove tractor. I drove horses. I helped build things with my dad. and I enjoyed that. What did you do right after you signed the papers? What happened next? I had to clear the base. It was about two weeks that you had to clear the base. And I also had, I had applied for a commission, actually, and the commission came through during the time that I was being discharged.

17:00So I actually had two discharges, one as an airman and one as a second lieutenant. I just stayed low. Did other people, you had to stay on the base for two weeks, did other people on the base know what had happened? Everybody on the base knew. Everybody on the station knew. I just did what I had to do and waited to get out. But, you know, had no money, no support at all. I couldn't tell my family, I couldn't tell my friends, I couldn't tell my former classmates. I had hoped to make a career of the Air Force. I loved it. I really loved the Air Force. I loved serving. I loved the work that I did until this came about.

18:06So your parents never really, they just thought? Never talked to them. Never. And I left the East Coast immediately after. Get away from it all? Yeah. I didn't know anybody. That was good. Started a new life. She got a job working as a physical therapist in California. Her practice grew. She made new friends. And she tried to forget what happened to her in 1955. Who had you talked to about your discharge? Nobody. It was disgraceful. It was a stain on my family that was involved in this, you know, especially a military family. All the other people in my family had served honorably. I felt I had to keep it under seal.

19:17I just stuffed it. Decades passed this way. And then in 2016, she met a fellow veteran, a medic. I'm not sure how it came up, but I felt okay with saying, yeah, I got a bad discharge. And she said, do something about that. Well, I didn't know that I could do anything about it until, you know, she talked to me. And so we went down, and that's when we got it started. We went down and started the complaint, and I told my story. I told what had happened to me, and I wrote it all out. That's the first time I had ever written it all out. How old were you? How old was I then? I guess I was 89.

20:22We'll be right back.

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21:50Download today. 64 years after Helen James was kicked out of the Air Force, she applied for an honorable discharge. She worked with the Fresno County VA, and they helped her get in touch with a legal aid attorney to start the process. The Air Force didn't, you know, they waited. They said they had 18 months before they had to get back to us. So we waited 18 months. And one of the things that had happened in the meanwhile was that I needed to get a hold of my personnel file so that I could show that I didn't do anything wrong, that I was a good airman. I did my duty. but apparently those records had been burned in a fire.

22:43From there, it was hiccup after hiccup, preventing Helen's complaint from being handled. And so her legal aid attorney teamed up with a D.C. law firm, and they filed a lawsuit. They told the Air Force they had 14 days to respond, and that went in on the 2nd of January, 2018, and on January 11, 2018, my story came out in the Washington Post. In the Washington Post, that wonderful paper. I guess that's when the Air Force decided that it was time to address it and they approved my discharge as an honorable discharge. What was it like having your story be so public after it being private? I don't know if I can explain it, because it's a constant thing.

23:47It's in my head now. And people know about it. And, you know, I never told my folks about it, but they know now.

24:01and I've been back east and talked to my family and they've read my incident report and they know me now as my cousins and classmates from college and my godson. and, you know, yeah, I put it out there for them. Do you ever go to events for veterans? Of course I didn't used to, but yeah, I do. It's a community. It's family with the veterans. You know that they know who you are, where you've been, what you're doing, regardless of what branch you were in. Yeah, it's an amazing community to be a part of. I'm honored by it.

25:14In 2018, at 91 years old, she marched in the Fresno, California Pride Parade. Oh, gosh. Oh, God, that was really fun. I was the Grand Marshal in the parade. It was just surreal to know that there are so many people out there that are with me, that care about me and care about each other. Well, I want to thank you so much for speaking to me for all this time today. We took a lot of your time. Oh, Phoebe, thank you so much. You've been just so nice, and you just take care of yourself. You too. We'll speak soon. Okay. Thanks, Phoebe. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

26:12We spoke with Helen James five years ago. Today, she's 96. and when we called to check in, she said she was doing well. She's donated her personal photographs to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. When we asked what that was like, she said, it's just surreal.

26:40Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nidia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinane. Our technical director is Rob Byers. Engineering by Russ Henry. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show. and we're also on YouTube at youtube.com slash criminal podcast. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

27:25Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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