Walter Jenkins
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Walter Wilson Jenkins (March 23, 1918–November 23, 1985) was an American political figure and longtime top aide to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Jenkins' career ended after a sex scandal was revealed before the 1964 presidential election.
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[edit] Early life
Jenkins was born in Jolly, Texas and spent his childhood in Wichita Falls, Texas. He attended the University of Texas.
[edit] Career
Jenkins began working for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1939 when Johnson was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives as the member from Texas's 10th congressional district. For most of the next 25 years, Jenkins served as Johnson's top administrative assistant, following Johnson as he rose to become a Senator, Vice President under John F. Kennedy, and after Kennedy's assassination, President.
From 1941 until 1945, Jenkins served in the United States Army during World War II. After being discharged he married Marjorie Whitehill. In 1951, he returned to Wichita Falls to run for the House of Representatives. Jenkins lost the election in a race marked by attacks on Jenkins because of his Roman Catholic faith (he converted to Catholicism when he married Marjorie). Jenkins and his wife separated in the early 1970s but never legally divorced; Marjorie died in 1987.
Johnson's former aides have generally credited much of Johnson's political success to Jenkins. In 1975, journalist Bill Moyers, a former Johnson aide and press secretary, wrote in Newsweek: "When they came to canonize political aides, [Jenkins] will be the first summoned, for no man ever negotiated the shark-infested waters of the Potomac with more decency or charity or came out on the other side with his integrity less shaken. If Lyndon Johnson owed everything to one human being other than Lady Bird, he owed it to Walter Jenkins." Joseph Califano wrote, "Jenkins was the nicest White House aide I ever met in any administration. He was never overbearing. It was quite remarkable."
[edit] Scandal and resignation
His career with Johnson ended in October 1964, when DC Police arrested Jenkins when he was caught in a gay liaison in a YMCA bathroom in an apparent cottaging incident with a "Hungarian-born" man[1]. Laud Humphreys called it, "perhaps the most famous tearoom arrest in America"[2].
A reporter at the Washington Star learned of the incident; Johnson applied considerable pressure on the newspaper not to print the story—even recruiting his personal lawyer, Abe Fortas, to lobby the newspaper's editor—but the story eventually appeared in the Star anyway, and Jenkins was forced to resign.
The arrest raised questions about whether Jenkins had been blackmailed. At this time gay men and lesbians were automatically denied security clearance. Johnson's Republican opponent in the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater, who knew Jenkins from the Senate and served as commanding officer of his Air Force Reserve unit, chose not to make the incident a campaign issue. "It was a sad time for Jenkins' wife and children, and I was not about to add to their private sorrow," Goldwater later wrote in his autobiography. "Winning isn't everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important." Jenkins' arrest was quickly overshadowed by international affairs—China successfully carried out its first nuclear test (596) and the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was deposed[3].
Members of Congress called for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to carry out an investigation into the case, citing concerns that the FBI had been unaware of Jenkins' previous offense in the same Washington toilet six years earlier. Tapes of Johnson's Oval Office telephone calls later revealed that the President had orchestrated the FBI report that cleared Jenkins of any suspicions that he had compromised national security. However, investigations did reveal that Jenkins, a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, had tried to use his influence to reinstate a fellow officer dismissed for sex offenses.
Johnson did not replace Jenkins, but instead divided his responsibilities among several staff members. Johnson's White House Press Secretary George Reedy told an interviewer that "A great deal of the president's difficulties can be traced to the fact that Walter had to leave...All of history might have been different if it hadn't been for that episode." Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark suggested that Jenkins' resignation "deprived the president of the single most effective and trusted aide that he had. The results would be enormous when the president came into his hard times. Walter's counsel on Vietnam might have been extremely helpful."
[edit] Later life
After leaving Washington, Jenkins returned to Texas and lived the rest of his life in Austin, where he worked as a Certified Public Accountant and management consultant and ran a construction company. He died in 1985 a few months after suffering a stroke.
Although, for political reasons, Johnson had to keep clear of Jenkins while in the presidency, upon his retirement LBJ immediately reconciled their friendship and welcomed him back into his close circle of friends.
[edit] References
- ^ Lee Edelman, Homographesis: essays in gay literary and cultural theory, Routledge, New York & London, 1994, page 148
- ^ Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1975, page 19
- ^ Lee Edelman, Homographesis: essays in gay literary and cultural theory, Routledge, New York & London, 1994, page 149
- Barnes, Bart. "LBJ Aide Walter Jenkins Dies". Washington Post, 26 November 1985, pg. C4.
