Interregnum
AUGUST 16, 1980
PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
At Equus, a new gay bar located down the block from the Marine Corps barracks, patrons were beginning to eye one another with greater earnestness. Closing time was approaching and the 1:00 A.M. compromises needed to be made soon.
While pool balls clicked in the back of the bar, a clamor began outside. Equus owner Rick Holloway turned toward the door to investigate the ruckus as a Marine burst into the bar shouting about “faggots” and floored Holloway with a punch in the face. More Marines rushed in behind him—a mob of 150 carrying sticks and shouting antigay slogans had surged from their redbrick barracks and raced down Pennsylvania Avenue to the bar.
“C’mon, faggots—too afraid to fight?” some yelled. Glass shattered as the Marines knocked out the windows.
It was the sixth attack on the bar in the four months since Equus had taken over the space from Barb’s Place, a topless bar and favorite leatherneck hangout. Outside, Marines overturned trash cans and shouted for the faggots to come out and fight. Inside, their companions picked up bar stools and approached the men who cowered in the back of the bar.
A bartender began throwing beer mugs at the Marines, and then, from behind the pool tables, a muscular young man with closely cropped hair leapt forward and shouted, “Fall back and retreat!” He grabbed a pool cue, rushing toward the assailants. There was momentary confusion and then the wail of police sirens. The Marines turned and ran out of the bar, pursued by one angry gay ex-Marine. The mob fought the police officers who arrived on the scene but fell back to their barracks when reinforcements arrived.
The increase in gay investigations and prosecutions within the military during the summer of 1980 seemed to produce a corresponding surge in antigay violence by heterosexual GIs. Confrontations like the one at Equus were perhaps inevitable. Every investigation in every branch of the service had the effect of indoctrinating hundreds of thousands of young Americans to believe that violence toward homosexuals and disrespect of them were acceptable.
Although antigay assaults by military personnel occurred throughout the country, in no locale were they more pronounced than in Washington, D.C., where a large contingent of Marines handled government guard duties. Over the preceding few months in 1980, police had arrested several Marines after a series of stabbings and beatings of gay men at the Iwo Jima Memorial, a popular cruising spot in Arlington. Ironically, the soldiers’ victims were sometimes military people themselves, engaging in furtive park cruising because they feared that going to gay bars would make them vulnerable to military witch-hunts. Months before the August attack, several Marines had thrown a tear-gas bomb into a lesbian bar. Even as Equus owners swept up broken glass from the Saturday night attack, platoons of Marine joggers were doing their daily runs past gay businesses near Barracks Row, repeating cadences shouted out by their platoon sergeant: “Stamp out fags. Stamp out fags.”
No issue seemed too trivial for the Marines to take up against gays. Earlier in 1980, for example, one Marine detachment refused to accept a $2,500 donation for its annual Toys for Tots program because it came from gay donors. “Some of our regulations won’t let us associate with any group that might reflect negatively on the Marine Corps,” a Marine spokesman said. “We would prefer that they donate toys anonymously.”
Though news of mobs of Marines attacking civilians would normally send military officials into an uproar, the commander of the Marine barracks in Washington was unperturbed about the Equus incident. “The publicity that has come out of this has blown the whole situation out of hand,” Colonel John Monahan told The Washington Post. “I don’t think they were up there to bother gays, but went up to have a good time.” Monahan promised a “voluntary collection” to pay for damage to the bar, but, in fact, no reparations were made.
Down Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House, the Carter staff worried that the attack on Equus might alienate gays and worried that taking a position against such attacks might alienate an even larger voting constituency. So the administration that had defined itself by its commitment to human rights remained silent and the purges and hearings continued.
USS NORTON SOUND
LONG BEACH NAVAL SHIPYARD
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Alicia Harris was asked to stand while the chairman of the administrative separation board read his decision: “The findings of the board are that the defendant has engaged in homosexual activity aboard the ship,” the officer read. “It is the recommendation that she be given a general discharge under honorable conditions.”
Four hours later, the discharge hearing for Wendi Williams began. The testimony against Williams was much the same as that against Harris. Their crewmate Yvonne Nedrick claimed to have seen them kiss. Under cross-examination, Nedrick admitted to four fistfights with Williams. She also said she would kill Williams if she had the chance but added that she would never lie about the sailor, so her testimony stood. Helen Wilson, whose statement had begun the investigation three months earlier, reported having seen Williams and Harris on a couch together late one night. They were fully clothed, she said, but it looked sexual to her.
Throughout the hearing, looking up only occasionally, Wendi Williams sat at the defense table drawing pictures of a small rubber Donald Duck doll she kept propped in front of her. She was going to be found guilty, she knew, because her defense, like that of Alicia Harris, lacked the component that had saved Tangela Gaskins and Barbara Lee Underwood. Neither she nor Harris had men to testify about any heterosexual relationships and to provide a positive review of the women’s sexual performance.
“I would like—if this board decides to discharge me—to discharge me for stupidity, not for misconduct,” Williams said softly to the board shortly before the panel went into deliberations. “My work in the Navy has been real good. Therefore, I must be real dumb—the dumbest nigger in the Navy—if I had let these things happen, to commit these acts in a room with sixty people where they could see me.”
The unanimous verdict was returned on the afternoon of August 20. Williams listened emotionlessly, her chin set on her hand.
Wendi Williams, the panel ruled, was guilty of “one or more homosexual acts,” and it ordered she be dismissed from the United States Navy with a general discharge under honorable conditions.
The Navy had their convictions. Now they could call the whole thing off.
The next day, Commander James Seebirt told Carole Brock that the pending charges against the remaining four women were being dropped for “insufficient evidence.”
“I could have told you that three months ago,” snapped Brock.
“It’s over, it’s done, it’s through,” he said.
“Maybe for you it is,” Carole answered.
In a similar announcement to the other three defendants of the Norton Sound Eight, Seebirt stressed that he had no “personal hard feelings” toward any of them. Later that day, Carole drove into the Los Angeles ACLU office.
“Can I tell now?” she asked a lawyer.
The answer was no. If Brock was to come out now as homosexual, she would be charged again and the whole investigation might be resurrected. Her admission would also surely bring down Carole’s girlfriend, who was still on the Norton Sound crew.
Hours later, Carole and Susan McGrievy spoke to a crowd of reporters at the ACLU headquarters. Johnnie Phelps watched from the sidelines, marveling at how little it took—just a handful of young women refusing to acquiesce—to bring the Navy to its knees.
The newspaper pictures from the press conferences that afternoon showed Carole Brock beaming at the victory they had achieved. But in fact, Brock was more angry than relieved—angry at the Navy for subjecting them to the three-month ordeal, angrier that she would never get her day in court. Even if she could not say she was a lesbian, she had wanted to tell what the Navy had done, how the Naval Investigative Service had coerced witnesses, fabricated statements, and then disappeared when the hearings started. With all the focus on this or that defendant, the totality of a lesbian witch-hunt had never been described. The whole story was still untold, and she was angry.
For its part, through press spokesman Lieutenant Mark Baker, the Navy said, “The decision was made after carefully reviewing all the facts and testimony that could conceivably bear on the remaining four cases.” As they had throughout the investigation, Commander Seebirt and all other Navy officials refused to comment at all. Privately, Navy officers admitted that the evidence in the Norton Sound case was not any less sufficient than that commonly used in any discharge hearing. However, typically, nobody ever knew about it.
Two weeks after the charges against the Norton Sound Eight were dismissed, Judge Gerhard Gesell delivered a stinging critique of the military’s ban on gay soldiers and ruled that Leonard Matlovich be reinstated into the United States Air Force; reinstated at the rank he would have achieved had he never been dismissed in 1975 and with all back pay and with the condition that the Air Force not attempt to bar his later reenlistment.
It had been two years since the U.S. Court of Appeals had remanded the case to Gesell with the order that the Air Force clarify what would constitute an exception to its policy of banning all homosexuals. The Air Force had at first delivered a “declaration” that explained how the service processed discharges, but it did not define the criteria upon which it might make an exception to its policy. When that proved unacceptable, the service submitted several affidavits with different guidelines as to what might constitute an acceptable homosexual. After a while, it seemed clear that the Air Force was temporizing with these different drafts to keep Matlovich out of the Air Force, and the case bottled up at the level of the federal district court, where it would do the minimum damage to the legal status of the policies.
Judge Gesell condemned the stalling: The Pentagon, he ruled, had engaged in “perverse behavior” by offering these numerous and often contradictory explanations for their policy. Gesell’s terse two-page ruling on September 9 ordered the Air Force to put Matlovich back in uniform by December 5, 1980. Since Copy Berg’s case had been legally joined to Matlovich’s appeal, the ruling also had the effect of reinstating Berg in the Navy. The order shook the Pentagon. Deputy Defense Secretary Graham Claytor, Jr., announced a task force of lawyers to study the ruling and recommend grounds for appeal.
The national commander of the American Legion commented, “Our enemies in the world must be very pleased with the court order.”
In one last desperate effort to keep the nation’s most famous homosexual out of the Air Force, the Pentagon offered Matlovich a cash settlement if he agreed not to return. No one at the Defense Department really expected Matlovich to take it. He was a crusader, someone who had declared he was gay specifically to make a test case. Few in the Pentagon believed he would stop short of the Supreme Court. And there were plenty of Defense Department attorneys who thought he might win. The settlement was simply a last-ditch effort. Even as the Air Force made their financial offer, orders were being drawn up to reinstate Matlovich at the rank of senior master sergeant. His duty station was being selected. Preparations were being made to admit him by the December 5 deadline.
In his office at the E-ring of the Pentagon, Pete Randell was elated. Although the ruling applied only to Matlovich and was not won on broad constitutional grounds, he knew the symbolic impact that just one openly gay airman would have. Once Matlovich was back in uniform, the services would never again be able to say that the presence of homosexuals would do irreparable damage to their good order, discipline, and morale. Matlovich would return to work and the sky wouldn’t fall and the Air Force would do just fine. With one gay in uniform, it would be harder to stop a second, and a third, and then thousands more.
Randell had a new job—he was now executive director of the Air Force Board of Correction for Military Records. He’d just been selected as one of the Outstanding Young Men in America by the U.S. Jaycees. He had everything going for him.
SEPTEMBER 1980
LONG BEACH NAVAL SHIPYARD
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
After the hearings were concluded, the USS Norton Sound left its berth in LongBeach to return to Port Hueneme. Carole Brock had taken leave time to drive back to the ship’s home port by herself rather than sail. Her anger persisted. The end of the investigation had brought little relief.
Many issues remained unresolved and Carole could not stop reviewing them in her mind: that during the course of the hearings, one petty officer had admitted to having sex with Barbara Underwood, a lower-ranking enlisted woman directly under him in the chain of command, and that another officer had admitted to adultery. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, both offenses were punishable with prison sentences, but neither sailor was ever charged or even investigated. The investigation into the stabbings, drug dealing, and loansharking had also been long forgotten and no charges would ever be brought in those crimes. Though the commander of Cruiser-Destroyer Group Five had launched an investigation into the fitness of the Norton Sound’s command, it was less clear whether the probe was to uncover the investigations’ excesses or the fact that the excesses had become public. Even more disturbing to Carole was the lack of concern about misdeeds by agents of the Naval Investigative Service. The whole episode had left the ship, a crucial testing vessel for the Navy’s newest weapons systems, virtually dysfunctional for three months. They were glad to be done with it.
Angry as she was, Carole was also aware that the Norton Sound hearings represented a turning point. Once, the Navy would have held its position with righteous pride while the accused cringed at the idea that the public might find out. Today, it was the Navy that cowered, ordering the press from its hearing rooms, refusing public comment. By fighting the Navy, Carole was at least satisfied to know she had helped turn the tables. Between the Norton Sound hearings and the Matlovich ruling, it really seemed as if the antigay regulations were in their very last days.