17 - The Queering of US Geopolitics

Summary

The October 1954 issue of Pageant magazine featured a quiz for its readers to take in the privacy of their homes: “Are You Sure You Are a Good Security Risk?” The feature can be read as a humorous challenge to the red- and lavender-baiting associated with the era in the United States often known as “McCarthyism,” an ode to the aggressive anticommunist – and, no doubt, homophobic – rhetoric and policy work that took the namesake of one of its most fervent peddlers, Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin). The quiz began: “You and every man and woman of average intelligence in America are familiar with the term ‘security risk.’ You probably could make a pretty fair stab at explaining it generally as a phrase that’s applied to a government employe [sic] who is known or suspected to be a spy or traitor, a Communist or a fellow-traveler who, for these or many other reasons, could be dangerous to the U.S.”