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 he was arrested and charged with "disorderly conduct" with another man in a public restroom in Washington, D.C. The incident happened weeks before the 1964 presidential election, in an era in which homosexual behavior was widely condemned.
Personal life Jenkins was born in Jolly, Texas, and spent his childhood in Wichita Falls, Texas. There he attended Midwestern State University and then spent two years at the University of Texas, though he did not earn a degree.New York Times: "Storm Center in Capital," October 16, 1964. Retrieved November 13, 2010 In 1945, following his discharge from the Army, he converted to Roman Catholicism and married Helen Marjorie Whitehill.
Jenkins and his wife had six children, four boys and two girls. They separated in the early 1970s but never divorced.
Government 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 President.
From 1941 until 1945, Jenkins served in the United States Army during World War II. In 1951, he returned to Wichita Falls to run for the House of Representatives. Jenkins lost to Frank N. Ikard in a race marked by attacks on Jenkins because of his Roman Catholic faith.
Johnson's former aides credit Jenkins for his ability and temperament. In 1975, journalist Bill Moyers, a former Johnson aide and press secretary, wrote in Newsweek: "When they come 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."
By the 1960s, Jenkins was more Johnson's friend than employee, close to Lady Bird Johnson and involved in their family finances as well. The Johnsons celebrated Lady Bird's fifty-first birthday at a party at Jenkins' home in December 1963.New York Times: "Johnson Gives Wife, 51, Gift that Helped Him to Win Her," December 23, 1963. Retrieved November 13, 2010
Scandal and resignation
Arrest A month before the 1964 presidential election, on October 7, District of Columbia Police arrested Jenkins in a YMCA restroom. He and another man were booked on a disorderly conduct charge,White, 367; Time: "The Jenkins Report," October 30, 1964. Retrieved November 15, 2010 an incident described as "perhaps the most famous tearoom arrest in America."Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1974), 19 He paid a $50 fine.Perlstein, 489 Rumors of the incident circulated for several days, and Republican Party operatives helped to promote it to the press.Dallek, 181 Some newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Cincinnati Enquirer, refused to run the story.White, 367 Journalists quickly learned that Jenkins had been arrested on a similar charge in 1959,Dallek, 179, 181. The FBI had reported the 1959 arrest in April 1961, which made it much harder to explain away as the result of overwork or, as one journalist wrote, "combat fatigue."Perlstein, 490. The journalist was William White.Edward P. Levine, "Studying the American Press: The Walter Jenkins Case." Journalism Quarterly 43.3 (1966): 493-496.
Finally, on October 14, a Washington Star editor called the White House for Jenkins' comment on a story it was preparing. Jenkins turned to White House lawyers Abe Fortas, the President's personal lawyer, and Clark Clifford, who unofficially was filling the role of White House Counsel. They immediately lobbied the editors of Washington's three newspapers not to run the story, which only confirmed its significance.White, 368Fortas later emphasized that at the time he did not know the validity of the morals charge against Jenkins. The New York Times: "Fortas Asserts Police Need Time to Question Suspects," August 6, 1965. Retrieved November 13, 2010 Within hours, Clifford detailed the evidence to the President and press secretary George Reedy, who while "openly weeping,"White 369 confirmed the story to reporters. Probably forewarned, Johnson told Fortas that Jenkins needed to resign.
Anticipating the charge that Jenkins might have been blackmailed, Johnson immediately ordered an FBI investigation. He knew that J. Edgar Hoover would have to clear the administration of any security problem because the FBI itself would otherwise be at fault for failing to investigate Jenkins properly years before.Perlstein, 491 Hoover reported on October 22 that security had not been compromised.Evans and Novak, 480White, 369-70 Johnson later said: "I couldn't have been more shocked about Walter Jenkins if I'd heard that Lady Bird had tried to kill the Pope."Dallek, 180 He also fed conspiracy theories that Jenkins had been framed. He claimed that before his arrest Jenkins had attended a cocktail party where the waiters came from the Republican National Committee, though the party was hosted by Newsweek to celebrate the opening of its new offices.White, 367. Dallek evaluates various claims that Jenkins was set up and dismisses them. Dallek, 180-1 The Star printed the story and UPI transmitted its version on October 14. Jenkins resigned the same day. Johnson immediately ordered a poll to determine the public's reaction to the affair and learned the next day that its effect on the voters was negligible.Thomas W. Benham, "Polling for a Presidential Candidate: Some Observations on the 1964 Campaign," in Public Opinion Quarterly, v. 29 (1965), 192
Johnson announced that only he would contact the press about the incident, but his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, issued her statement of support for Jenkins.
Political reactions The incident embarrassed the administration but had little impact on the campaign in which Johnson led his opponent by large margins. One columnist wrote on October 15, "Walter Jenkins has revived and dramatized all the harsh feelings about morals, and political cliques, and the Texas gang in Washington." Yet the incident disappeared so quickly from the political scene that Theodore H. White, surveying the 1964 election campaign, assessed its impact this way: "Perhaps the most amazing of all events of the campaign of 1964 is that the nation faced the fact fully—and shrugged its shoulders." Jenkins' arrest was quickly overshadowed by international affairs: Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was deposed on October 14, the British electorate voted Labour into power on October 15, and China successfully tested a nuclear weapon on October 16.Dallek, 181; White 371
Johnson's Republican opponent in the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater, knew Jenkins from the Senate and from serving as commanding officer of his Air Force Reserve unit, but initially denied knowing him. He did not comment on the incident while campaigning. Although it fit well with the charges he had been making about the lack of morality in Johnson's administration, those referred to Bobby Baker and Billie Sol Estes.Dallek, 178; White, 369 Instead, since FBI agents had just questioned him about Jenkins, he publicly asked Hoover to explain why Jenkins had not undergone a rigorous security check before joining the White House staff.New York Times: E.W. Kenworthy, "Goldwater Asks F.B.I. to Explain Check on Jenkins," October 20, 1964. Retrieved January 24, 2011
Goldwater's campaign offices distributed bumper stickers and buttons bearing slogans such as, "LBJLIGHT BULB JENKINS: NO WONDER HE TURNED THE LIGHTS OUT" and "ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ, BUT DON'T GO NEAR THE YMCA". During the remainder of the campaign Goldwater occasionally alluded to the scandal. In speeches, he referred to Johnson's "curious crew who would run the country" to the knowing amusement of his audience.Perlstein, 493 At the time, observers noted the difference between the way Goldwater alluded to the scandal and the way the Republican National Committee and Goldwater's running mate, William E. Miller, used it to exploit "popular fears."New York Times:James Reston, "Washington: Barry Goldwater Examples of Morality," October 23, 2010. Retrieved November 13, 2010 Goldwater later said he 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," he wrote in his autobiography. "Winning isn't everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important."
Johnson mentioned the affair in general terms while campaigning. In Pittsburgh, on October 27, he told a crowd that in government "unfortunate things" happen and people "disappoint" you. Some "make mistakes" and need to resign and there need to be impartial investigations.New York Times: Charles Mohr, "Johnson Refers to Jenkins Case," October 298, 1964. Retrieved November 13, 2010
Members of Congress called for an FBI investigation of the case, citing concerns that the FBI had been unaware of Jenkins' previous offense in the same Washington men's room in January 1959.New York Times: Gladwin Hill, "Miller Asks Data on Jenkins Case," October 16, 1964. Retrieved January 24, 2011; The New York Times: Wallace Turner, ""Miller Stresses the Jenkins Case," October 22, 1964. Retrieved January 24, 2011
Supportive reactions On October 15, James Reston gave some support to Johnson by confirming that "President Eisenhower was embarrassed by a comparable morals charge against one of his first appointees of his first Administration."New York Times: James Reston, "Setback for Johnson," October 15, 1964. Retrieved November 13, 2010 On October 19, Drew Pearson in his "Washington Merry-go-round" column recounted the 1959 events with greater detail and named Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. as the Eisenhower appointee who "had homosexuality problems and could not pass a security test." Campaigning in San Diego on October 28, Johnson replied to a reporter's question about "sex deviates" in his administration that every administration had its scandals and mentioned that Eisenhower had faced a similar problem with his appointments secretary, thus confirming Pearson's outing of Vandenberg, whose departure from the Eisenhower administration had been blamed on his health.Michael Beschloss, Reaching for Glory (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 98Johnson's San Diego comment is discussed briefly at Evans and Novak, 481
On October 29, 1964, leading clergymen, including Francis B. Sayre, Jr. of Washington National Cathedral, United Presbyterian Church Leader Eugene Carson Blake, Methodist Bishop John Wesley Lord, American Hebrew Congregations President Maurice Eisendrauth, and theologians Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr, issued a letter commenting on the Jenkins affair: "We see the Jenkins episode as a case of human weakness. If there is a security factor involved, let that be dealt with on its own terms and let it not serve chiefly as an excuse for dwelling on this one episode to cater to the prurient curiosity or to the self-righteousness of part of the public."TIME: "Johnson & the Jenkins Case," November 6, 1964. Retrieved January 18, 2011
After the election, the American Mental Health Foundation wrote a letter to Johnson protesting about the "hysteria" surrounding the case:New York Times: "Jenkins Defended by Mental Group," October 22, 1964. Retrieved November 13, 2010