Washington D.C

In Washington D.C. at the time, who you associated with was of utmost importance. Those accused of being Communist or homosexual were dismissed from their jobs, purely on the basis of who they were seen talking to or spending time with. Because Fellow Travelers is firmly rooted in history, the opera’s librettist, Greg Pierce, adapting Mallon’s words, references several important figures from America’s political scene. These are names that would have been known to all Americans at the time, blasting across the news.

Joseph McCarthy: A U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, and a leader of a subcommittee to uncover and oust all Communists and homosexuals in the Federal government during The Cold War. His name was soon associated with accusations of treason and the resulting hearings – often carried out without proper (or any) evidence—were termed McCarthyism. Hundreds of people were imprisoned, and tens of thousands lost their jobs and were blacklisted against any further employment. Eventually he took his personal-political crusade against Communism so far as to accuse the U.S. Army of being compromised by Communist spies. After a series of court hearings, in 1954, the U.S. Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy from any further involvement in his subcommittees. He was stripped of his power, yet remained in office until his death in 1957.

Roy Cohn: Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel. He is well known as a prosecutor at the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple accused of Soviet espionage--and found guilty. He is famous for threatening the U.S. Army in order to get his anti-Communist propagandist friend, David Schine, out of the army draft. In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings accused the two of strong-arming special treatment for Schine. Cohn resigned after the hearings.

DID YOU KNOW? Roy Cohn was a lawyer and mentor to current President Donald Trump, until his death in 1986.

David Schine: G. David Schine was a fervent anti-Communist, publishing a six-page antiCommunist pamphlet in 1952. After befriending Cohn, he was brought onto McCarthy’s team as a consultant. Schine left his life in the political arena after the Army-McCarthy hearings.

Charles Potter: Elected in 1952, Potter was the only Senator to serve on the subcommittee for Korean War Crimes--another proxy war the United States provided direct military assistance to.

Adlai Stevenson: The 1952 Democratic candidate for President who had served in the State Department, and was defeated by President Eisenhower.

Scott McLeod: McLeod was the head of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Security and Consular Affairs from 1953 to 1957. He was the principal official responsible for charging individuals with conspiracy or homosexuality during McCarthyism. He developed the standards for “determining homosexuality.”

Behind the Scenes

Roy Cohn is fictionalized in Tony Kushner’s 1991 Pulitzer Prize winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Cohn is portrayed as a closeted homosexual, haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. He is also dying of AIDS, which the real Roy Cohn did die of during the AIDS epidemic. Though fiction, some speculated that Cohn was indeed a closeted homosexual, and even in a secret relationship with David Schine, despite his anti-homosexual fervency.

What do you think it would have been like to work with these figures in the U.S. government? DISCUSS:

Where you socialized outside of work in the nation’s capital showed status, and revealed the type of people you likely spent time with as well. Imagine if Instagram or Snapchat existed in the 1950s. Similar to these virtual worlds, there were places you could go if you did not want to be seen, and places you could go for the exact opposite. Some places and people could help your career, others could crush it. The map below marks several of the locations mentioned in the opera:

FUN FACT: Dupont Circle is host to the Capital Pride Parade. It is a historically gay neighborhood and remains so to this day.