Peter Burleigh Interview, September 24, 2021

Okay. So this is the September 24, 2021 interview of Peter Burleigh by Audrey Barnett for the Humanities truck Community archive, recorded on zoom in both of our respective homes.

So, the first question I would like to ask is, do I have permission to record this interview.

Yes, of course.

Perfect. Thank you. So, would you mind telling me what your name is and spelling it as well?

Yes. It's a good thing you asked because if you were to Google my name you'll find several different iterations of it. I go by Peter that which is really my middle name. And my first given name is Albert, which I don't use, you'll see if you were to Google, it would be A. Peter Burleigh. Almost every place except on my passport, so on, you know, driver's license where you have to use your full name.

And would you mind spelling it as well?

Sure, Burleigh.

Okay. Thank you.

Can you see clearly?

Yes, I can see you.

I've got a screen on your face that says this meeting is being recorded by the host or participant. My clicker doesn't-

If you click it you can get rid of that notification.

Yeah, let me just click it here. Here it is. Oh wait, I got it now. Okay, there, I see you.

Okay, perfect.

You can run but you can't hide.

All right. Good. I'm glad we figured that out. So also, would you mind telling me a bit about yourself? So what you currently do and where you currently reside, and also maybe how we came to be in touch?

Sure. Well, I'm about to be 80 years old and I retired from the state department 20 years ago or so. And moved from Washington to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which is where you're seeing me now. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and went to college in upstate New York, a small College, really, called Colgate University.

I then joined the Peace Corps after graduating from Colgate and spent two years in Nepal, a small country just north of India, and doing community development work in a small village. And I came back to the U.S. and spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania in South Asian studies and Sanskrit studies. And then I got a Fulbright Grant to go back to Nepal to study one of the local languages and write about it, which I did for a year and then I joined the Foreign Service in 1967.

So from '67 to 2000 I was in the Foreign Service. So that's 33 years and starting at the bottom, as the Foreign Service shows, you're recruited as a very junior person and it's an upper out system like our military where you have to get promoted, each step of the way or you get retired if you don't get promoted for those. So my last position was as one of our ambassadors to the United Nations in New York. There we have several. We have five ambassadors, believe it or not, in New York.

The chief one like right now is Linda Thomas-Greenfield, you've probably seen her picture and heard her speak, she was actually an assistant of mine 25 years ago - 35 years ago - and I'm just, of course, thrilled that she's there.

But anyway, so before the UN job, which was for three years, I was our ambassador in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. And before that, I was the number two person in the personnel department in HR in the state department. And before that I was our ambassador for counterterrorism under the first Bush Administration, H.W. Bush's Administration.

And before that, had various jobs in intelligence and in Regional issues, like the Middle East, and what the state department calls South Asia, which is India, Pakistan area.

So, and that's where I spent my adult life basically. Either overseas in one of our embassies or consulates or in Washington dealing with those countries, but from the state department desks as they call them. And the assignment in New York was the only one I had where I was assigned to a place in the U.S. but not in Washington DC.

Well, thank you that was really helpful. I feel like I have a much better idea now of, kind of, like your life and career path. So, thank you. I'm curious then cause you mentioned how you were either located abroad or in DC. Would you be able to like approximate, like how many years you lived in DC then?

Yeah, it was about, of those 33 years, I'd say, I don't know exactly, but it was roughly 15, probably, in Washington and 18 outside. Either overseas or in New York.

So throughout those 33 years like approximately half, it was kind of like dispersed then, like there was a lot of back and forth between the two places, or between DC and abroad.

Yes, a normal assignment in the state department for Foreign Service officers is three years in a particular Embassy or consulate sometimes. Unless there's some special circumstance where you were either transferred early or stay a little longer depending on what's going on in that country. Or if you're needed in another position someplace that has priority according to the state department.

And do you remember the year that you first moved to DC?

Yes, the very first was 1967 when I joined the Foreign Service. You have to come to Washington, in those days, well, even now you have to come to Washington for an orientation class, which lasts about four months. It's basically the, you know, Foreign Service 101, about how most new Foreign Service officers do have to do consular work. Meaning working with visas, and passports, and so on, wherever they're assigned. And so you have to learn how to do that legally, and hopefully, efficiently. And also just an introduction to the rules, and regulations, and ethics, and you name it about working for the federal government, all of which was new to me, though I had been in the Peace Corps.

But, for Peace Corps, at least I don't recall having gone through anything like the vetting that goes on in the state department. And I think, you probably know, but anyway, if you work in the state department, most of the jobs and certainly as you become more senior require a security clearance and that's done by the FBI and also the security section of the state department.

So that also takes a while to get through that process because they haven't done that by the time you come for the orientation class. So I was there for about six months. And then, my first assignment was in Sri Lanka, actually, as a junior officer, and I was there for four years.

Okay, and so that vetting process you went through in 1967. What was that like? Would you mind telling us a little bit more about that?

Well if you promise not to laugh. The only question I got that was slightly awkward, it was not about anything you may be thinking about, but I was told that my hair was too shaggy and that I needed - you remember this is the sixties, we're talking about, the Beatles and you know - It's hard to imagine now, but I was told, I better get a haircut.

Whoa!

Something that would never be allowed now, but believe me, that's the way it was, but otherwise, no, I don't really remember. It was basically a, you know, where have you lived and for the purposes of security clearance, the big issue is, are you vulnerable to any kind of blackmail? From any sort. So, for example, if you have a gambling problem and you're in debt to people could some foreign government, or anybody, use that to influence you, to disclose information, you shouldn't disclose outside of government for example.

So at that point, my life was very, very simple. I had no idea that I was gay at that. I was not out and so I may have been asked a gay related question, but I don't remember it at all, was not a feature at that point in time in my career.

So my next question then, well I have a few questions actually. First, what were those six months like then before you went to Sri Lanka and DC? Like were you able to establish much of a community for yourself in those six months? Or did you feel at home at all within DC? Or I mean, six months is a short amount of time, right? So I'm curious.

I don't, I knew it was temporary and I was also deeply involved in trying to study Singhalese, which is the language of Sri Lanka, so we had the regular orientation class and then I was also taking classes at the state department for the language. And I don't remember having a lot of spare time and I didn't know very many people in the, in the city and didn't go out much or, you know, I was really focused on learning as much as I could during that fairly brief period of time and then getting ready to go to Sri Lanka.

Yeah, that makes sense. My follow-up question then is, you noted in 1967 you weren't you weren't out yet, you didn't have a gay identity. I'm curious. Then, at what point you did realize, like, your sexuality or start to embrace more of this gay identity?

Right. It was an evolutionary process. I guess I would say during the early and mid 70s. After the period we've just talked about. I was in Sri Lanka from the end of '67 until early '71 and then I came back to Washington for a two-year assignment. And during that time I started, I guess you could call it coming out of the closet, but also but prior to that even understanding better what my sexuality, where my sexuality was leading. And that crystallized around meeting the person who was to become my partner, which was in 1978. And so, from there on, I was by self-definition and, my personal friends, like Jill Strachan, who you met, for example, and I was out and, and accept it as a, as a gay person. That's in my personal life, as opposed to my professional life.

So if this

Audrey, I'm getting this funny look on the screen, it's sort of light blasting in, covering up your face and stuff.

yeah, that is-

Is that okay? Oh there. Yeah, it's good.

Yeah, I didn't even notice I was so concentrated. I'll be cognizant of that for the rest of the interview, make sure the light isn't too.

Just to clarify, at this point around 1978 when you met your partner, at this point within your work life you did not have, like, an out gay identity correct?

Correct. Every five years you get an update on your security clearance. And during that period up until about 1990, the FBI agents and State Department Security People were authorized, actually required, to ask you about your sexual orientation, but they had, they were unskilled enough to broach a question in a way that one could say, 'well no that that doesn't apply to me.' Even though, you know what they meant and so on.

But the problem here is, it sounds very two-faced and so on and it was. We were, in that era people my age were leading double lives, if you wanted to keep your federal employment and with a security clearance, which was a absolute necessity for advancement in the state department and in throughout the federal government.

It's hard to, probably impossible for you to believe this was still the case, but up until 1990 it was a standard question and it was considered - I mentioned earlier about concerns about blackmail and so on, like if you're a gambler or you know, you're indebted or you're an alcoholic or something where the government could not trust that you would be able to keep confidentialities- being gay was one of those too.

At sort of a catch-2 because if you were gay and acted on it overseas, there were other governments and intelligence agencies that would pick up on that. Either the Russians or the Cubans, when they were more active, they had and the East Germans when there was an East Germany, but in this period of the 70s and 80s, they would then blackmail.

I had a couple of colleagues who were blackmailed actually and whose careers ended over it because they did the right thing when they were approached by a foreign government to give I guess, secrets or anyway, some kind of information. I don't remember the details, but they went and inform the security people that they have had this approach and that there was intent being made to blackmail them. And of course, we were all vulnerable I suppose to blackmail because of our own government's policy about making it impossible for gay and lesbian people to work for the government at that point in time. So it's kind of a catch-22.

But any rate during first Bush, President Bush, HW Bush. He put out an instruction, basically saying to the FBI and to State Department, Defense Department, and not changing the regulations here, but don't ask these questions, any, but don't press these questions on when you're doing the security upgrade. Just let them, let that go basically. That finally got put into regulation by President Clinton.

I think I sent you a copy of something that documented what Clinton did.

But so throughout the Reagan Administration, the first Bush Administration and in the beginning of the Clinton administration, there was still a question mark about whether gay people, out gay people, could serve or not and whether if they even if they served would they have to be put in a job, would be a pretty low level and probably not very interesting job that didn't include classified information, you know, quote secret information.

So in that process and that period in the early 90s things began to change really quite dramatically within the government that is. And one of the things. I don't know if you were referred to Brian Belton or whether you've been in touch with him from Jill, who's anyway, we're all friends. But Brian, and a couple of other younger officers, gay officers, established GLIFFA, the gay and lesbians in foreign affairs.

I think I sent you a little blurb about that organization.

That was established in 1992. And it was done before the government had changed its official position, but it was the beginning of a kind of professional, let's say, association of gay and lesbian people in, not just in the state department, but throughout the government. And that still exists and it's still, of course now it's very active and very accepted.

And one thing I was able to do is to Brian Dalton who you should talk to if you have more time for this study because he was - I can send you his contact information. He's retired now, he lives in Vermont, and he can tell you all that sort of details about what it was like and how scary it was for them. They were very bold to take this action because it, though, they met privately in various members homes, they became, they petitioned for recognition in the State Department.

And at that point in time. I was the number two in the Personnel Department and I was able to help them get through the process of getting recognized. Which happened in 92 or 93 within the, that was only the State Department, though. And again it was that there could not be an assumption that because somebody was gay or lesbian, that they shouldn't be in government or and shouldn't have security clearances and so on. So being

So, oh please you go ahead.

Meanwhile, in my private life. My, the partner I met in 1977-78, who is a lawyer, a DC Tax Lawyer, and we lived together off and on throughout the 77, I think 78 we actually started living together and then fast forward to 1988 when he is diagnosed with AIDS, but HIV/AIDS. So, starting at that point in time 1988 until he died in 1993 part of my life was kind of a reflection of what was going on in a large part of the gay men's part of the gay and lesbian population, which was that HIV/AIDS was spreading very rapidly in urban areas.

Particularly around in my case I mean, most of the people I knew who got AIDS were professional people who happened to be gay men, and there was a dramatic gap in the federal government's focus on HIV/AIDS throughout the period of the 80s.

And by the way, Dr. Fauci was one of the leaders of the research having to document what caused AIDS, nobody knew in the 80s. And so because they didn't know what caused it there was no remedy for it either.

There was no vaccine. No, you know, nothing. They tried many different established medical protocols as they call them. None of them worked for people who, so there were massive deaths throughout the late 80s and into the early 90s before finally, first a reasonably good, what they called cocktail of different things. Different medications were able to save lives by 95, 96. And now, of course, there's a pill people take and it's just sort of almost import of common thing that people are protected, basically, like we hopefully are with covid vaccines.

But during the period I'm talking about in the 80s and early 90s that didn't exist. So there was a, I mean, I don't remember now the numbers, but hundreds of thousands of people died in the US from AIDS during that period, including my partner.

So, meanwhile, once we knew that there was a pandemic going on, at least among gay men, various local organizations sprung up to try to be helpful to people because we had a lot of homebound.

First of all, there was a stigma about having AIDS and people were afraid of being around you because it wasn't clear how it was communicated. So, there were all kinds of - this is long before they documented how it's communicated - but so people didn't want to be touched, they didn't want to even be around someone breathing who clearly had AIDS and stuff. And the federal government was very slow in picking up on trying to educate the public about the threat or the lack of threat.

Would you mind me asking when, like what, when was the first time that you heard about HIV/AIDS? Like maybe a first news story or I don't know if there was like a personal story that was being shared within like the LGBT community in DC, but I'm really curious as you're talking about how people came to learn of this disease, to contextualize how you exactly, like, first heard about it.

To the best of my recollection what we heard about originally were stories coming out of San Francisco and then almost immediately out of Manhattan as well. Not in DC that I can recall. That's sort of early 80s let's say. And they called it, the gay men's disease. They didn't even have a name, like we're familiar with now, but it was something.

There were a lot of young gay men who had sex with men who were hospitalized, especially in San Francisco to begin with and I mentioned New York. I'm sure cases were popping up every place else too, but those were the two epicenters.

And also the two most politically active sort of communities, gay and lesbian communities. And so organizations sprang up that to do all kinds of facilitation for people who were ill.

So, for example, in DC, I don't know, I don't remember, exactly, but say around 1983 or 84 an organization called food and friends was established and they do - I see they still exist. I'm sort of out of touch with them now - but in those days, they fed about 500 ill people who couldn't get out of their homes or apartments or were so ill that they, you know, they were so weak and so ill.

And so they delivered packages of food basically, a morning delivery that had a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner in it. Every day for 500 people and that then blossomed once the pandemic really took off in DC that became a much larger organization.

And my partner was on the board for Food and Friends. And because he was a tax lawyer he was also doing the pro bono financial / tax for the organization and so he was deeply involved. I participated occasionally by doing the actual delivery including with Jill Strachan. And Jill and I, by the way, had met in 1968, in Sri Lanka, where she, her parents were assigned there with USA ID and she came to visit. Yeah, we've known each other a long time.

I was going to ask how you met one another, that's crazy. And was Jill then someone like, so you two were able to reconnect when you were in DC then?

Yes, yes, exactly. I think we made two trips to Sri Lanka when I was still posted there. And then when, as soon as I got back we were in touch with each other.

And was Jill able to able to connect you with the gay and lesbian community in DC?

Yeah, but she was also in the process of coming out. You're talking here about early to mid 70s and one of her main early participations in the community was the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington and which was again for Washington, a groundbreaking organization, which was somewhat controversial.

We had gay people, gay and lesbian people who were hesitant, let's say, to go to an auditorium to listen to that chorus. It's hard to imagine now. It's hard to remember this all now, but it was very much sort of just coming out from under the surface and she was the director of it for many years, 10 years or so.

Here I can reorient us. I'm curious. What was, because I know you noted that the first stories were coming from San Francisco and New York. What was, like, a local DC story, maybe that had an impact on you? Again it could be from possibly like the Washington Blade or it could have been from maybe your partner's experiences with Food and Friends, but maybe a local story or person that had an impact on you and that made it feel more real / closer to you.

Well, two things happened. One is that I had a couple of friends, friends of friends in Manhattan, New York who became ill early on in the 80s, and I had known them too. Not closely, but had met them anytime, but they were very, very close friends of mine and were living in New York. So I heard a lot from them about what a nightmare this was because even when you were hospitalized, they didn't know what to do with you except keep you on saline drips and so on.

But you know these were young men in their, let's say, I don't know the age group exactly, but let's say 25 to 40 with the core group, so they were young and healthy and so on, otherwise healthy and were just dying time after several months in the hospital or in hospice care.

And then in Washington, I learned, I think I learned more through Food and Friends, actually because they were delivering to people who already were ill and who were homebound, and poor, that was another element that. So when you, you know, would ring a doorbell and hand somebody their meal for the day and find out, you know, how are you doing? Are you do need any, you know, extra help or have you seen a doctor recently or who comes out?

And one of the things, that one of the the many sad and tragic dimensions of HIV/AIDS in that period, in particular, was a lot of these young men who were falling ill, were not out to their families and so often a family would find out, parents would find out, both that their son was gay, which was startling enough, I suppose, and threatening enough to a lot of families, and that he was dying. Because nobody had, you know, any kind of solution to the problem.

So in fact that was pretty common. That was common well, into the 90s where children of their aging parents were very hesitant, especially, you know, conservative or religious parents, who couldn't imagine anybody in their immediate family being homosexual.

They didn't tell them and they, because they were living in DC. they were from a, most of the sort of white professional class in DC is not born in DC. They come there for work, either for the federal government or companies that work with the federal government or lobbyists or work in Congress or something, but their family is usually someplace else.

These people we were delivering meals to were often, very isolated and because also people were afraid of them, that is afraid to be around them because the degree of contagiousness was not at all clear during many years, not just for a few months, but that period in the, in the 80s in particular.

After the next sort of major issue for me was, of course, when my partner tested positive for HIV, which was in 1988, and he was one of those who survived for five years which was a long time in those days and he was able to continue his law practice until about 91, but after that he was homebound essentially and more or less getting blood, transfusions and saline transfusion.

And so as it impacted on me, to be selfish about it for a second, I was trying to manage my career. Which was doing well, and I was, I was frequently promoted and given jobs, but the problem with the more senior jobs, they're so demanding of time. So it's not just a five-day-a-week job in the State Department, most everybody in senior positions works on Saturday also, and if there's an emergency someplace, you know, you're there on Sunday or all night or whatever.

But anyway, so I was trying to balance being a caregiver and it was not a problem for those first three years from, his name was Paul, when he was able to basically take care of himself and continue his work and so on, but just was feeling weak and lacking in energy. But that all came to a crash in 1993, that's when I came out publicly for the first time.

So backpedal just for a second, prior to that I had informed the security department in the State Department - it was either 1990 or 1991 - that I was gay. So I said, I'm not, this is not something you need to go after me about. I'm just I'm telling you that and put it in the record, which they did. And that was about the same time that the first President Bush had put out word, sort of that don't press on these questions any longer, but without changing the regulations.

Then when Paul died, in his obituary I named myself and that I was a State Department official and that helped trigger, in at least a modest way, but if you talk to Brian Dalton, I think he'd tell you that it was a big deal in those days. I was the first career person in the Foreign Service to come out. In an obituary of all things.

How did that feel to come out in that way? And what was the reception like at your work? Did it feel momentous? Or did it feel maybe not as significant? I'm just curious like the feelings that accompany that decision to come out publicly.

That's a good question. Because most people, my friends within the state department, all knew I was gay already. I mean I was out to them but not officially. And they were all very supportive and had been supportive because I had the last two years of Paul's life frequently got emergency calls from ambulances. He had fainted on the street and was taken to a hospital and you know, you better come and see him if you want to see him, you know, those kinds of messages. And so my immediate staff and assistant, and my boss at that point, all knew that this was going on.

And were they supportive of that?

They covered for me basically.

Because that sounds really intense. I mean as you know, your job required a lot of, like, your time and energy and I can imagine that would be a difficult balance between caring for your partner and then also, like, upholding responsibilities at work. I'm curious. I mean I want you to finish your prior thought, but I'd love to also hear more about what that was like, in those years in which Paul required more assistance and stuff.

Yes. Well, it was all those things. I mean it was extremely demanding and looking back I sometimes sort of joke to myself about wondering how I managed. And the answer was, I had a circle of supportive friends.

And also, I think it's a part of human nature that if you have to do something that, I mean, I was really committed to the profession and my career, and I didn't want to give that up unless I absolutely had to for any reason. And of course, committed to Paul and trying to take care of him.

And so, yes, it was very demanding. The only thing the only professional impact was that I had to stay in Washington assignments. I was ready to be, I was going to be an ambassador in Iraq for example. In 1990 President Bush nominated me for that position before we had all the Iraq Wars and so on. And so I had to withdraw from that, but that worked out to be, okay, actually quite fine, but that was the only sort of immediate professional problem.

The other was just exhaustion all the time and getting very little sleep and so on. But for the last six months or so Paul's life we had home health care. We were able to bring in people who would stay with him overnight and during part of the day and make sure he had some food during the day when I was working in the department.

And even in those jobs, in those days when you're based in Washington, there's a lot of foreign travel. Anyway, you go to consult with a French or the British, have meetings with Russians or whatever, and are gone often weeks at a time. So he needed that kind of support.

Well in what ways were your co-workers supportive, or did you have? I'm curious about your networks of care within work but also them outside of work too? Like did your co-workers have a relationship to Paul? Like were the two communities connected at all or were they separate? I'm really curious.

Yes, a few people, a few of my colleagues had connections with Paul and would come to visit him. Especially, we lived on Capitol Hill and people who were conveniently there, Jill being one of them, but she was not from my professional life. But my boss actually, the director-general of the Foreign Service lived around the corner. And she, and her husband used to come and visit Paul and others did too, would drop in let's say.

But, they were trying to be, I mean, I think they were, you know, fond of Paul, but they were also trying to take some of the load off of me and said, 'you know, why don't you go out and I don't know garden or something, rather than sit here and worry about him.' And so they did that. But the last six months he was very ill and very weak and so on, and so we had to get the professional people.

But within the State Department, it's a little hard to describe, but you have both professional relations and personal relations, and sometimes they're both. It can be the same person and sometimes you meet somebody only in their professional role and they meet you in your professional role and you engage with whatever the issue is between your two offices or positions. But often those professional connections get transformed over time. Let's have lunch, you know, talk about this.

You get to know people more personally, and more fully rather than just the kind of sterile professional relationships, or it can be sterile anyway. And they were all, by that time everybody knew that this was going on in my life and they were all - I'm not aware of anybody with a problem or complaining about, you know, what I was doing or not doing.

And I was in the Personnel Department at that climax in Paul's life. And so, we were making decisions about assignments all over the world. Everybody was, you know, we're intransitive every third summer. People are looking for their next position where they can take their families, children and you know, and so on, and how big this is.

It's a complex assignment process that has to be planned in advance because especially in those days, we were just beginning to recognize special needs children. And if you're assigned to Timbuktu in the embassy, what's going to happen to special needs kids? And what are the responsibilities of the State Department to provide something in these isolated, many isolated posts, for example.

But there were other issues that came up about spousal employment and so on. Again it probably sounds absurd now. But spouses of Foreign Service people were not allowed to work in the country of the assignment and what that meant in practice usually, was that the husband was in the Foreign Service and he had a position.

And his professional wife, who was a doctor or a lawyer or something, you know, some highly trained and educated person with a big job in Washington or wherever they came from. And then she's sent to Timbuktu if they wanted to keep the family together and not allowed to work there, even voluntarily.

So those were some of the issues aside from gay lesbian issues, which became front and center. The role of family and spouses, in particular, had become a very hot item. I mean people were not going to put up with this old-fashioned, these procedures and regulations the State Department had from the 50s and 60s.

Believe it or not, when I joined the Foreign Service in 1967, in the State Department in Foreign Service, you get an annual performance report evaluation of your work and it was standard to comment on the spouse in the official personnel report of the employee.

And it was usually again, men have the job and women were the supporting spouse. Homemaker, you know, family, mother blah, blah blah, but not a professional person. And so there would be comments like 'well, he's done a great job, but his wife hasn't really pitched in with the local charitable communities or somewhat.' I mean, that kind of commentary was going on. The wife was not paid or, you know, was not an employee of the US government. But

That's so fascinating.

Yes, so crazy gender issues were, you know, just kept erupting in various different ways over between, let's say, the 70s and early 90s and still do. I mean there are still some, but most of them are gone now.

I'm really curious then with this, like, evolution of commentary on gender roles and family. Like what did it feel like to lead a double life for so much of that? I know you use the term double life and then also how the AIDS epidemic affected this, and also coming out to your co-workers, and kind of embracing, like, a gay identity with your co-workers.

I'm curious if you could just elaborate more on this like evolution and what it felt like to lead a double life. And then also, if there was any effect on your work, after you were like, out with your co-workers and also, as the AIDS epidemic was unraveling around you,

Well, yeah, I mean all of that, it was all a bundle of issues and contradictions, let's say, that had to be somehow managed during a period where if you wanted to keep your job, if you wanted to go into the private sector or have a job that didn't require a security clearance, the kinds of professional pressures that I was describing would be much less, if anything, just sort of social program.

Remember also that we're talking mostly about government regulations and procedures. Being out in general, in the US, certainly in the 70s and well into the 80s, was highly controversial. And a lot of people didn't like it and didn't want to be confronted with the fact that whatever percentage of our population is gay and lesbian.

Said they didn't know anybody who was gay and of course their own children were gay or something. But at that point, there was all this denial going on within our social fabric, let's say, of the country and still is in some places.

For example, right now I have been on a board of a very local NGO that promotes and assists poor people with HIV/AIDS. By the way, I live in South Florida as I mentioned, and we are the epicenter, still, of HIV/AIDS in the country. Worse than any of the big bigger metropolitan areas.

And so here for example, a good number of people, we deal with are African Americans, both male and female now with children. I'm not talking about a married couple, I'm talking about individual Black men and individual black women, but the women have children, some of whom are born with HIV.

It's easy now and readily free available to take a medication that blocks the transmission from a pregnant woman to the child. Some people don't know about it, don't like however often you have to take that medication. They sort of miss their time.

So we were dealing with some very poor people, mostly African-American, we are still here. And I was surprised, it's a question also of class, I think class and education, social arrangements.

But within the Black community, at least here in South Florida, it is still highly controversial for young people, young men to come out to their families, to their Church, to their social network, unless they've made a network of fellow gay people.

So it's always been a challenge I think, for people to get up their nerve to decide themselves, 'if I get rejected by my family. By telling them the truth of myself and my personal life, my sexual orientation. That's okay. That's up to them. I hope it doesn't happen.' But there's a very big risk involved in doing that for some people, depending on older generations, you know, attitudes towards things.

So, all of that was going on, I mean, Paul was not out to his parents either. He had a big family and his brothers visited us and stayed with us and all knew about him. He was the only gay person in their family, but he never did come out to his parents directly. So I had to tell them.

And his whole life?

I had to tell them, his mother and father that he was very ill and that they needed to come down, you know, to say goodbye. And that he was gay.

That must have been difficult. What was that like for you?

Difficult for me, but very difficult for them. I mean a sort of Irish-Italian Catholic family outside of Boston who live in their own world. I mean, we all do in our own little bubbles and, you know, as we float around this world, but I don't think they had known anybody before who was gay. I don't know how they, I mean, Paul and I were together for 17 years and I visited up there and went for his brother's weddings and stuff.

They just thought we were good friends I guess. I don't know how they managed it in their own minds without coming to terms with the fact that their son, their eldest and most successful, most highly educated son was gay, and then was dying.

How did you and Paul meet?

Through another gay Foreign Service officer who had served with me inBahrain, which is the little island in the Persian Gulf. We had been there for about 6 months together and we had relationship where it was obvious that even though I was a supervisor that we were both gay and we're comfortable with that.

So we're both back in Washington and it's my birthday. And that guy, the one I knew from Bahrain said, 'well, I'm going out to dinner with a friend. I want to come and have a glass of champagne for your birthday and then we two are going out.'

So that person turned out to be Paul and we used to laugh that it was downhill ever since. It was one of those instant, I don't know, connections that happens between people sometimes.

That's sweet. And was Paul then introduced to your family or what was your relationship like with your family?

By then my parents are still in Los Angeles. I had a brother, a former military brother who's now deceased, but he and his family lived just outside of Washington, and I'm drawing a blank about the small town. But anyway, he was retired from the military.

And I have a sister. I still have a sister who still lives in Los Angeles, where we all grew up. And my sister and Paul got along great when we visited back and forth.

My brother never acknowledged Paul, so just for an example of the kind of attitude. My brother was a graduate of the Naval Academy, civil engineer, educated, and I thought more sophisticated than it turned out to be. So for example, the first Thanksgiving after Paul and I got together, we're living together. I was invited to the Thanksgiving dinner at my brother and sister-in-law/s home, and I said, 'well, I want to bring my roommate.' And I did and my brother wouldn't shake hands with Paul.

So it was really weird. Again, my sister-in-law was fine, didn't seem to have any problem or had dealt with it already or was better at disguising it. And my brother wouldn't address a question to Paul, it was like he wasn't there in my brother's head so that, I guess my brother was saying, 'I want to keep this relationship with me.' Well, I said, well, you know, we're not coming back.

We had that delicious turkey dinner, turkey Thanksgiving. And after the pie, I said, 'okay, we're leaving.' Almost literally and that's it, you know, when you come to terms with this, give me a call.

And did he ever?

No, but his children did. And so, for example, when his eldest child got married, she made a point of inviting Paul and me. Paul got his own invitation.

Oh nice.

So the rest of the family was okay, but my brother never could accommodate. So I only tell that story because that was not uncommon, not at all.

Back to food and friends for a second. Some of those ill young men who were housebound really had no family. They mostly I think had not come out, but the ones who had, had been essentially shunned by the family in those days and I mean shun. Not talk to, not communicated with, not in touch with, don't bother coming home for Christmas kind of relationship.

So once they became ill and kind of defenseless, they were really on their own because the social service network, except for the voluntary organizations like food and friends, but in DC government there was no sort of governmental program like Meals on Wheels and things now, that are very widespread. People with HIV couldn't qualify for that. Or social workers, you know who would drop in once a month or anybody they could talk to for psychological, emotional help. 'And how do I deal with this nameless illness?'

So it was a really bad time. And so I think early on you had wondered about the connection between our current pandemic and HIV. And I would say that they're both viruses, of course, and they're both, they are contagious - covid much more so than HIV. But the difference was the social stigma involved because it was related to sexual orientation which in turn was related to a whole segment of our society that didn't recognize that there were a lot of homosexual people in the country.

And you'll remember this whole debate it still rages in some churches and other places, about whether the gay lifestyle is a choice or something you're born with or you know, that it's genetic or psychological. But not something you don't say 'well, I could either be this or I could be that and choose one or the other.'

And those days, again and certainly in the 80s, there were a lot of, you know, so-called Christian organizations, ministers, and so on, who were essentially saying 'well, they're getting what they deserve, you know, they chose this terrible, ungodly, you know, unprincipled lifestyle and you see the results.'

So, I mean, a lot of them were crackpots, but some of them were very popular, had these megachurches. It was quite an amazing - and as far as I know, nobody's doing that except around masks and so on, but not about something that's deeply helpless.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much I recognize we only have six minutes left. It's been amazing, I wish we could keep talking for hours. There's so much to dissect here and like, delve into, it's been fascinating.

One thank you so much I have been, like, totally enthralled with everything you're saying. And I value also that you're being vulnerable with me, with everything you're saying.

But two, like last question before we part. I'm curious then, like on that note, how this era of stigma, of being a care worker, how living through the height of the AIDS epidemic has impacted your life, and how it can still be felt today in your life? I'm really curious if you could share a few thoughts again before we leave.

Well both personally, but also professionally from that period till Paul's death and when I was out professionally, as well as personally and socially.

You know, really since that time I've done whatever I could to make sure doors were open for gay and lesbian people and not closed either formally or informally. While I was in the State Department there, but also in my current life here, I try to be involved in the local gay-lesbian community. And I think I mentioned, the one organization where we're helping poor people with HIV/AIDS.

But I'm not out for, sort of, Gay Pride marches and things like that. I went through that phase, by the way, we did in the late 70s and 80s and that too in DC was highly controversial at the time that there would even be a gay pride day and police harassment.

When we were out and there would be various parks in the District, where we would have the Gay Pride Celebration. And we've got good crowds of people coming out.

Almost all white, very few of the black gay community were prepared to come out in those days. I'm not sure what it's like in DC now, but also in those days, I mean the population of DC was 70 or so percent black. So it was pretty amazing that there was so little Black-white overlay even in the gay community. Not to mention the broader community.

You asked how I felt after formally coming out in 1993 and it was mostly a liberation as people say, and that is a sense of a burden being lifted because running two lives, two challenging lives simultaneously up to that period was - both professional and personal - was, you know, difficult. And I think in looking back, I think I probably could have done a better job on both fronts if I had been only dealing with one or the other.

And so after coming out, it's been the fact of accepting my own sexual orientation and also being aware of other people's and trying to be supportive of people who are having trouble with either coming out or with their lives in general.

I've consistently done that in jobs and the State Department, and you know, we have gay and lesbian organizations now in all our embassies, and that GLIFFA has evolved into a major organization that's recognized by the State Department. They negotiate with it along with the professional association.

So there's been big, big changes. I mean, almost hard to believe. I was laughing to myself and preparation thinking back to and assuming your age would be such that hearing about these ancient stories from the sixties and seventies, and even the 80s was probably hard to imagine what the lives were that people led. On that front, by the way, I think you've done a marvelous job with your questions. Thanks, thanks for that.

Well, I mean, this is awesome for me because as you said, I mean, I can't really imagine. I'm 21 and obviously a lot has changed. And so it's incredibly valuable for me to be able to talk to people who have lived these experiences. Like you were there, I wasn't obviously, and so this is really meaningful to me. So, so, thank you.

You're very welcome. So I'm going to do two things. I'm going to try to get this signed form to you one way or the other and also I'll -