Editing Roy Cohn (section)

==Work with Joseph McCarthy==
{{Main|Army–McCarthy hearings}}
[[File:Joseph_McCarthy_with_Roy_M._Cohn_and_G._David_Schine.jpg|thumb|Roy Cohn, [[Joseph McCarthy]], and [[G. David Schine]] in 1953]]
The Rosenberg trial brought the 24-year-old Cohn to the attention of [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) director [[J. Edgar Hoover]]. With support from Hoover and [[Cardinal Spellman]], Hearst columnist [[George Sokolsky]] convinced [[Joseph McCarthy]] to hire Cohn as his chief counsel, choosing him over [[Robert F. Kennedy]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Jason |last=Epstein |author-link=Jason Epstein |title=Eating: A Memoir |date=19 October 2010 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |location=New York City |page=123 |isbn=9781400078257| quote= Cohn's position as Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel was a job Joseph P. Kennedy had wanted for his son Bobby.}}</ref><ref name="The Press: The Man in the Middle">{{cite magazine |title=The Press: The Man in the Middle |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,823411,00.html |access-date=February 2, 2022 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=May 24, 1954}}</ref> Cohn assisted McCarthy with his work for the [[United States Senate|Senate]] [[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]], becoming known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn preferred not to hold hearings in open forums, which went well with McCarthy's preference for holding "executive sessions" and "off-the-record" sessions away from the Capitol to minimize public scrutiny and to question witnesses with relative impunity.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-107SPRT83869/html/CPRT-107SPRT83869.htm|title=Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations|date=January 2003|website=Government Publishing Office}}</ref> Cohn was given free rein in pursuit of many investigations, with McCarthy joining in only for the more publicized sessions.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Have_you_no_sense_of_decency.htm|title=U.S. Senate: 'Have You No Sense of Decency?' |website=senate.gov|access-date=December 28, 2018}}</ref>

Cohn played a major role in McCarthy's anti-Communist hearings.<ref name="ppppnav">{{cite web |url=http://www.out.com/entertainment/popnography/2013/04/26/9-things-to%C2%A0know-about-lavender-scare |title=Lavender Scare |website=[[Out.com]] |date=April 26, 2013|access-date=July 11, 2013}}</ref> During the [[Lavender Scare]], Cohn and McCarthy alleged that [[Soviet Bloc]] [[intelligence service]]s had [[blackmail]]ed multiple U.S. Federal Government employees into committing espionage in return for not exposing their [[closeted]] [[homosexuality]].<ref name="ppppnav" /> In response, President [[Dwight Eisenhower]] signed [[Executive Order 10450]] on April 27, 1953, to ban homosexuals, whom he considered a [[national security]] risk, from being employed by the federal government. According to David L. Marcus, Cohn's cousin, many Federal employees in Washington, D.C., who were exposed as homosexuals by Cohn and McCarthy committed [[suicide]]. As time went on, it became well known that Cohn was himself gay, although he always denied it.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Romano |first1=Lois |title=The Closing Arguments of Roy Cohn |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/12/21/the-closing-arguments-of-roy-cohn/856fb2d8-c11c-40d6-bace-3bc891b90384/ |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=December 21, 1985}}</ref> McCarthy and Cohn were responsible for the firing of many gay men from government employment, and strong-armed opponents into silence using rumors of their homosexuality.<ref name="johnson">{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=David K. |url=https://archive.org/details/lavenderscarecol00john_0/page/15 |title=The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government |date=2004 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0-226-40481-3 |location=Chicago, Illinois |pages=[https://archive.org/details/lavenderscarecol00john_0/page/15 15–19]}}</ref> Former U.S. Senator [[Alan K. Simpson]] wrote: "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element…and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Simpson |first1=Alan K. |title=Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt  |last2=McDaniel |first2=Rodger |date=2013 |publisher=WordsWorth Press |isbn=978-0983027591 |location=Cody, Wyoming |page=x |chapter=Prologue |authorlink1=Alan K. Simpson}}</ref>

[[File:McCarthy Cohn.jpg|thumb|Senator Joseph McCarthy chats with Cohn at the [[Army–McCarthy hearings]] in 1954]]

Sokolsky introduced [[G. David Schine]], an anti-Communist propagandist, to Cohn, who invited him to join McCarthy's staff as an unpaid consultant.<ref name="The Press: The Man in the Middle" /> When Schine was drafted into the [[US Army]] in 1953, Cohn made extensive efforts to procure special treatment for him, even threatening to "wreck the Army" if his demands were not met.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=March 22, 1954 |title=The Self-Inflated Target |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819554,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114193839/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819554,00.html |archive-date=November 14, 2007 |access-date=March 11, 2008 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |quote=Roy Cohn had threatened to "wreck the Army" in an attempt to get special treatment for one Private G. David Schine.}}</ref> That conflict, along with McCarthy's claims that there were Communists in the Defense Department, led to the [[Army–McCarthy hearings]] of 1954, during which the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure on Schine's behalf, and McCarthy and Cohn countercharged that the Army was holding Schine "hostage" in an attempt to squelch McCarthy's investigations into Communists in the Army. The Army-McCarthy hearings ultimately contributed to McCarthy's censure by the Senate later that year. After resigning from McCarthy's staff, Cohn returned to New York and entered private practice as an attorney.<ref>{{cite news |last1=O'Harrow |first1=Robert Jr. |last2=Boburg |first2=Shawn |date=June 17, 2016 |title=The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/former-mccarthy-aide-showed-trump-how-to-exploit-power-and-draw-attention/2016/06/16/e9f44f20-2bf3-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html |access-date=December 28, 2018 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>