Editing Lester C. Hunt (section)

==Later references==
[[Allen Drury]], a journalist who covered the U.S. Senate for [[United Press International]], used Hunt's blackmail and suicide as the basis for his 1959 best-selling and [[Pulitzer Prize]]–winning novel ''[[Advise and Consent]]''.<ref>''New York Times'': [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Mallon2-t.html Thomas Mallon, "'Advise and Consent' at 50," June 25, 2009], accessed February 25, 2011</ref> In the novel, Senator Fred Van Ackerman from Wyoming uses a homosexual affair to blackmail Utah Senator Brigham Anderson. In 1962, the novel was made into a [[Advise and Consent (film)|movie]] starring [[Henry Fonda]] and directed by [[Otto Preminger]].

University of Wyoming historian T.A. Larson, author of a history of the state, wrote an account of Hunt's suicide and submitted it to Hunt's widow Nathelle, seeking her permission to publish it. Instead she threatened him with a lawsuit and he never published the results of his research.<ref name=storrow/><ref>{{cite book|last=McDaniel |first=Rodger |title=Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt |year=2013 |pages=276–8}}</ref>

Hunt's anti-McCarthyism and his son's arrest appear in fictionalized form in [[Thomas Mallon]]'s ''Fellow Travelers'' (2007), a novel that describes a young man's introduction to hardball Washington politics in the 1950s as he discovers his gay identity.<ref>Thomas Mallon, ''Fellow Travelers'' (NY: Pantheon Books, 2007), 53, 93, 112–3, 161–7</ref> It is included as well in the 2023 [[Fellow Travelers (miniseries)|television miniseries]] based on the novel.<ref>{{cite news | access-date = December 15, 2023 | url = https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/fellow-travelers-review-matt-bomer-jonathan-bailey-1235623948/ | newspaper = Hollywood Reporter | date = October 23, 2023 | title = 'Fellow Travelers' Review: A Superbly Paired Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey Give Showtime's Sometimes Stodgy Miniseries Its Spark | first = Daniel | last = Fienberg }}</ref>

In 2013, at a mock trial of Hunt's Senate colleagues McCarthy, Welker, and Bridges, all three were "found guilty of a variety of charges, including blackmail and causing bodily injury".<ref name=storrow/> Former Wyoming Governor [[Dave Freudenthal]], who played the prosecuting attorney in the Cheyenne event, said: "This particular part of Wyoming history had been swept under the rug. So I'm really delighted to participate in drawing attention to it."<ref>{{cite news |last=Bray|first=Kelsey |date=April 8, 2013|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2013/04/08/news/01top_04-08-13.txt|title=Guilty: Senators convicted in mock trial|newspaper=[[Wyoming Tribune-Eagle]]|access-date=April 8, 2013}}</ref> The event was organized to coincide with the publication of a new study of Hunt's death, ''Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins'' by [[Rodger McDaniel]], a Presbyterian pastor, former Wyoming legislator (1971–1981), and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1982. He used some of Larson's research.