Perhaps Bouchey had a window into its deliberations. Bouchey’s group was informally advising the Reagan campaign on Latin American issues.
Jack Kemp - that most piqued Livingston’s interest. But it was the serious consideration of a fellow House colleague - Rep. Bush, who had recently bowed out of the race for president, and former President Gerald Ford. Some of the top contenders were former CIA Director George H. The former governor of California needed a veep candidate who could heal the widening divide within the GOP between its moderate establishment and conservatives like himself. For months, speculation had been mounting as to whom Reagan would choose as his running mate. Sign up for the newsletter.īut over dinner, three weeks before he and his fellow Republicans were to gather at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit for their national convention, Livingston had something more urgent on his mind than the twilight struggle between capitalism and communism. Want to read more stories like this? POLITICO Weekend delivers gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun every Friday. As the congressman representing the Port of New Orleans, Livingston had every reason to worry about this threat, and when Bouchey offered him a seat on the council’s advisory board, he was happy to accept. One of Bouchey’s responsibilities was to enlist up-and-coming legislators in the cause of rolling back communism across Latin America, a crusade that was beginning to assume great significance at the dawn of the 1980s. Both were 37 years old, brothers of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and committed conservatives. The men had several other things in common. Bouchey and Livingston would meet at 7:30 at The Palm near Dupont Circle.īouchey drove into the city from his home in Annandale, the pleasant suburban community where Livingston also happened to live with his family.
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Was Livingston free for supper? As luck would have it, Livingston’s secretary said, the congressman’s wife was also away, and his evening was open.
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Bouchey’s wife was out of town, and he was home alone facing the unsavory prospect of a TV dinner. Francis Bouchey, executive vice president of a small conservative foreign policy think tank called the Council for Inter-American Security. Shortly before closing his office on the evening of June 25, Livingston’s secretary received a phone call from L.
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The series of events that led Livingston to take refuge in the warrens of a Capitol Hill basement began innocently enough. Appropriately for a story involving what was once considered the gravest sin in American politics, it has never been told until now. This account of the alleged “homosexual ring” that controlled Ronald Reagan, and the efforts to expose it on the eve of the 1980 Republican National Convention that nominated him for the presidency, is compiled from interviews with several of the surviving participants and documents uncovered in the papers of former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee. Madison Cawthorn recently illustrated), especially in socially conservative milieus. While public attitudes have become far more open, the insinuation that someone is gay - whether true or not - remains a potent weapon (as elements of the campaign against North Carolina Republican Rep. David Walsh in 1942, was perpetrated by interventionist allies of fellow Democrat, President Franklin D. The first outing in American politics, of the isolationist Massachusetts Sen. The mere insinuation of homosexuality was sufficient to destroy a political career, and things could get particularly vicious between intraparty adversaries. What people don’t know is that nearly two decades before this bit part in the Clinton impeachment drama riveted the nation, Livingston was at the center of another scandal involving politicians and illicit sex, one that, in his own words, had the potential to be “world-shaking.” Most explosive about this whole terrible intrigue, and what tied it all together, was the nature of the sexual activity involved.įor most of the 20th century, the worst thing one could possibly be in American politics was gay. Bob Livingston (R-La.) announced his resignation, admitting to adultery, just hours before the House voted to impeach President Bill Clinton on Dec.