Prejudice and Pride: A History of the LGBTQ+ community and Intelligence
I am lucky to have completed a career in Security and Intelligence over 25 years.
During that time, I’ve been fortunate to work with many amazing people from different cultures, ethnicities, races, sexual identifications, and sexual orientations.
As we come to the end of Pride Month, I wanted to write an article regarding the tumultuous history of the LGBTQ+ community and the world of Intelligence.
Compromise, LGBTQ+, and Intelligence
Some reading this article may be familiar with a well-known targeting acronym from the Intelligence Community, known as MICE. For those who are unfamiliar, these are some motivational factors used to recruit sources:
• M — Money
• I — Ideology
• C — Compromise
• E — Ego (or, sometimes, referred to as Excitement)
So how does this acronym relate to the LGBTQ+ and Intelligence communities? Well, you shall C (hint, hint).
In the Intelligence Community, “Compromise” is used as a tactic for recruiting sources, by identifying individuals with valuable information and exploiting their vulnerabilities.
This involves establishing a relationship using techniques like manipulation or blackmail; and gaining trust and leverage over the recruitment target. The goal is to coerce or persuade that source to provide intelligence or cooperate as informants while maintaining confidentiality.
One traditional form of Compromise is related to “moral impropriety,” in the form of sexual promiscuity, or illegal activities. Unfortunately for the LGBTQ+ community, in the early, mid- and much of the late 20th Century, any deviation from what was considered “normal” was grounds for both.
Kim Philby
One of the earlier examples of how sexual orientation was used for compromise to blackmail, manipulate and recruit an intelligence officer comes in the form of Kim Philby (aka Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby) (DOB: 1912 01 01).
Philby was a British Intelligence Officer for the British Secret Intelligence Service (BSIS), or Military Intelligence 6 (MI6). Philby was considered a highly skilled IO, and as such he rose through the ranks and acquired positions of significant responsibility.
Philby’s sexual orientation was used by Soviet Intelligence agencies to blackmail him into becoming a member of the Spy Ring known as the Cambridge Five. Philby was an active double agent from the mid-1930s until his exposure in 1963.
There is no guarantee that Philby would not have been recruited otherwise, as he seemed to demonstrate Soviet and Communist sympathies. However, the fact that homosexuality was considered immoral and illegal at the time was a definite factor in his recruitment by the Soviet Intelligence Community.
The “Fruit Machine”
The concerns surrounding sexual orientation and compromise continued into the 1950s and 1960s, when laws concerning homosexuality, “immorality” and “sexual deviation” persisted.
During this time, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) began using the “Fruit Machine”—named after the offensive label assigned to those who identify as gay—to weed out LGBTQ+ individuals working in the federal government.
This machine was developed by a Carleton University professor, Frank Robert Wake, and employed pseudo-science by showing subjects pornographic images and registering pupil dilation and pulse rate—the idea being that gay men would have a more measurable reaction to same-sex images.
The Fruit Machine was used to target and interrogate thousands of individuals—resulting in severe and tragic consequence ranging from dismissals to forced resignations, and even suicides.
The Lavender Scare
During the same timeframe in the United States, a phenomenon known as the “Lavender Scare” was happening.
The Lavender Scare was an offshoot of the “Red Scare,” a fear that communist and Soviet sympathizers had or were acquiring government positions.
The difference with the “Lavender Scare” stemmed from the fear of potential compromise of LGBTQ+ individuals within government agencies, including intelligence and security organizations.
As such, Intelligence agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted investigations to identify LGBTQ+ individuals from government positions, branding them as potential security threats. Thousands faced interrogations, dismissals, and coerced resignations, enduring the devastating consequences of discrimination based on their perceived sexual orientation.
Diversity Today in the Intelligence Community
Fortunately for the Intelligence Community, many of these preconceived notions of Compromise to members of the LGBTQ+ community has changed for the better over the decades.
To say that there is no longer a stigma or discrimination based on sexual preference or sexual identity would be naïve, but it would also be incorrect to ignore the advances and changes that have occurred. The concept of diversity at all levels has been more readily adopted and engaged within the Intelligence Community.
I personally saw many changes occur over the decades that I worked in the Canadian Intelligence Community, where colleagues, managers and executives were openly a part of the LGBTQ+ community and proud of it. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service actively celebrates Pride month and has done so for many years, flying the Pride flag and painting crosswalks in a rainbow pattern.
What once was considered an impropriety is now seen as a point of Pride, and rightly so. As with any community, the talents and professionalism brought to the Intelligence Community by members of the LGBTQ+ community is now a cause for celebration—and no longer a reason to fear compromise.
