This is a rare TV interview event between two rival voices of Post-WWII America: attorney Roy Cohn and author Gore Vidal.
Since the program alluded to the subject, it must be pointed out that these gentlemen were notably known as two of the most famous homosexuals in the United States.
They also each had very controversial relationships with CIA “conservative” William F. Buckley Jr. who helped destroy the pro-peace, anti-interventionist Old Right against the foreign/domestic policies of FDR and Harry Truman for the intelligence community.
Roy Cohn was an American lawyer and prosecutor who came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy’s investigations of suspected communists in the federal government. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, he became a prominent political fixer in New York City with a variety of clients, ranging from counsel for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of NY to Mafia mouthpiece.
After resigning from McCarthy’s staff, Cohn had a 30-year career as an attorney in New York City. His clients included New York Yankees baseball club owner George Steinbrenner; billionaire oil shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis (who married JFK widow Jaqueline Kennedy); Mafia figures Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, John Gotti and Mario Gigante; Studio 54 nightclub owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager; and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.
He also represented and mentored New York City real estate developer and later U.S. President Donald Trump during his early business career.
Cohn was born in the Bronx in New York City and educated at Columbia University. He rose to prominence as a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor at the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, where he successfully prosecuted the Rosenbergs, which led to their conviction and execution in 1953.
In 1986, Cohn was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court for unethical conduct after attempting to defraud a dying client by forcing the client to sign a will amendment leaving him his fortune. He died five weeks later from AIDS-related complications, having vehemently denied that he was HIV-positive.
As to Gore Vidal, see this article below (my first published piece on LewRockwell.com as a guest columnist).
2:20 am on October 10, 2024
