NPR

Inside The Life Of Eisenhower's 'Mystery Man' — Smart, Efficient, Secretly Gay

Robert Cutler was President Dwight Eisenhower's right hand. He was also a closeted gay man who helped carry out a 1953 executive order to identify and remove gay employees from the federal government.
"Ike's Mystery Man: The Secret Lives of Robert Cutler," by Peter Shinkle. (Jack Mitchell/Here & Now)

Robert Cutler was President Dwight Eisenhower’s right-hand man. The former Army general became a senior strategist and then the country’s first national security adviser.

He was also a closeted gay man who was actively executing a 1953 executive order to identify and remove gay employees from the federal government. That move caused not only disruption and persecution, but suicides.

‘s Robin Young talks with — Cutler’s nephew — as well as , who worked alongside Cutler.

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