Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, June 9th, 1953, 25-year-old Lester Buddy Hunt Jr. who was the president of the

student body at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is arrested in Washington, D.C. a The agent who arrested Buddy Hunt was part of a so-called Pervert Elimination Squad, part of J Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy's ramped up anti-LgBT efforts in DC in the 1950s.

So yes, there was a pervert elimination squad

and we will get to that larger context.

But who was this Lester Hunt Jr?

He was more than just a star student

at a theological school.

He was the son of Democrat Lester Hunt,

former governor, and at the time, senator from Wyoming.

So we have the son of a very prominent politician being arrested in an anti LGBT sting and after his son's arrest this kicked off a sinister twisted and ultimately really tragic series of events in which Hunt, the elder, was basically blackmailed

by parts of the government into leaving politics.

His life was derailed.

A despondent Lester Hunt senior commits suicide the following summer. So it's a story of the

government's persecution of gays, the so-called lavender scare led by McCarthy

and Hoover and of course a family tragedy with big political implications so here to discuss as always

Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley hello there

hello Jody hey there what a twisty turny tragic but really riveting

fascinating story. One thing worth clearing up because I kind of had to clear it up

for myself but when you say when you're talking about a family named the hunts who are prominent

in the middle of the 20th century, my mind goes to the hunts of Texas who, you know, and as far

...