The passages, quoted in Shinkle’s book, are poignant and sometimes painful to read. “I took his hand our fingers for a moment interlaced,” Cutler wrote after Koons drove him home in his Thunderbird after a night at the movies in 1957. “It was at that moment the greatest adventure of my life began: the best, the purest, the most penetrating moment I ever knew.”

From the diary, though, it appears that Cutler’s relationship with the young staffer was never consummated, leaving the older man tormented even while he later pursued relationships with other young men. In 1958, while dealing with the crisis over the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, Cutler writes of gazing longingly at night at a “blown up photograph” of Koons in his bedroom. “I love him with all my heart, more than I ever cared for any human being,” Cutler wrote in a 1959 entry. “But between us – me, 64-1/2, he 32-3/4 – the thought of love to his normal serene soul is out of course.”

All this cast another light on the creation of the antigay executive order that did so much damage to others in similar situations. As Shinkle reconstructs the story, Eisenhower had promised during his 1952 campaign to root out “subversives” in the government — a pledge made to appease the demagogic Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a man Ike privately disdained. Early in the new administration, the new attorney general, Herbert Brownell, sent the White House a brief draft executive order to tighten security procedures and enhance background investigations by federal agencies — without specifying exactly what conduct would be disqualifying.

It was Cutler who, after reviewing Brownell’s memo, recommended that it be toughened with more expansive language (previously recommended by security officials but never adopted under President Harry Truman) specifically identifying “sexual perversion” as grounds for dismissal. It was based on a shaky premise: that gays were susceptible to Soviet blackmail and therefore couldn’t be trusted with government secrets (although there was no evidence of this actually happening). Still, the new language was adopted, with no record of objections raised at the White House or the Justice Department.

Why did Cutler do it? Certainly, it was a sop to McCarthy, who quickly praised the new executive order as a “tremendous improvement.” But Shinkle lays out evidence suggesting a darker possible motivation: to counteract rumors that had begun to spread in Washington of Cutler’s own homosexuality. Shinkle cites an overlooked passage from the posthumously published memoirs of the influential columnist Joseph Alsop (himself a closeted gay man) recounting a nasty confrontation in Georgetown between Cutler and the distinguished diplomat Charles (Chip) Bohlen. Bohlen had been nominated by Eisenhower to be ambassador to Moscow, but his confirmation in the Senate was being threatened by McCarthy’s smears about the nominee’s own private life and that of one of his relatives. Upset that the new administration wasn’t doing enough to support him, Bohlen grew angry and — according to Alsop — was about to bring up Cutler’s “incorrect tastes in love” when Bohlen’s wife intervened, deliberately knocking over a tea tray to defuse the situation.