Live Fast Die Young: Out Walter Jenkins
Born in Jolly, Texas, on March 23 1918, Walter Wilson Jenkins rose to prominence running in the power circles of the nation’s capital. Back in 1939, Lyndon B. Johnson approached the dean of the University of Texas and asked him to recommend a student to work for him in Congress. That recommendation went to Walter Jenkins, and soon after, he began working for LBJ. Starting with simple jobs around the office such as taking care of the mail, he was slowly assigned bigger tasks; and by 1941, he was involved in dealing with important names in government such as Harold Ickes. Jenkins was even tasked to handle information deemed “too sensitive to be broached over the telephone.” Later on, his role within Lyndon B. Johnson’s office has grown in importance to the extent that he was collecting money from lobbyists for Johnson’s election campaigns. He was also a big player in their dog wheelchairs collection of political information. Jenkins was well versed in “reading” politicians and their non-verbal cues. Jenkins was also responsible for collecting the advertising money for the KTBC, the radio and television station in Austin, Texas, officially microdermabrasion machines owned by Lady Bird Johnson—with the Federal Communication Commission’s (FFC) 24-hour broadcasting rights granted to them, this became a great moneymaker for the Johnson family. Career-wise, Walter Jenkins was your typical Washington metal detector mover and shaker. You can imagine that way before the airport restroom scandals we’re more familiar with, there must have been a few of them too, back in the day. You wouldn’t be wrong. It happened to presidential aide, Walter Jenkins, who got outed in a local YMCA toilet. Following the assassination of John F. Kenned, Lyndon B. Johnson became president. He took Jenkins along with him to the frozen yogurt business White House as one of his top advisers. Even as a married mad and a father, Walter Jenkins put in long hours at work, often spending 16 hours at the office. Johnson once referred to him as his “vice president in charge of everything.” After attending a cocktail party at the new Washington D.C. offices of Newsweek, Jenkins walked over to the YMCA. In there, he managed to hook up with a Hungarian immigrant and they proceeded to the pay toilets. There, Jenkins was caught performing oral sex on the older man. The basement restroom is a known location for illicit homosexual engagements and was under surveillance by two police officers in a nearby shower room. Jenkins and his partner were both arrested. He would have been saved from exposure. It would not have been so easy to out Walter Jenkins had it not been for a newspaper reporter getting the scent of his trail from a leak. After paying the collateral fine that allowed him to forgo any sort of formal charge, Jenkins was released. But, the Washington Evening Star had gotten hold of the story and called his office and asked for a comment, a week after his arrest. Even with the help of his lawyer, Abe Fortas, and the support of LBJ, to get the story suppressed, supposedly out of deference for the Jenkins’ family—remember, he has a wife and six children—the story still went out the same night over the United Press International wire. Before it became the go-to excuse of Hollywood types, Jenkins was said to be taken into treatment for exhaustion and hypertension. The details of the arrest were likely easily obtainable but newspapers hid behind the vague “morals charge” related to “indecent gestures.” But they also shared that he had been arrested five years earlier on a similar charge, described as “disorderly conduct, pervert,” in the same location. Conversations between Johnson and Fortas and other officials, had the President worried about the effects the scandal might have on the upcoming elections against Barry Goldwater. Johnson asked for and received Jenkins’ resignation. In spite of the lurid charge, Jenkins did get some sympathy. LBJ and many others continued to rely on the exhaustion excuse and the theory that Jenkins was framed. Jenkins himself was known to have blamed alcohol consumed at the party and fatigue for the incident.