SwatTalk: “Walter Jenkins and the Scandal that Brought Queer Life into American Politics” with Timothy Stewart-Winter ’01

Walter Jenkins was Lyndon Baines Johnson’s longest-tenured and most trusted advisor, working for LBJ in Congress, the Vice President’s office, and ultimately the White House, where he served as de facto chief of staff. Jenkins also sought anonymous sex with men—a secret he kept as a married father of six. In October 1964, a few weeks before the presidential election, Jenkins was arrested for soliciting sex in a YMCA bathroom two blocks from the White House—triggering his resignation and an avalanche of news coverage.

In his new book, Outed: LBJ’s Confidant and the Arrest That Transformed a Presidency, Rutgers University history professor Timothy Stewart-Winter ’01 writes about how Jenkins’s political downfall served as a watershed in making straight America aware of queer life and the ways in which antigay policies and the revelations around them continue to reverberate today.

As part of LGBTQ+ History Month, and in partnership with Swarthmore’s LGBTQ+ Alum Network, please join Stewart-Winter for a conversation with Sasha Issenberg ’02, the author of The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage, about Jenkins, LBJ, and this important chapter in political—and gay—history.

Register for October's SwatTalk with Timothy Stewart-Winter ’01

SwatTalk: The 2026 Midterm Elections

The 2026 midterm elections are fast-approaching. Will Democrats take back the House in a Blue Wave/Red Undertow? Will Republicans hold on to the Senate? Where do American politics—and the country—go from here? Please join Peter Berkowitz ’81, Patrick Egan ’92, and Arlie Hochschild ’62, H’93 for a panel discussion, moderated by Swarthmore political science professor Keith Reeves ’88, on November 4, the day after the midterms, as they ponder the results. 

• Peter Berkowitz '81 is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. In 2019-2021, he served as the Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and senior adviser to the Secretary of State. Berkowitz is a member of the American Academy of Sciences & Letters and a 2017 recipient of the Bradley Prize. He is the author of six books, including, most recently, Reclaiming Liberal Education in America. 
• Patrick Egan '92 is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at New York University and the inaugural director of NYU’s Berkley Institute for Civil Discourse & Civic Solutions. His research focuses on Americans’ political attitudes and behavior and their consequences for public policy, partisanship, and identity. Egan’s political analysis and commentary are regularly featured in news media, including at NBC News, where he has worked as an Election Night analyst with the network’s Exit Poll Desk since 2016.
• Arlie Hochschild '62, H'93, is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. The latest of her ten books is Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, which focuses on Donald Trump’s “emotional capture” of Appalachian voters who live in the second poorest and whitest congressional district in the U.S., and was chosen by Barack Obama as one of his “favorite books of 2024.” A previous book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, was a New York Times Bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award.
• Keith Reeves '88 is a Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College and Faculty Director of the Program on Urban Inequality and Incarceration at the College’s Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility. He is the author of Voting Hopes or Fears?: White Voters, Black Candidates, and Racial Politics in America and is currently working on a book project that explores several controversial explanations underlying the high incarceration trends among Black males. 

Register for October's SwatTalk: The 2026 Midterm Elections