Two exciting book discussions with Rodger McDaniel on Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins: the Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt.

Written by Rodger McDaniel, a former Wyoming state legislator, Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins is the story of the life and tragic end of US Senator Lester C. Hunt who shot himself in the summer of 1954. Undue partisan pressure was brought to bear on Hunt by Joe McCarthy supporters, Republicans Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and Herman Welker of Idaho.

Noon to 2 p.m. with the League of Women Voters of Freemont County at the Lander Library, and  7 p.m. at the 2024 Discovery Speaker Series in the Lander Pioneer Museum.

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BOOK SUMMARY

Lester Hunt, a popular Democrat, won six elections in Wyoming—once to the legislature, twice as secretary of state, twice as governor and finally to the U.S. Senate, in 1948.

Hunt arrived in Washington just as Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the demagogic senator from Wisconsin, was spreading fear and ruining careers with his claims that the U.S. government was riddled with Communists and homosexuals. Lester Hunt became an outspoken opponent of McCarthy. In 1953, Hunt’s son Buddy was arrested and convicted in Washington D.C. for soliciting homosexual sex from an undercover policeman.

Senators McCarthy, Bridges, and Welker threatened Hunt with wide publication of the event unless he abandoned plans to run for re-election and resigned immediately, which Hunt refused to do. In May 1954, he proposed rules for Senate committees designed to eliminate some of McCarthy’s power. McCarthy renewed the threat to use his son’s arrest against him, and Hunt changed his mind about running again. On June 19, Hunt went to his Senate office and shot himself. His death dealt a serious blow to McCarthy’s image and was one of the factors that led to his censure by the Senate later in 1954.

Given the enormity of stigma tied to both suicide and homosexuality, his widow, Nathelle, fought against the telling of the story for the remainder of her life.

Writer Bill Sniffin says of Dying For Joe MCarthy’s Sins: “This well-written book tells the story of Lester Hunt’s amazing life and agonizing death is a must read for all Americans concerned about the lack of civility in politics today.”

PURCHASE A COPY HERE: https://wordsworthpublishing.com/catalog/dying-for-joe-mccarthys-sins-the-suicide-of-wyoming-senator-lester-hunt/