Roy Marcus Cohn
(February 20, 1927 - 1986) U.S.A.
Attorney & Political Leader
Cohn was born in New York, where his father was a judge of New York State Supreme Court. A brilliant student, he graduated from the Columbia University Law School and immediately obtained a position as an Assistant US Attorney. Cohn worked with Saypol prior to the Rosenberg case in a trial of eleven Communists. During the trial, Cohn was noticed by Senator Joseph McCarthy. He later served as an aide to the Senator.
Senator McCarthy, of course, became infamous for his accusations of Communist infiltration of the State Department and other high government posts. Cohn provided legal guidance to the Senator in his Communist "witch-hunt" which would become known as "McCarthyism." Eventually Senator McCarthy's influence declined and he, along with Cohn, was discredited.
 Roy Cohn was infatuated with his associate on Mc-Carthy's staff, the handsome young lawyer David Schine, and tried to pull strings to get the Army to exempt Schine from mlitary service (then compulsory). The Army refused and Cohn in a fit of pique launched his campaign alleging that the Army was riddled with communists, up to and including General George Marshall. Rumours began to circulate that Cohn and David Schine were having a sexual relationship.
A closeted gay Republican, he spoke out frequently against gay rights; one of his final campaigns before dying of AIDS was to lobby against New York City's gay rights ordinance. He loved sex, and he really didn't hide it that much. There were boys around him all the time. One of his lovers was Richard Dupont and he also was known for liking muscle boys.
Cohn never married, but he always denied that he was homosexual. Neverthelesshis extravagant lifestyle of "boys, booze and drugs" was widely known in New York. In the 1980s Cohn's luck ran out. He was disbarred from practicing law in New York State on grounds of unethical and unprofessional conduct; he contracted AIDS. After denying for months the increasingly obvious fact that he had AIDS, Cohn died of the disease, supported by his lover Peter Fraser.
Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, from WWII to Present Day, Routledge, London, 2001 - et alii
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