Roy Cohn born 20 February 1927 (d. 1986)
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer who came to prominence during the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into alleged Communists in the US government, especially during the Army-McCarthy Hearings. A highly controversial figure, he wielded tremendous political power at times.
Born Jewish in Queens, New York, Cohn's father was a New York judge who was influential in Democratic Party politics. He lived with his parents until his mother's death in 1969, after which he lived in New York, the District of Columbia, and Greenwich, Connecticut.
A 1946 graduate of Columbia College, Cohn graduated from Columbia Law School at the age of 20, and began working for the office of United States Attorney Irving Saypol in Manhattan, a position many have attributed to his politically connected father.
Although he was registered as a Democrat, Cohn was widely considered a 'Democrat In Name Only' (DINO), as he supported most of the Republican presidents of his time and Republicans in major seats across New York.
As Saypol's assistant at the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, Cohn helped to win a number of high-profile anti-Communist cases. But Cohn was most famous for his prominent role in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn's direct examination of Ethel's brother produced the testimony (in which the brother later claimed he perjured himself) that was mostly responsible for the Rosenbergs' conviction and execution.
Cohn took great pride in the Rosenberg case, and claimed to have played an even greater part than his public role: he said in his autobiography that his own influence had led to both Saypol and Judge Irving Kaufman (a family friend) being appointed to the case, and that Kaufman had imposed the death penalty on Cohn's personal advice.
The Rosenberg trial brought the 24-year-old Cohn to the attention of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who recommended him to McCarthy. McCarthy's hired Cohn as his chief counsel, choosing him over Robert Kennedy, reportedly in part to avoid accusations of an anti-semitic motivation for the investigations. Cohn soon gained power nearly equal to McCarthy's in the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, becoming known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn tended to be disinclined to hold the hearing in open forums. This mixed well with McCarthy's preference for holding 'executive sessions' and 'off-the-record' sessions far away from the Capitol in order to minimise public scrutiny and to question witnesses with relative impunity. Cohn was given free rein in pursuit of many investigations, with McCarthy joining in only for the more publicised sessions.
Cohn arranged for a close friend, G. David Schine, to join him on McCarthy's staff as an advisor. When Schine was drafted into the army in 1953, Cohn made repeated and extensive efforts to procure special treatment for Schine. Contacting military officials from the Secretary of the Army down to Schine's company commander, he demanded that Schine be given light duties, extra leave and not be assigned overseas. At one point Cohn is reported to have threatened to 'wreck the Army' if his demands were not met. This conflct led to the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, in which the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure on behalf of Schine, while McCarthy and Cohn counter-charged that the Army was holding Schine 'hostage' in an attempt to squelch McCarthy's investigations into Communists in the Army. Although the findings of the hearings placed the blame on Cohn rather than McCarthy, they are widely viewed as a key element in McCarthy's fall from power. After the Army-McCarthy Hearings, Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff and went into private practice.
After leaving McCarthy, Cohn built a 30-year career as a high-powered attorney in New York City. His clients included Donald Trump, Mafia figures Tony Salerno and John Gotti, Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, and the Archdiocese of New York. He was known for his active social life, charitable giving, and combative personality. He maintained close ties with conservative politics, serving as an informal advisor to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
Federal investigations in the 1970s and 1980s charged Cohn three times with professional misconduct, including perjury and witness tampering, and he was accused in New York of financial improprieties related to city contracts and private investments. He was never convicted. In 1986, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Cohn for unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients' funds, pressuring a client to amend his will, and lying on a bar application. He lost his license to practice during the last month of his life.
Rumours of Cohn's homosexuality began to spread throughout Washington shortly after McCarthy appointed him chief counsel to McCarthy's subcommittee. When he brought on the wealthy and handsome G. David Schine as chief consultant, it became widely speculated that Schine and Cohn had a sexual relationship.
Cohn and McCarthy targeted many government officials and cultural figures not only for suspected Communist sympathies but also for alleged homosexual tendencies, sometimes using sexual secrets as a blackmail tool to gain informants. The men whose homosexuality Cohn exposed often lost jobs, families, and homes: some committed suicide.
During debates over New York City's first gay rights law, Cohn said homosexuals should not be allowed to be schoolteachers.
In 1984, Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS, and he attempted to keep his condition secret while receiving aggressive drug treatment. He participated in clinical trials of new drugs. He insisted to his dying day that his disease was liver cancer.
He died on August 2, 1986, of complications from AIDS at the age of 59. He is buried in Queens, New York.
A dramatic, controversial man in life, Cohn inspired many dramatic fictional portrayals after his death. Probably the most famous is his role in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, in which Cohn is portrayed as an amoral, power-hungry hypocrite who vigorously denies his sexuality, while being haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as he lays dying. In the 2003 HBO version of Kushner's play, Cohn was played by Al Pacino, and Rosenberg was played by Meryl Streep. Cohn is also a character in Kushner's one-act play, G. David Schine in Hell.
Cohn is portrayed in an episode of The X-Files, in which an elderly former FBI agent speaks to Agent Mulder about the early years of the McCarthy era and the beginning of the X-Files.
Cohn is mentioned in Billy Joel's song We Didn't Start the Fire.
Roy Cohn, Rock Hudson, and Michel Foucault are the main characters in Matias Viegener's story Twilight of the Gods. The three men meet in the American Hospital of Paris and a strange settling of scores and love triangle ensues.
The nasal voice of the unnamed but recurring 'Blue-Haired Lawyer' character on The Simpsons is based on that of Roy Cohn, according to DVD commentaries by show writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss. The Simpsons also mentioned Cohn during a 'Rest of the Story' parody where Paul Harvey concludes his segment with 'and that little boy who nobody liked grew up to be Roy Cohn'. A penny-pinching speaker also declared that he got his tuxedo cheap because 'Roy Cohn died in it'.
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer who came to prominence during the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into alleged Communists in the US government, especially during the Army-McCarthy Hearings. A highly controversial figure, he wielded tremendous political power at times.
Born Jewish in Queens, New York, Cohn's father was a New York judge who was influential in Democratic Party politics. He lived with his parents until his mother's death in 1969, after which he lived in New York, the District of Columbia, and Greenwich, Connecticut.
A 1946 graduate of Columbia College, Cohn graduated from Columbia Law School at the age of 20, and began working for the office of United States Attorney Irving Saypol in Manhattan, a position many have attributed to his politically connected father.
Although he was registered as a Democrat, Cohn was widely considered a 'Democrat In Name Only' (DINO), as he supported most of the Republican presidents of his time and Republicans in major seats across New York.
As Saypol's assistant at the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, Cohn helped to win a number of high-profile anti-Communist cases. But Cohn was most famous for his prominent role in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Cohn's direct examination of Ethel's brother produced the testimony (in which the brother later claimed he perjured himself) that was mostly responsible for the Rosenbergs' conviction and execution.
Cohn took great pride in the Rosenberg case, and claimed to have played an even greater part than his public role: he said in his autobiography that his own influence had led to both Saypol and Judge Irving Kaufman (a family friend) being appointed to the case, and that Kaufman had imposed the death penalty on Cohn's personal advice.
The Rosenberg trial brought the 24-year-old Cohn to the attention of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who recommended him to McCarthy. McCarthy's hired Cohn as his chief counsel, choosing him over Robert Kennedy, reportedly in part to avoid accusations of an anti-semitic motivation for the investigations. Cohn soon gained power nearly equal to McCarthy's in the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, becoming known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn tended to be disinclined to hold the hearing in open forums. This mixed well with McCarthy's preference for holding 'executive sessions' and 'off-the-record' sessions far away from the Capitol in order to minimise public scrutiny and to question witnesses with relative impunity. Cohn was given free rein in pursuit of many investigations, with McCarthy joining in only for the more publicised sessions.
Cohn arranged for a close friend, G. David Schine, to join him on McCarthy's staff as an advisor. When Schine was drafted into the army in 1953, Cohn made repeated and extensive efforts to procure special treatment for Schine. Contacting military officials from the Secretary of the Army down to Schine's company commander, he demanded that Schine be given light duties, extra leave and not be assigned overseas. At one point Cohn is reported to have threatened to 'wreck the Army' if his demands were not met. This conflct led to the Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954, in which the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure on behalf of Schine, while McCarthy and Cohn counter-charged that the Army was holding Schine 'hostage' in an attempt to squelch McCarthy's investigations into Communists in the Army. Although the findings of the hearings placed the blame on Cohn rather than McCarthy, they are widely viewed as a key element in McCarthy's fall from power. After the Army-McCarthy Hearings, Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff and went into private practice.After leaving McCarthy, Cohn built a 30-year career as a high-powered attorney in New York City. His clients included Donald Trump, Mafia figures Tony Salerno and John Gotti, Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, and the Archdiocese of New York. He was known for his active social life, charitable giving, and combative personality. He maintained close ties with conservative politics, serving as an informal advisor to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
Federal investigations in the 1970s and 1980s charged Cohn three times with professional misconduct, including perjury and witness tampering, and he was accused in New York of financial improprieties related to city contracts and private investments. He was never convicted. In 1986, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court disbarred Cohn for unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of clients' funds, pressuring a client to amend his will, and lying on a bar application. He lost his license to practice during the last month of his life.
Rumours of Cohn's homosexuality began to spread throughout Washington shortly after McCarthy appointed him chief counsel to McCarthy's subcommittee. When he brought on the wealthy and handsome G. David Schine as chief consultant, it became widely speculated that Schine and Cohn had a sexual relationship.
Cohn and McCarthy targeted many government officials and cultural figures not only for suspected Communist sympathies but also for alleged homosexual tendencies, sometimes using sexual secrets as a blackmail tool to gain informants. The men whose homosexuality Cohn exposed often lost jobs, families, and homes: some committed suicide.
During debates over New York City's first gay rights law, Cohn said homosexuals should not be allowed to be schoolteachers.
In 1984, Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS, and he attempted to keep his condition secret while receiving aggressive drug treatment. He participated in clinical trials of new drugs. He insisted to his dying day that his disease was liver cancer.He died on August 2, 1986, of complications from AIDS at the age of 59. He is buried in Queens, New York.
A dramatic, controversial man in life, Cohn inspired many dramatic fictional portrayals after his death. Probably the most famous is his role in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, in which Cohn is portrayed as an amoral, power-hungry hypocrite who vigorously denies his sexuality, while being haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as he lays dying. In the 2003 HBO version of Kushner's play, Cohn was played by Al Pacino, and Rosenberg was played by Meryl Streep. Cohn is also a character in Kushner's one-act play, G. David Schine in Hell.
Cohn is portrayed in an episode of The X-Files, in which an elderly former FBI agent speaks to Agent Mulder about the early years of the McCarthy era and the beginning of the X-Files.
Cohn is mentioned in Billy Joel's song We Didn't Start the Fire.
Roy Cohn, Rock Hudson, and Michel Foucault are the main characters in Matias Viegener's story Twilight of the Gods. The three men meet in the American Hospital of Paris and a strange settling of scores and love triangle ensues.
The nasal voice of the unnamed but recurring 'Blue-Haired Lawyer' character on The Simpsons is based on that of Roy Cohn, according to DVD commentaries by show writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss. The Simpsons also mentioned Cohn during a 'Rest of the Story' parody where Paul Harvey concludes his segment with 'and that little boy who nobody liked grew up to be Roy Cohn'. A penny-pinching speaker also declared that he got his tuxedo cheap because 'Roy Cohn died in it'.