0:02

My name is Helen Grace James.

0:05

I was born in 1927 in Scranton,

0:07

Pennsylvania, and

0:10

I was raised on a dairy

0:12

farm.

0:14

I was

0:17

a very busy kid. I

0:20

worked on the farm. I loved the animals. I

0:24

was dependent upon to do

0:26

certain chores. When

0:28

I was old enough, I was milking cows. I

0:31

was driving the tractor. I was helping with

0:33

the harvests.

0:34

When she was old enough to drive, she delivered

0:36

orders from her father's butcher shop every

0:39

Saturday. It was a military

0:41

family. Her great-great-grandfather

0:43

was a Union soldier. Her father

0:46

was in World War I, her uncles

0:48

in World War II.

0:49

Her cousins were in the Army and Navy.

0:53

I liked the

0:56

military because I would

0:58

talk to them, and it just seemed like

1:00

a wonderful place to be,

1:03

to be

1:04

helping our country, as

1:08

I thought of it. They were there to help fight

1:11

the wars or be

1:13

engaged in taking

1:15

care of us as civilians.

1:19

She wanted to enlist, but she was

1:21

too young. So she went

1:23

to college and got a degree in physical

1:25

education. She moved to Florida,

1:28

where family friends helped her get a job as a teacher. But

1:31

I always had a yearning. I taught

1:33

there for three years and then

1:35

decided to enlist.

1:40

My parents, I

1:43

don't know if they expected it, or they, they,

1:47

they were, you know, they were supportive.

1:50

What year was this?

1:53

I enlisted in, in 52. She

1:57

was assigned to basic training in Texas.

2:00

and flew from Philadelphia to San Antonio.

2:03

It was her first time on an airplane. You

2:05

get your clothing, you get your shots,

2:08

you get, you know, and you're assigned

2:10

to a flight with

2:12

airmen that are coming in at the same

2:15

time. And what was your job

2:17

in the Air Force? I was

2:19

a radio operator, so I

2:21

learned code. I learned to type code,

2:23

I learned to take and type code and send

2:26

and receive. Was it fun? Were you

2:28

happy to be continuing

2:31

this family tradition? Well,

2:33

I don't know. I loved it. I

2:35

met people. You know,

2:38

I grew up on a farm. I graduated

2:40

in a class of 17. You

2:43

know, it was farm country.

2:46

It was... I hadn't

2:48

met a lot of people from

2:50

other areas.

2:52

I enjoyed what I did.

2:54

I loved the Air Force. It

2:57

was fun, it was exciting, and

2:59

it was teaching me a job

3:02

that I thought was really

3:04

important. She was responsible

3:06

for contacting military bases up

3:08

and down the East Coast, every hour, on

3:11

the hour.

3:12

They kept a close eye on each plane

3:15

to see whether anyone deviated from a scheduled

3:17

flight path. She was assigned

3:19

to a permanent station, Roslyn Air

3:22

Force Base, on Long Island. We

3:24

were part of the 26th Air Division

3:27

Defense Command, and we had

3:31

constant communication

3:33

with other bases along

3:36

the coast. Mitchell and

3:40

Andrews, we had... being,

3:43

you know, alerting anything that might be

3:47

untoward. It was Cold

3:49

War. We were kind

3:51

of on alert all the time.

3:54

Helen Spenarday's watching and listening

3:56

during a period of intense suspicion

3:59

and paranoia. in America, she

4:02

had no idea that she herself

4:04

was being watched. I'm

4:07

Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We

4:18

heard through other

4:21

airmen from

4:25

other bases that there was

4:27

an investigation going on and

4:31

that was kind of a rumor. And,

4:34

you know, come to find out

4:37

they were already investigating us,

4:40

which they had been doing for a while,

4:42

which, of course,

4:45

we didn't know. Investigating

4:47

you for what? For

4:49

where we went. We were being followed.

4:52

We were being watched.

4:55

I had a car, so at

4:57

one point one of my friends

4:59

and I went to get

5:02

a sandwich at a little restaurant.

5:04

And it was a place that was really busy,

5:07

and so we decided to take our sandwiches and

5:09

go find a place to talk. One

5:12

of us had just gotten off duty,

5:13

I think, and so we

5:16

were hungry. And we

5:18

parked and started to eat our sandwiches,

5:21

and up behind us came an

5:24

air policeman with the lights on

5:27

and wanted to know what we were doing. And

5:31

that was very eerie. That was very frightening.

5:36

That was, you know, it's like, why

5:39

are you asking me that? And why were you

5:41

following me? And, you know, it

5:44

came about really quickly.

5:49

Sometimes we would go down to the village, and

5:51

we could play with it.

5:56

music

6:00

on a jukebox and dance. And these were

6:03

places that were just

6:06

for women. And so

6:09

there was a jukebox, you could dance, and

6:12

there were guards out, there

6:14

was a guard outside so that it kept

6:17

it safe and

6:19

that they didn't allow

6:22

meals in there. So the

6:25

OSI, the Office of Special Investigation,

6:28

apparently had gotten

6:32

permission somehow one night when we were

6:34

there. And they were

6:37

sitting in a booth

6:40

and they began to harass me and

6:43

others. And... What

6:46

were they saying? Ask me what

6:48

I was doing there and

6:53

I was not very

6:55

comfortable with them and so I

6:58

just turned away. But they

7:02

wanted to know why I was there and what I was

7:05

doing and how come I was

7:07

in this place. And so

7:10

they stayed seated and I

7:13

just knew that they didn't belong in there. And

7:16

so it was eerie, it was

7:18

frightening. I knew

7:21

that they were in there because we were there.

7:28

Were they investigating you because

7:30

you were gay?

7:31

Yeah. We

7:36

were considered to be a threat

7:39

to

7:40

the security of the nation.

7:43

How? Because

7:46

we could be compromised

7:49

and in

7:51

those days it apparently

7:56

wasn't okay to be gay. or

8:01

lesbian. It was frowned

8:03

upon and you could be

8:06

outed and

8:09

compromised by

8:11

the enemy, so to speak,

8:15

and tell any secrets that we had

8:17

or, you know, we were just

8:20

considered to be a threat to national

8:22

security.

8:24

So they wanted us gone.

8:29

They had bugged our room or they had

8:31

someone in the room

8:34

next to us and they could, you know,

8:36

they had had the room bugged somehow.

8:40

When we would get in late at night, there

8:43

were airmen that were assigned apparently

8:47

to watch us when we came in and

8:49

to, you know, if

8:51

we stopped at the latrine,

8:54

they would, you know, it might be two o'clock in the morning

8:56

and we were washing

8:59

our hands and an airman would come

9:01

in, which is usually unlikely

9:03

because it's two o'clock in the morning.

9:06

So it became

9:08

very unnerving, you know,

9:11

to be followed and

9:12

to be watched.

9:16

Did you start to suspect that everyone

9:18

was watching you? Yes,

9:22

you can imagine. It's just a place

9:24

that you worked and did your work and

9:26

people were watching you. People

9:30

that didn't seem to notice

9:33

you before

9:36

were

9:36

watching you. Once

9:38

you realized you were being watched,

9:41

did you change your behavior,

9:43

stay away from people? I

9:46

changed the way I felt. I wasn't

9:48

sleeping very well. I was

9:50

probably drinking

9:52

so

9:54

I could sleep. It, you

9:56

know, it wears on you. You don't know

9:58

who's watching you,

10:02

but it might be anybody.

10:04

And we

10:06

were scared all the time. And

10:12

then finally, there were three

10:15

of us that were arrested. They

10:20

started to de-grill

10:22

us about what our thoughts were,

10:28

suspecting us of doing

10:30

things, I guess, that we... I

10:34

don't know. I don't know. It

10:38

was constant. It was hours

10:43

and hours. At

10:46

one point, I needed

10:48

to go to the latrine. And of course,

10:51

the officer went with me. I

10:55

was... I think

10:57

I threw up. I didn't feel good. We

11:01

had been... I had been there for... I

11:05

don't know how many hours. And finally,

11:07

the

11:08

threats began.

11:11

The gentleman

11:13

that was questioning us began

11:15

to threaten to go to my parents,

11:17

to go to my friends, to go to

11:21

people that I knew, to

11:25

tell them that I was, you know, a

11:28

threat to the nation and a bad person,

11:31

apparently. And I

11:33

finally said, you know, just

11:35

write down whatever you want to write down, and

11:38

I'll sign it. And

11:41

that's what they did, what he did. He

11:43

wrote it down. I signed it. I didn't

11:45

read what he said.

11:47

What were the charges? I don't

11:49

know what was on that paper. I never looked

11:52

at it. But

11:54

I, you know, it was because

11:56

I was a lesbian.

12:00

This was happening all over the country. Men

12:02

and women who worked for the government were interrogated

12:05

about their sex lives and fired.

12:08

It was called the Lavender Scare.

12:11

It coincided with the Red Scare, which

12:14

gave rise to the House Un-American Activities

12:16

Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy's

12:18

hearings to try to expose communists.

12:21

Thousands and thousands of people

12:23

were fired during the Lavender Scare,

12:26

under an executive order signed by

12:28

President Eisenhower.

12:30

That order remained in place until 1995,

12:34

when President Clinton implemented Don't

12:36

Ask, Don't Tell.

12:38

When they first came into the barracks

12:40

that day, did you have any idea

12:43

what was going on? No.

12:47

I mean, I assume you'd never been arrested

12:49

or questioned before. That's

12:51

right. When

12:53

they were asking you these questions, what

12:56

kinds of questions were they asking you? Were they

12:58

asking you about your whereabouts

13:01

or movements or relations with other

13:03

women?

13:06

One

13:09

of the things that they did was they

13:11

involved, you know, how did I feel

13:13

about my sister? How

13:16

did I feel about my mother? I

13:18

mean, it just...

13:21

And that's why I threw up. I think I just got

13:23

so upset with

13:25

it that I decided to, you

13:27

know, just write something down. I'll

13:30

sign it. So

13:33

when they asked you about dating women,

13:36

did you kind of say, yes,

13:39

what's wrong with that? I

13:41

probably did, you know. I can't

13:43

recall all the things that I said. I

13:46

just was feeling so

13:49

put upon, you know, the very

13:51

idea that they would consider

13:55

my sister

13:58

or anyone's school. or,

14:01

you know, that was, they

14:04

wanted to know things

14:07

that I didn't know. I

14:11

didn't know how to answer and I didn't have, I didn't

14:14

have answers for. And

14:16

they were just uncomfortable and they got more uncomfortable.

14:24

And then they began to threaten me

14:28

with exposure to my family,

14:30

to my friends. You know, in

14:34

those days, and you're

14:36

probably quite young, in those

14:38

days, it was not talked about

14:40

that I remember. I

14:45

didn't know about gay

14:47

or lesbian. I don't think I ever heard

14:49

the term when I was in high

14:52

school.

14:54

And feelings

14:56

that I had, I enjoyed being,

15:00

because I was on a farm maybe, I

15:02

grew up doing all the things

15:04

that, the

15:07

girls and boys did the farm work.

15:10

So I loved being

15:12

with boys and men

15:15

because they talked about

15:18

things

15:19

that I liked and enjoyed. You

15:22

know, I drove tractor, I drove horses,

15:25

I did, I

15:27

helped build things with my dad,

15:30

and I enjoyed

15:32

that.

15:35

What did you do right after

15:38

you signed the papers? What happened

15:40

next? I had to clear the base. It

15:43

was about two weeks

15:45

that you had to clear

15:47

the base. And I also had,

15:49

I had applied for a commission,

15:52

actually, and the commission

15:54

came through

15:56

during a time that I was being

15:58

discharged. So I

16:01

actually had two discharges,

16:06

one as an airman and one as a second lieutenant.

16:10

I just stayed

16:13

low.

16:16

Did other people, you

16:18

had to stay on the base for two weeks. Did other

16:20

people on the base know what had happened?

16:24

Everybody on the base knew. Everybody on

16:26

the station knew.

16:29

I just did what I had to do and

16:33

waited to get out. But,

16:36

you know, had no money, no support

16:39

at all.

16:41

I couldn't tell my family, I couldn't tell my

16:43

friends, I couldn't tell my former

16:46

classmates.

16:49

I had hoped to make a career of

16:51

the Air Force. I loved it. I

16:53

really loved the

16:57

Air Force, I loved serving, I

16:59

loved the work that I did until

17:04

this came about. So

17:06

your parents never really thought... Never

17:08

talked to them. Never.

17:12

And I left

17:15

the East Coast immediately after.

17:18

Get away from it all. I

17:21

didn't know anybody.

17:24

That was good. Started

17:27

a new life.

17:29

She got a job working as a physical therapist

17:32

in California. Her practice

17:34

grew, she made new friends, and

17:37

she tried to forget what happened to her in 1955.

17:41

Who had you talked to about your

17:44

discharge? Nobody.

17:47

It was disgraceful. It

17:49

was a stain on my

17:52

family that was involved

17:54

in this, you know.

17:57

Especially

17:59

in the world. military family. All

18:03

the other people in my family

18:06

had served honorably.

18:11

I felt I had to

18:14

keep it under seal. I

18:17

just stuffed it.

18:20

Decades passed this way. And

18:22

then in 2016, she met a fellow

18:24

veteran, a medic. I'm

18:27

not sure how it'd come up, but I felt okay

18:30

with saying, yeah, I got a bad discharge.

18:33

And she

18:35

said, do something about

18:37

that. Well, I didn't know that I couldn't do anything

18:40

about it until, you know, she

18:42

talked to me. And so we went down,

18:44

and that's when we got it started. We went

18:47

down and started

18:49

the complaint. And

18:51

I told my story. I

18:55

told what had happened to me. And

18:57

I wrote it all out. That's

19:00

the first time I had ever written it all

19:02

out. How

19:04

old were you?

19:06

How old was I then? I guess I was 89.

19:22

We'll be right back.

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20:31

64 years after Helen James

20:34

was kicked out of the Air Force,

20:36

she applied for an honorable discharge. She

20:39

worked with the Fresno County VA and

20:41

they helped her get in touch with a legal aid attorney

20:44

to start the process.

20:46

The Air Force didn't, you know, they

20:48

waited. It was, they said they

20:50

had 18 months

20:53

before they had to, you

20:55

know, get back to us. So we

20:57

waited 18 months. And

21:01

one of the things that had happened in the meanwhile

21:03

was that I needed to get a hold of

21:05

my personnel file so that I

21:08

could show that

21:09

I didn't do anything wrong, that I

21:11

was a good, I

21:13

was a good airman, you know, I did

21:16

my duty. But apparently

21:18

those records had been burned

21:20

in a fire.

21:22

From there, it was hiccup after

21:24

hiccup, preventing Helen's complaint

21:26

from being handled. And so her

21:29

legal aid attorney teamed up with a D.C.

21:31

law firm and they filed a lawsuit. They

21:34

told the Air Force they had 14 days

21:36

to respond. And

21:38

that went in on the 2nd of January 2018.

21:41

And on

21:41

January 11th, 2018, my story came out in the Washington

21:52

Post. In the

21:54

Washington Post, that

21:56

wonderful paper. I

22:01

guess that's when the Air Force decided that it

22:04

was time to address

22:06

it. And they

22:08

approved my discharge

22:12

as

22:13

an honorable discharge.

22:16

What was it like having your story be

22:18

so public after it being

22:20

private? I don't know if

22:23

I can explain it, you know, because it's a

22:25

constant thing. It's in my head

22:27

now.

22:29

And people know about

22:31

it. And, you know, I never told my folks

22:34

about it, but

22:36

they know now.

22:39

And I've,

22:43

you know, I've been back

22:45

east and talked to my family, and

22:47

they've read my incident report, and

22:49

they know me now, you know, that

22:55

my cousins and

22:58

my classmates from college and

23:02

my godson, yeah,

23:05

I put it out there for

23:07

them.

23:10

Do you ever go to events for veterans? Of

23:14

course I didn't used to, but yeah, I

23:17

do.

23:20

It's a community. It's

23:23

family with the

23:25

veterans. You know that

23:27

they know who you are, where

23:29

you've been, what you're doing regardless

23:32

of what branch

23:34

you were in.

23:38

Yeah, it's

23:40

an amazing

23:42

community to be

23:44

a part of. I'm honored by

23:47

it. In 2018,

23:51

at 91 years old, she marched in the Fresno, California Pride parade.

24:01

Oh gosh, oh god that was

24:03

really fun. I was the Grand

24:05

Marshal in the parade. It was just surreal

24:09

to know that there

24:11

are so many people out there that are

24:15

with me, that care about me

24:18

and

24:18

and care about

24:20

each other. Well

24:24

I want to thank you so much for speaking

24:26

to me for all this time today. We

24:28

took a lot of your time. Oh Phoebe, thank

24:30

you so much. You've

24:32

been just so nice

24:35

and you just take care of yourself.

24:37

You too, we'll speak soon. Okay,

24:40

thanks Phoebe. Okay, bye bye. Bye bye.

24:52

We spoke with Helen James five years ago.

24:55

Today, she's 96. And

24:58

when we called to check in, she said

25:00

she was doing well.

25:02

She's donated her personal photographs to

25:04

the Smithsonian's National Air and

25:07

Space Museum.

25:08

When we asked what that was like, she said,

25:11

it's just surreal. This

25:20

show is created by Lauren Spohr and me.

25:23

Nydia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie

25:25

Bishop is our supervising producer. Our

25:28

producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie

25:30

Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison,

25:33

and Megan Kinane. Our technical

25:35

director is Rob Byers. Engineering

25:37

by Russ Henry. Julian

25:40

Alexander makes original illustrations

25:42

for each episode of Criminal. You can see them

25:44

at thisiscriminal.com.

25:47

We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal

25:49

Show. And we're also on YouTube at

25:52

youtube.com slash criminal

25:54

podcast. Criminal

25:56

is recorded in the studios of North

25:58

Carolina Public Radio. WUNC.

26:01

We're part of the Vox Media Podcast

26:04

Network. Discover more great

26:06

shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

26:10

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.