from prison until 1963. The scandal was complex in that it implicated the Senator as a homosexual, as a patron of a male bordello, and as a possible dupe of enemy agents. Homosexuality was a taboo subject for public discourse, so the Post referred to a "house of degradation". At one point a sub-headline in The New York Times called it a "Resort". In the Daily Mirror, columnist Walter Winchell mentioned "Brooklyn's spy nest, also known as the swastika swishery." The Post first suggested a scandal. Over the course of several weeks it hinted an important person was involved, then named "Senator X", and finally identified Walsh by name. Its sensational treatment of the story detracted from the seriousness of its charges. The Post was not alone in its coyness; before Walsh was named, Winchell teased that the mystery man was "one of four Senators with the same last initial...the 23rd letter of the alphabet." The brothel's owner and several others arrested in a police raid identified Walsh to the police as "Doc", a regular client, whose visits ended just before police surveillance began. Some furnished intimate physical details. President Roosevelt believed the charge that Walsh was homosexual was true. He told Vice President Henry Wallace that "everyone knew" about Walsh's homosexuality and he had a similar conversation with Alben W. Barkley, the Senate majority leader. Without discussing details, Walsh issued a brief statement calling the story "a diabolical lie" and demanding a full investigation. He then conducted his usual Senate business without reference to the charges. An FBI investigation produced no evidence to support the New York Post specific charges against the Senator, though it accumulated much "derogatory information" in its files. On May 20, 1942, with a full report from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in hand, Senator Barkley addressed the Senate at length on the irresponsibility of the New York Post, the laudable restraint of the rest of the press, the details of the FBI's report, and the Senate's affirmation of Walsh's "unsullied" reputation. He declined to insert the FBI report in the Congressional Record, he said, "because it contains disgusting and unprintable things". Without addressing Walsh's sexuality, he said the report contained no evidence that Walsh ever "visited a 'house of degradation' to connive or to consort with, or to converse with, or to conspire with anyone who is the enemy of the United States". He