At this writing, 27,000 people are employed in the Pentagon. It is a city within a city. Like all cities, it has its peccadillos. Many elevator operators are runners for bookies. Many colored messengers, male and female, sell policy slips. Reefers can be had. The cops—all kinds—don’t know what to do about it. The military police don’t like to arrest civilians, even those employed by the Army. The Virginia police say they have no authority because it’s federal property.
The same apathy that marks everything in Washington pervades the Pentagon and other federal buildings. A high Army officer, highly placed because his brother is close to the President, is a homosexual. He had gathered 95 other officers of similar inclinations to form what was known as the “Fairy Brigade.” Though scandalously abnormal acts have been committed within the Pentagon walls, no consequences ensued. No one knew how to go about it. Instead, the suspected fairies were transferred to distant posts—separately, of course—in the hope that when they got into trouble in their new stations their commanding officers would pick up the buck.
More recently a Signal Corps captain in the Pentagon was apprehended lurking in the stair wells, where he exposed himself to young women. The Army took the easiest way—transferred him to Fort Monmouth, where he was eventually chased out of the service.
The same situation applies in all government buildings in the District and in the suburbs. No one wants to do anything about anything. There is scarcely a government installation anywhere in Washington where you can’t place a bet or buy a numbers slip. When elevator jockeys aren’t selling them, clerks and typists, white and dark, are. Dates and assignations are made on U. S. property by government girls looking for fun or extra earnings, and by come-getters who barge in and solicit men for dates after work—even sometimes for affairs right on overstuffed leather couches which we own, you too.
Any punitive action in these cases is not by police officers. When things get out of hand, department heads fire the culprits.
While the Kefauver Committee was investigating bookmaking, two elevator operators in the Senate Office Building, in which the hearings were conducted, were taking bets on horses with full knowledge of most Senators, many of whom were placing wagers.
That guy you see at the corner of 1st and B, outside the House Office Building, talking to a cop, is a bookmaker’s runner. That’s his station. That’s where typists, messengers and other help in the House of Representatives lay it on the line.
Many have fallen into debt because of the convenience with which they can place bets all day. Hundreds are in the clutches of the loan-sharks in Maryland and the shylocks, who work their trade right in the government office buildings, exacting 100 percent interest for a one-month loan. Many are in arrears on their income taxes for this reason; those who owe more than what is withheld. This has posed a serious problem for the collecting authorities, who are balked by a quirk in the law which forbids them to garnishee tax delinquents among federal employes.
The indifference to rules that apply in private employment results in a sort of Alice in Wonderland atmosphere throughout the unwieldy federal domain.
Humorist George Dixon’s story about the two crews hard at work in the Pentagon sums it up: