From: MShernoff@aol.com
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 14:24:25 EDT
Subject: Interview With Dr. Bert Schaffner


Hello.  Happy Gay Pride Week.

I am attaching an interesting interview with an 87 year old openly gay 
psychiatrist about his experiences as an induction center psychiatrist during 
WWII.  It is in ASCII generic word processing format.  I'd appreciate your 
posting this to the appropriate place on the QRD.

Thanks alot

Michael Shernoff


Of Learning, Valor, and
a Well-Lived Life
An Interview with:
Dr. Bertram Schaffner
by Michael Shernoff, MSW
Published in LGNY, Issue 135, June 29, 2000 =20
(C) 2000 Michael Shernoff
Permission is granted to copy or reproduce this article either in full or in=
 part, without prior written authorization of the author on the sole conditi=
on that the author is credited and notified of reproduction.


I met Bert Schaffner in the early 1980s at a special meeting of the Gay Psychiatrists
of New York convened to establish leadership in the early stages of
the AIDS crisis. We both became part of a small ongoing support group composed
of health care professionals working in HIV/AIDS. Our friendship developed 
through our work in that group and subsequent dinners and outings to classical music 
events.

Bert struck me as a spry, impish, handsome, dignified gentleman, with an engaging
warmth and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. The ensuing years have not
diminished any of those traits. At 87, Bert still practices psychiatry full
time out of the Central Park South apartment where he's lived for 54 years.
In his vacation time, he travels frequently to India and Europe, where he has
numerous friends and professional colleagues. Though he now walks with
a cane, requires the assistance of a hearing aid, and on occasion needs to pause
for a moment to recall events that happened over 55 years earlier, he remains
mentally alert, charming, and as much fun to spend time with as ever.
Early in our friendship, Bert began to share with me stories about his experiences
during World War II and I've come to think of him as one of that era's
"unsung heroes." At a time when the "gay community" was not even a fledgling 
idea, Bert was an important protector and caretaker for young homosexual
men faced with military service.

After reading Coming Out Under Fire, I was introduced to its author, Allan Berube,
and I told him about Bert and his wartime experiences. Allan said
that he regretted not having known about him while he was preparing his book
and suggested that I interview Bert so his story could be recorded for posterity. 
One evening last September we chatted in my home in Chelsea.

Michael Shernoff: Why did you decide to become a psychiatrist?

Bertram Schaffner: I always wanted to know what made a person gay, and wanted
to understand how to live with it without being in turmoil. When I was a young 
man, in the late 1920s and early '30s, psychiatrists were thought of as 
people who had wisdom, who could provide the knowledge that I hoped would help 
me. When I had traveled to Russia in 1936, people asked me why we in America
went to the theater. I replied, "To be entertained." They countered, "We 
go in order to learn how to live." I was really going into psychiatry to learn
how to live my life, as a gay man.

MS: Did either your medical or psychiatric training provide the insights you 
were looking for?

BS: Actually neither component of my early professional training was useful
to me on this score. It was only during my second and third analyses, long after
I completed medical school, residency, and psychoanalytic training, that
I received professional assistance in understanding how to combat what we
now understand as internalized and institutionalized homophobia. Of course 
those terms were not used until my fourth and latest analysis, some ten years
ago.

MS: Could you have been admitted to medical school or to a psychiatric 
residency program if you were open about being gay in the 1930s?

BS: Absolutely not. I could not even have gotten a medical license. I lived
in constant terror of my homosexuality being discovered and then losing the
ability to work as a psychiatrist and to get psychoanalytic training. You 
know, Michael, you may find this remarkable, but I first began to think of 
myself as homosexual when I was three years old (laughs), certainly before the
age of six. I never thought of it as pathological, rather I always considered
my feelings to be a natural, "normal," and intrinsic part of me. However,
I was also aware of the total unacceptability of my feelings in the minds of
other people. At the age of eight, when the parents of a playmate found notes
that he and I had exchanged about our interest in sex, they forbade us to
ever see each other again, and I lost a friend forever.

MS: Let's talk about your experiences during W.W.II. When were you drafted?

BS: It was October, 1940, in the third year of my residency training, while
I was at Bellevue. The first concern I had was that I would be drafted as an
enlisted man, since I did not know how I would manage living so closely to
other men. Would I be accepted? I had had a lot of teasing over the years 
about my effeminacy. For instance, in my high school yearbook, the Class Will
stated that "Bertram Schaffner leaves his girlish grace to Ann Pennington,"
a well-known burlesque "queen," which in those days didn't necessarily mean
what it does today. I also didn't know how I would stand up under combat conditions.

I had a complete terror of spiritual and emotional death. What I worried about
was the severe toll it would take on me to be separated from companionship
with other gay men, and to be totally isolated among heterosexuals. That's
what I really feared. I was called to active duty upon the completion of my
residency, in April 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor. Fortunately by
that time, Army regulations had changed so that enlistees who held medical 
degrees automatically entered the Army as officers, not enlisted men. Therefore
I thought my worries would be over, because I would be a First Lieutenant
and serving as a doctor, in other words, as a non-combatant. I was especially
relieved that I would not have to carry a rifle, or shoot to kill.

MS: What were your duties?

BS: I was assigned to do psychiatric assessments of draftees for the Selective
Service System at Governor's Island in New York Harbor. I was to determine
if these men were mentally fit to serve, and to weed out people likely to
break down under stress, or who might undermine "morale" among the troops, a
major concern of the Army at that time. I was to look for signs of
depression, mania, psychosis, and sociopathy. People who had been hospitalized
for psychiatric reasons, chronic alcoholics, or repeated criminal offenders
were automatically excluded. In those days, within the psychiatric profession,
and in the culture at large, homosexuality was put in the same category
as these other conditions. It was clear to me that the Army wanted homosexuals
to be identified and excluded from military service.

MS: Tell me about how you handled the gay question with the men you interviewed

BS: This is really interesting. You have to realize how surreal an experience 
it was for me as an active homosexual who felt normal but unwanted, and as
an officer in an institution that clearly would have removed me from active
duty if the commanding officers knew about my homosexuality. I had been instructed
not to let homosexuals into the service, but I was not told how to determine 
whether a person was homosexual or not. The only thing I was ever told 
by the commanding officer was that I did not have enough "index of suspicion" 
about people.

MS: What do you think he meant by that?

BS: I was afraid to ask him what he meant, because I didn't know whether he
was referring particularly to homosexuals or not, and I didn't dare to bring up 
the subject. I didn't want to call attention to what I was doing. I was
aware of the amount of power my assignment gave me over these men's lives 
and I struggled to wield it in a responsible and kind manner. I had only 
between five and ten minutes to do a psychiatric evaluation, and I developed 
my own approach to interviewing draftees by devising my own set of questions.

That was a period when people just did not talk to strangers about sexual 
matters. Newspapers did not dare to print the words syphilis and gonorrhea. 
In stead, they referred to "social diseases." So it was pretty daring of me to
even ask the questions I did. The Army did not tell me to ask those questions, 
and I took a big risk in asking them. I would begin by asking people whether 
they felt ready or equipped to go into military service. If they said, "Yes, 
I am." I would ask, "How do you get along with people? Are you comfortable 
with other men, and comfortable with women? Is there anything that makes
you uncomfortable about being in close proximity to other people? How do you
feel about being in combat?"

After those initial questions, I would ask the draftees, "Would you mind 
telling me about your sexual life?  How old were you when you began to 
masturbate? How old were you when you first had sex with a woman?" the next 
question was, "Was it with a nice girl or not nice girl?" In those days, a person 
would not have used the word prostitute, or whore, in interviewing potential 
enlisted men, since those particular words would have immediately ended their
willingness to talk openly. That would have truly undermined what I was trying 
to do, since it was important to me to establish rapport so that I could
ask, "Have you ever had sex with a man?" Hopefully I asked this question in
exactly the same nonjudgmental manner I had asked all the other questions,
so as to give these men an opening, if they needed one, to tell me that they
were gay. I hoped they would understand that if they told me they were gay,
I would protect them. The key thing to remember is that if a draftee was rejected 
by the Army and marked 4F due to homosexuality, when he got back home
to the small town or village from which he had come, his records would have
been available to anyone in the local draft board and to all future employers. 
Thus the reality of his being homosexual would become public and could ruin 
his life. So, if a gay draftee was reluctant to serve in the army, or I
did not feel confident of his ability to do so, I had to find a way to disqualify 
him from active duty without revealing his homosexuality.

MS: That's a hell of an assessment to have to make in five to ten minutes.

BS: There were some gay men who openly expressed their terror of being in the
army, not because of fear of death, but because of fear of being brutalized
by the other soldiers, mostly because they were either very slight, effeminate, 
or obviously homosexual. Since their fears were by no means unrealistic, I 
validated them and found another legitimate reason to disqualify them from 
active duty. I felt it was crucial to make sure that their reputations were not 
ruined simply because they were homosexual and not appropriately able to 
serve in the army without placing themselves in unnecessary danger that
had nothing to do with whether or not they were under fire from an enemy. I
was quite different from most of the other medical officers in those days who 
felt that if someone was homosexual, "The hell with them, let them suffer."

On the other hand, there were men who admitted their homosexuality to me and
expressed their strong desire to serve their country and fight in the military. 
When a man told me that he had had sex with another man, or even that he 
was homosexual, and wanted to enter the army, then I usually ranked him "fit 
for service," providing he felt confident of his ability to manage the variety of 
stresses he would likely face. But I felt it was my duty to caution him to be 
careful about letting other men know about his homosexuality. If we were both 
confident that he could hold his own with other soldiers, and was not afraid of 
having a "nervous breakdown" in combat circumstances, I felt he deserved to 
be allowed to enter the Army.

MS: This made you a real radical underground gay activist in those days.

(BS laughs and nods.) What else about your service in the induction centers
do you think was important?

BS: I got so bored just doing 60 routine examinations a day that I began to
do research, and eventually wrote a paper providing statistics about the sex 
lives of men, which was published in 1948 and preceded the Kinsey study. I
reported on the percentage of homosexuals I found while doing induction center 
interviews. This was one of the first times anyone had published something 
about homosexuality in the American professional literature, without being
negative about the subjects' lives. Writing about this in a non-condemnatory 
way was daring back in those days. In my research, I found that between 3%
to 5% of the men I interviewed admitted to being homosexual. Kinsey's 
findings, that approximately 10% of the men they interviewed were gay, were 
interestingly in conflict with my findings.

MS: Did you have any difficulty meeting other gay men when you were in the 
Army, and did you have an active sex life?

BS: Until the U.S. entered the War, I was not really in a military environment. 
I was billeted in the Hotel Shelton at 49th and Lexington, and could continue 
to lead an active gay social life while serving in the Army.

Then, after being stationed on Governor's Island for a year and a half, I was
transferred and on a weekly basis rotated among Albany, Syracuse, Utica and
Binghamton to do the same kind of interviews. I was a bit concerned about
whether or not I would be able to meet other homosexuals once I was stationed
outside Manhattan. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Upstate, both
enlisted men and officers were billeted in the same hotels. It would have been
professional suicide for me to pursue anyone sexually, especially an enlisted man. 
Yet several enlisted men, some married, also staying in the hotel, would 
occasionally knock on my door for sexual liaisons. It would have been terribly 
dangerous for both of us had anyone ever seen one of them leaving
my room. Yet, in wartime you do live dangerously since you're constantly aware 
that you could be sent into harm's way at any time, and your life would
be over.

In August 1944, I was sent to Camp Gordon, Georgia to prepare to go overseas
with the 10th Armored Division, as the division neuropsychiatrist. All cases
of people having breakdowns, disciplinary problems, or accused of homosexuality 
were sent to me. Up until then I had been in New York where I always had
contact with other gay people. Suddenly in Camp Gordon, I realized that I
was isolated. I had to eat in the Officer's Club, where high level officers
and their wives would eat together. I was acutely aware of being single, and
of not fitting in. I had been so lonely in Camp Gordon that I tried to look
for someone gay to talk with by going to a bar where I had heard that some
gay soldiers went. When I went into town I removed all the insignia indicating 
that I was an officer and a doctor, and tried to mingle in the bar, since it 
was strictly "off limits" for me to socialize with enlisted men, and I
was acutely tense because of the risks I was taking. Before long, a stranger
put his arms around my shoulder and very gently said: "Sir, I really think
you shouldn't be here. I would like to escort you back to camp. It would be
very dangerous for anyone to know that you are here."

MS: Who was this man?

BS: I'm not sure. I think he could have been a member of the military police
from division headquarters, who may have recognized me as the new division
psychiatrist. I have no idea whether he was also gay. I only know that he 
perceived the danger I was in, and was protecting me. He persuaded me to leave
with him and I went back to my hotel alone. I began to feel despondent. I felt 
that if I were completely cut off from homosexual companionship throughout 
my whole Army life overseas, that I would lose my mind. I realized that I
had to do something drastic. I knew that I could not appeal for help through 
normal Army medical channels. I would simply be branded, dishonorably 
discharged, possibly imprisoned, and cut off from any of the normal benefits 
that veterans receive. Fortunately I knew the name of a doctor who happened to
be a general, the chief medical officer in Zone 1 of the U.S. Army, which included 
the Northeast. I called him from a private phone, which was also against the 
rules, and told him very frankly what was happening to me. He was not
condemnatory about my homosexuality, and very kindly arranged for me to get
orders for a leave, which enabled me to come up to New York, and consult his
brother, a civilian analyst. This analyst helped me see that I was not destined to 
be a victim. He also helped me understand that if things became unbearable for 
me that I could use my personal connection with his brother to
be rescued without losing my status or reputation. It was this knowledge that
helped me remain in the Army, and to feel less desperate.  Shortly afterwards I 
was shipped to the European front where I met and made friends with other 
officers who were also homosexual.

MS: The General must have been an unusual man for the times.

BS: He certainly was.

MS: You were troubled about your homosexuality, and the difficulties it posed
during your military career, but you were not ashamed of it. Do you have any
thoughts about how you managed to arrive at what today we call "gay pride"
during a period when this was a virtually unknown concept?

BS: That is an interesting question, and one that I obviously have given much
thought to. There is something from my childhood that comes to mind. As a
child, every other year we visited my mother's family, in Worms, Germany.  
Almost every day I would play in park with a huge statue of Martin Luther at
the Diet of Worms. Luther was accused of violating God's rules by the Holy 
Roman Emperor. This statue was inscribed with a quotation of his reply when 
he was asked to recant his rebellion: "Here I stand. Ich kann nicht anders. I
can't be any  different. God help me. Amen!" I believe that this made such
a big impression on me, that I adopted it deeply as my own personal credo. I
relate it to my being homosexual, and I will not apologize for what I am, to
anyone, ever.

Michael Shernoff, MSW is a Manhattan psychotherapist, the author of several
books on health issues that face gay men, including AIDS and chemical
dependency, and a soon to be published book on the mental health aspects of
people with HIV on combination therapies.  He also edited "Gay Widowers: Life
after the Death of a Partner,"and can be reached via his web site at 
http://www.gaypsychotherapy.com.

Key Words: Psychiatry, history, WWII, homosexuality, military, gay, Dr. Bertram Schaffner