White House Call Girl

 

White House Call Girl

Peter Schultz

 

                  There is a fundamental misconception about the role corruption plays in the American political order. Conventionally understood, the American political order is seen as fighting corrupt phenomena like prostitution, with the police and the courts and other lawful authorities taking the lead. However, a different picture emerges from Phil Stanford’s book, White House Call Girl, about the role prostitution played in Watergate:

 

                  “At the city level, there’s usually an understanding between the police intelligence squad and one or more local call girl rings. In exchange for protection from the vice squad, they’re expected to provide information to the cops. The same pattern holds in Washington, except that there are so many more intelligence agencies working behind the scenes and the stakes are so much higher. The FBI’s avid interest, especially under J. Edgar Hoover, in the sexual habits of American politicians is only the best-known example.” [p. 57]

 

                  So, in fact, the establishment, that is, legitimate agencies like the police, the courts, and other agencies are not fighting prostitution but using it in order to control the political system. Prostitution and other forms of sexual behavior are part and parcel of the political system as much as, say, the FBI, the CIA, and even the White House. Prostitution explains how the system works, by, among other things, feeding intelligence to the lawful authorities.

 

                  This is why one Phillip Bailley, a small-time pimp in D.C., was sent to St. Elizabeth’s hospital for the criminally insane when his case involving his violations of the Mann Act threatened to reveal the prevalence of prostitution in the nation’s capital. As a result, Bailley’s evidence never became public and, thereby, the corruption that underlay political life in the nation’s capital remained hidden. Take note: The authorities, meaning the police and the courts, were not interested in using Bailley’s evidence to attack and undermine prostitution. Rather, they were very much interested in making it disappear – which they successfully did.

 

                  The significance of this needs to be underlined: Corruption lies at the heart of the American political order – and perhaps at the heart of all political orders. Corruption is a political fact of life, an irremediable political fact of life. It is, perhaps, even more fundamental than justice as a central feature of political life, a fact that even “the realists” don’t quite come to grips with.

 

                  But, of course, given that humans always need to think of themselves as just, this fact must be hidden, which accounts for the duplicity that is “the coin of the political realm.” Duplicity and cover-ups are essential to political life, as the multiple Watergate cover-ups illustrated. Nixon covered up, the CIA covered up, the FBI covered up, John Dean and Alexander Haig covered up, Woodward, Bernstein, and Deep Throat covered up, the Washington Post covered up, the Joint Chiefs of Staff covered up, and even the Watergate investigative committee covered up. It’s just the nature of political life. Or, more succinctly: So it goes.