Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic

by Richard A. McKay

  and “without violating the ethical standards of a professional journalist.”

  He argued that “an unbiased, objective account of the situation of gay

  people, whether written by a straight, gay, or whatever, will work in our

  favor— the facts are on our side. Most people are prejudiced simply out

  of ignorance. They’ve never heard our side of the story because the cur-

  rent media usually won’t touch us with a ten foot pencil.”23

  At this embryonic stage in his career, Shilts would also express the

  concerns that he would carry with him for years: doubts that a predom-

  inantly heterosexual profession would accept a homosexual reporter.

  “‘I’m a little skeptical,’” he admitted, in an article profi ling his role as

  managing editor of the University of Oregon’s student newspaper, a po-

  sition he held for a year beginning in May 1974. “‘The journalistic world

  is very conservative,’” the twenty-

  three-

  year-

  old Shilts opined. “‘No

  matter how qualifi ed I am, I might get the shaft. They’d rather have an

  alcoholic than a gay.’”24

  A mix- up following the 1975 National Writing Championship of the

  San Francisco– based William Randolph Hearst Foundation only exac-

  erbated the young writer’s fears of unfair treatment for being gay. Sev-

  eral newspapers had named Shilts, who had written articles for the con-

  test alongside competitors from various American journalism schools,

  as the winner of the annual competition’s second prize of $1,000. The

  22. Ibid.

  23. “Northwest Personality: Randy Shilts,” Northwest Gay Review, December–Janu-

  ary 1974, 7.

  24. Ibid., 7. Ironically, Shilts would later fear losing his job at the Chronicle because of

  his heavy drinking.

  “Humanizing This Disease” 147

  foundation’s secretary wrote Shilts later that month to inform him of an

  “unfortunate error”: the competitors’ entries had been coded when they

  were sent to the judges for anonymous evaluation, and two of the en-

  tries had had their codes transposed on the results sheet. Thus, the sec-

  retary explained, Shilts had been incorrectly identifi ed as the second-

  place winner, when he had actually placed fourth.25

  Shilts was convinced that he had placed second for the pieces he had

  written in San Francisco. Furthermore, he was of the opinion that his

  prize had been taken away when the Hearst Foundation had discovered

  that the second- place winner had been the candidate who had qualifi ed

  for the fi nals by writing about gay issues (one of Shilts’s articles covered

  drag queens in Portland, while the other dealt with closeted gay pro-

  fessionals). In an account he sent to Nathan Blumberg, a friend’s father

  who was a professor at the University of Montana’s journalism school,

  he voiced his suspicions that the Hearst Foundation had staged the cler-

  ical error to cheat a candidate thought to be “too fl amboyant” by foun-

  dation employees. Rigidly faithful to his ethical training, though, Shilts

  conceded that “as a journalist, however, I cannot say it was due to prej-

  udice unless I have black and white proof.”26 In the accompanying let-

  ter, in which Shilts also wrote of his frustrations in being rejected in his

  applications to newspapers, he admitted the possibility that sometimes

  he might come on too strong: “I acted aggressive because I thought that

  would be a trait which a managing editor would appreciate. (Journal-

  ists are supposed to be aggressive aren’t they?).”27 With similar brash-

  ness, the budding journalist wrote to the director of the Hearst Founda-

  tion threatening legal action if they did not restore to him the original

  $1,000 award.28

  The aforementioned experiences compounded the sense of frustra-

  tion Shilts felt with the job he began that summer as a freelance writer

  for the Advocate. “My articles mostly were done with disembodied

  25. Amy Fink to Randy Shilts, 29 May 1975, folder 9: Hearst [W.R. Hearst Foundation,

  Journalism Awards Program], box 11, Shilts Papers.

  26. Randy Shilts to Nathan Blumberg, memo, 21 July 1975, pp. 2, 4, folder 9, box 11,

  Shilts Papers.

  27. Randy Shilts to Nathan Blumberg, cover letter, 21 July 1975, p. 2, folder 9, box 11,

  Shilts Papers.

  28. Randy Shilts to Ira Walsh, 25 August 1975, folder 9, box 11, Shilts Papers. It appears

  that he eventually backed off from that demand.

  148

  chapter 3

  voices over the phone,” he refl ected a few months into the work. “My

  Advocate job itself was a disembodied one as I merely had an enve-

  lope relationship with the paper augmented by an occasional phone

  conversation.”29 Although he was able to gain success, fi rst as the maga-

  zine’s Northwest correspondent and then, following a move to San Fran-

  cisco in early 1976, as a staff writer, he still longed for bigger projects and

  the professional prestige of employment at a “straight” newspaper. Writ-

  ing in one of his journals in June 1976, Shilts confi ded that “I really don’t

  put my energy into having high status in the gay community. I defi nitely

  want status in the American journalistic community, but I don’t want it

  among gay ‘leaders.’ I think because that is an empty status which few

  recognize. I want ‘real’ more objectifi able success and status.”30

  Indeed, success and status were the stuff that Shilts craved, and he

  recorded these yearnings repeatedly in his journal entries. Yet he was

  plagued with insecurity about his social abilities, his looks, and, when

  he was later working in television, his voice. In early January 1976,

  Shilts was in a dejected state after having decided to move from Port-

  land to San Francisco on Christmas Eve 1975. He had then spent a des-

  perate New Year’s Eve there, searching for a place to stay. The passage

  he typed at that time is worth repeating at length and unedited, for it ex-

  presses the depths to which Shilts had sunk. It is also worth considering

  the resemblance between the description of Chris Stone, a good- looking

  Advocate writer, and Shilts’s depiction of Gaétan Dugas ten years later:

  January 3, 1976

  Halm Moon Bay, California

  He walked into the room. A loose shirt unbuttoned to his navel, exposing a

  narrow, hairy chest and waist. . A set of gold chains dangling loosely from his

  neck. . His hair cut in the latest style and his mustache trimmed evenly— of

  that uncertain age which is somewhere in the ’20s though the haircut and

  well- kept bodyx may disguise an early ’30s. An expensive leather coat draped

  over his shoulders.

  Into the room he walked with Robert McQueen and the editor’s ‘Signifi -

  cant Other.’ He was charming, dapper, handsome— eyed by all the men in the

  29. “Moscow, Idaho, November 30, 1975,” p. 2, folder: Journal ’75- ’76, Alband Collec-

  tion; occasional misspelled as “occassional” in original.

  30. “June 1 ’76,” folder: Journal 76, Alband Collection.

  “Humanizing This Disease” 149

  room. Favorite of the publisher who paid his w
ay up. . He was Chris Stone.

  And I was nothing.

  In a large sense, he seems to represent that p eer group which I so dearly

  want to have and yet lack. . While I really can’t say I dislike myself or my

  trip, I always fi nd it and myself somewhat inadequate when= I measure it up

  against such charmer standards. And he was the pet of the editor.

  Three days agao that same editor knew of my situation. . He knew that I

  was taking to the streets to fi nd places to stay. He knew the predicament in

  which I found myself to the point that he felt obliged to make some phony ex-

  cuse about his bed being to narrow. . Yet when dapper Mr. Stone walks in, he

  is treated by a king.

  Shilts continued, confi ding to his typewriter for comfort:

  As a matter of traditional typewriter therapy, I might as well say to the keys

  what I want to say to my beloved editor.

  Does he know what it is to stand like a slut, like a whore on a street coener,

  somehow hoping that one of the Castro Street tramps will pick you up for that

  place you so desperately need. . He left me like a whore on a street corner,

  tricking my way through a subsistance while giving the handsome and fi nely

  dressed public relations writer a warm bed in which to sleep. I*m not god’s

  gift to journalism, but I’m good and the best that The Advocate has . . I grad-

  uated with an arm full of awards and honors . . I turn in some good copy, se-

  rious copy. . And y et I’m left to be a whore while the public relations, enter-

  tainment writer gets treated like a king. Someone who probably can’t think

  beyond the next name he can drop or the next cocktail party he ca n go to. I

  should clarify that I have no rational feelings of hostility against Mr. Stone. .

  He may be a fi ne person and I may soon be a friend of his for all I know. To

  some extent I resent the fact that he can move so easily among the people I

  can only stumble hrough.

  I do my best. I try and work at my job. But that is not enough in this world

  of status and illusions. . He has a well- honed, image of handsome sexua lity. .

  While I am only a clutz, a more- or- less unattractive misfi t who can fi nd a nich

  only through an intense dedication to my work— a dedication which I carry

  through in lieu of anything meaningful social interact on. .

  And I am left like akprostitute on a street and this person—who is so

  much of everything I am not—is treated as royalty by the people for whom I

  sweat over my typewriter. .

  150

  chapter 3

  The lump in my throat has gone big enough that breathing is somewhat

  diffi cult. I’m closer to crying than in any time in the past dozen or so years.

  Here I am— the nobody whore. Alone again.

  [Signed]

  Randy Shilts31

  In this brutally frank and self- loathing entry, written only weeks after

  his disappointing Vancouver visit, Shilts admits his despair at the injus-

  tices he perceived to be at play in the world of gay journalism— a “world

  of status and illusions”— where, to him, talent mattered far less than ap-

  pearance. The extent to which Shilts abases himself in his comparisons

  to Stone will be important to bear in mind in the context of the journal-

  ist’s later presentation of Dugas.

  This self- abasement also fi nds expression elsewhere in his journals,

  when he refl ects on his frequent sexual connections with “hundreds” of

  other men and fi nds in them a lonely search for love. Commenting on

  his “insatiable sexual appetite” while traveling through the Northwest,

  Shilts decided that “I have to cut down the time which I spend on sex or

  at least integrate it into my normal life.” He refl ected that this might be

  easier to do in San Francisco or another large city, “as I would be living a

  gay lifestyle in a gay world.”32 He linked his lack of success in love to his

  lack of confi dence and his use of alcohol. “I think that it’s just that I get

  drunk + horny + will sleep w[ith]/the most available person who seems

  least likely to reject me,” he wrote in January 1978, while on the road.

  “Thus, I get dip- shits that don’t satisfy me in any sense. . . . What’s wrong

  w[ith]/me? Is there no one in the world to look into my eyes and say I

  love you— so I can look back and say the same?”33 And later, in Boston,

  “When will the loneliness ever end. I seem to have suffered this loneli-

  ness all my life. Will there be only more pain?”34 A serious bout of hep-

  atitis B in San Francisco in 1976 had not helped matters. The sickness,

  he wrote later, “would put me out of full- time work for 15 weeks, wreck

  31. “January 3, 1976,” typed journal entry, folder 3: Jobs, box 11, Shilts Papers.

  32. “Moscow, Idaho,” p. 3, typed journal entry, November 30, 1975, folder: Journal

  ’75- ’76, Alband Collection.

  33. “Portland, Maine,” January 24, 1978, “Green” journal, Alband Collection.

  34. “Boston, Massachusetts,” January 29, 1978, “Green” journal, Alband Collection.

  “Humanizing This Disease” 151

  me fi nancially, disrupt career plans and . . . leave me with only a fraction

  of my normal energy.”35 The experience made him confront the possi-

  bility of an early death from liver failure as a result of a sexually trans-

  mitted disease: “all because I had slept with the wrong person sometime

  last Spring.”36 Throughout these periods of loneliness, depression, and

  despondency, Shilts turned to his “typewriter therapy.” He wrote and

  wrote, taking solace in words and ideas, and dreaming of the right story

  opportunities to which he could apply his talents. “I only want to wake

  up in the morning with an exciting project to look forward to,” he de-

  clared. “I want to sit exuberantly at my typewriter and thrill at the con-

  struction of a new thought— and a new way to say it.”37

  Mindful of an earlier suggestion from Sasha Gregory- Lewis to in-

  vestigate how gay groups were responding to VD, Shilts turned his ex-

  perience with hepatitis into an article for the Advocate. 38 In it, he in-

  terviewed a number of health experts, including Selma Dritz, the San

  Francisco Department of Public Health physician, whose comments on

  carriers of hepatitis may have laid the groundwork for Shilts’s eventual

  understanding of Dugas: “A person walking around with hepatitis— even

  though they may not be jaundiced— can give fatal hepatitis with jaundice

  to someone else.” Ironically, given what he would later write about Du-

  gas, Shilts also noted that the “two- to six- month incubation period for

  hepatitis B makes it epidemiologically impossible to fi nd the source of a

  sexually transmitted case of hepatitis in a sexually active male.”39

  Although Shilts would continue to wrestle with his insecurities, his

  professional fortunes improved, by virtue of his drive to network, abil-

  ity to spot opportunities, and willingness to work long hours. In Jan-

  uary 1977 he successfully auditioned for a TV reporting position with

  KQED, San Francisco’s public broadcasting station. He began to present

  TV news stories for them the next month, working one day a week for


  35. Randy Shilts, “The Decade’s Best- Kept Medical Secret: Hepatitis Doesn’t Come

  from Needles,” Advocate, January 12, 1977, 23.

  36. Ibid, 24.

  37. “Moscow, Idaho,” p. 4, typed journal entry, November 30, 1975, folder: Journal ’75-

  ’76, Alband Collection.

  38. Sasha Gregory- Lewis to Randy Shilts, 21 July 1975, folder: Advocate, box 11, Shilts

  Papers.

  39. Ibid, 25; hepatitis and epidemiologically misspelled as “heptitis” and “epidemeo-

  logically” in original.

  152

  chapter 3

  TV and spending the rest of his time working for the Advocate, the mag-

  azine having offered him the role of contributing editor shortly after his

  depressed journal entry in January 1976.40 As his friend and mentor Ken

  Maley recounted in 2007,

  At KQED Randy found what he had been unable to fi nd as a print journal-

  ist, and that was celebrity, because his face was on the camera but wasn’t a by-

  line. He was now a face on the screen, so when Randy went to the bars, when

  Randy went out it became a very powerful tool for Randy in meeting peo-

  ple. Because Randy was always very unhappy with the fact that he perceived

  in those days that sex was based on the beauty that he did not possess. So his

  next option was attraction by celebrity, that if he was recognized and was a

  celebrity, oh that was a powerful aphrodisiac. That brought boys around. . . .

  That was an addiction Randy could not resist. It was too powerful and too

  successful, because it gave him the recognition and the contextual fame that

  Randy always sought. That was the goal of his ambition and it’s what drove

  him, I think, in my view unfortunately, through most of his career and most

  of his life.41

  Maley was a well- connected San Francisco man who had built im-

  portant networks of contacts ranging from Los Angeles to New York

  through his background in political organizing and consulting. In him,

  Shilts found someone who believed in his abilities and had the connec-

  tions to give Shilts the opportunities the reporter believed he deserved.

  “I’m launching ever more ambitious projects,” Shilts wrote in a March

  1978 journal entry, “largely because Ken Maley has been pushing and

  encouraging me . . . and so I’m proud of myself that I’ve started reach-

  ing for goals that I’m good enough to reach for, but yet I’m generally