ABSTRACT
Despite the failure of government officials to pursue gays in Newport, in mid-March of 1919 Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold expanded his own investigation. Evidence collected during the next month seemed to demonstrate the truth of earlier suspicions, resulting in more than a dozen arrests from the Newport Naval Training Station. Ultimately, the extension of the search to civilians, the methods used to entrap suspects, and the approval of the investigation by senior government officials precipitated the most important homosexual scandal in United States history.
