1983. HIV/AIDS: 1,112 and Counting
My last attempt at communication with Herb Rickman was on January 23rd [1983], when, after several days of his not returning my phone calls, I wrote to him that the mayor continued to ignore our crisis at his peril. And I state here and now that if Mayor Ed Koch continues to remain invisible to us and to ignore us in this era of mounting death, I swear I shall do everything in my power to see that he never wins elective office again.
Rickman would tell you that the mayor is concerned, that he has established an “Inter-Departmental Task Force” – and, as a member of it, I will tell you that this Task Force is just lip service and a waste of everyone’s time. It hasn’t even met for two months. (Health Commissioner David Sencer had his gallstones out.)
On October 28th, 1982, Mayor Koch was implored to make a public announcement about our emergency. If he had done so then, and if he was only to do so now, the following would be put into action:
1. The community at large would be alerted (you would be amazed at how many people, including gay men, still don’t know enough about the AIDS danger).
2. Hospital staffs and public assistance offices would also be alerted and their education commenced.
3. The country, President Reagan, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as Congress, would be alerted, and these constitute the most important ears of all.
If the mayor doesn’t think it’s important enough to talk up AIDS, none of these people is going to, either.
The Mayor of New York has an enormous amount of power – when he wants to use it. When he wants to help his people. With the failure yet again of our civil rights bill, I’d guess our mayor doesn’t want to use his power to help us.
With his silence on AIDS, the Mayor of New York is helping to kill us.
I am sick of our electing officials who in no way represent us. I am sick of our stupidity in believing candidates who promise us everything for our support and promptly forget us and insult us after we have given them our votes. Koch is the prime example, but not the only one. Daniel Patrick Moynihan isn’t looking very good at this moment, either. Moynihan was requested by gay leaders to publicly ask Margaret Heckler at her confirmation hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services if she could be fair to gays in view of her voting record of definite anti-gay bias. (Among other horrors, she voted to retain the sodomy law in Washington, D.C., at Jerry Falwell’s request.) Moynihan refused to ask this question, as he has refused to meet with us about AIDS, despite our repeated requests. Margaret Heckler will have important jurisdiction over the CDC, over the NIH, over the Public Health Service, over the Food and Drug Administration – indeed, over all areas of AIDS concerns. Thank you, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I am sick of our not realizing we have enough votes to defeat these people, and I am sick of our not electing our own openly gay officials in the first place. Moynihan doesn’t even have an openly gay person on his staff, and he represents the city with the largest gay population in America.
Kramer was enormously influential in the community, while not particularly loved. The article roused many, I’m sure. I remember sitting in a coffee house in L.A. absolutely floored by the raw emotion and honesty. I had been covering the outbreak with growing alarm for the gay radio collective at left-wing station KPFK. By the summer of 1982, just a year into our weekly coverage, our news team could already see that the epidemic was the most significant crisis the movement had ever faced, with no end in sight. Kramer helped frame the issue for the community in a way that cut through the BS. I know many, including prominent movement activists, felt he was sex-negative and shrill. Big personalities are hardly unknown in our community. Say what you will. Kramer happened to be right.