Ike's Mystery Man

The Secret Lives of Robert Cutler

By: Peter Shinkle

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

This exhilarating Cold War narrative takes listeners from top-secret Cabinet Room meetings to exclusive social clubs, and into the pages of a powerful man's intimate diary. Ike's Mystery Man brings a new dimension to our understanding of the inner-workings of the Eisenhower White House. It also shines a bright light on the indispensable contributions and sacrifices made by patriotic gay Americans in an era when Executive Order 10450 banned anyone suspected of "sexual perversion", i.e. homosexuality, from any government job, and gays in the government were persecuted by the likes of Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn in the Senate and J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson at the FBI.

Ike's Mystery Man tells how Eisenhower's National Security Advisor Robert "Bobby" Cutler - working alongside Ike and also the Dulles brothers at the CIA and State Department - shaped US Cold War strategy in far more consequential ways than has been previously understood. Bobby also left behind a six-volume diary which reveals that he was in love with a man half his age, NSC staffer Skip Koons. Their friend Steve Benedict, who also is gay, became Ike's White House Security Officer. In addition to Bobby's diary, Ike's Mystery Man relies on thousands of personal letters, interviews, and previously classified archives to tell a gripping story that has never before been told.

©2018 Peter Shinkle (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Gap American Patriot in the days before Stonewall

This is an amazing book post together from the journals and letters of Bobby Cutler. The book describes in detail Cutler‘s homosexuality and his relationship with young men as a senior leader in the Eisenhower administration during the McCarthy era when homosexuality was a reason for termination from the federal government.

The book is an entertaining history of the life of an elite wealthy American in the days before Stonewall.

It’s also the story of a man extremely troubled over his own homosexuality and his relationship with young men.

Well worth a credit. An outstanding book in my opinion.

Service to Country

We are very fortunate that America was not denied the exceptional competence and talent of Robert Cutler. Peter Shinkle has written a thorough and completely engaging biography of Bobby Cutler. I highly recommend this book. We can learn much from Peter Shinkle’s book.