Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr.

Who is Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr.?

Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg, Jr. was a Republican government official from Michigan. He worked for many years on the staff of his father, Arthur H. Vandenberg, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1928 to 1951. He was briefly appointed to Eisenhower's White House staff in November 1952 but resigned in 1953 at the very start of the Eisenhower administration. He also worked as a consultant and academic and edited his father’s papers for publication.

The reason for his 1953 resignation, originally blamed on health problems, was later revealed to be his inability to pass a security test because of his homosexuality. In October 1964, following the arrest of President Lyndon Johnson's longtime aide Walter Jenkins on a "morals charge", columnist Drew Pearson published the circumstances of Vandenberg's 1952 resignation, and President Johnson himself repeated them publicly later that same month.