Charles C. Moskos, 74, a retired sociology professor at Northwestern University who was the author of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military, died May 31 of cancer at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. Dr. Moskos, a leading sociologist who studied the U.S. military, conducted a number of surveys during a 40-year career — in Vietnam, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and elsewhere. He also wrote extensively on military issues, including racial integration in the armed services and women in combat, but he was best known as the man who forged the compromise that governs the conduct of gay service members. John Butler, a professor of management and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and a Moskos protege, recalled that his friend and former professor used the Army’s stricture on adultery as “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” as the prototype for “don’t ask, don’t tell. You don’t have to talk about adultery, but if you’re caught, you leave the military,” Butler said.
The Washington Post
Charles Moskos, 74; Created the Military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
June 4
