1940

Drew becomes medical supervisor for the Blood for Britain program (Wynes, 93). Publication of Lewellys Barker’s Psychotherapy (Barker, 172). In December, H. S. Sullivan appointed consultant on psychiatry to director of the Selective Service; he sought to apply medical model to the screening of soldiers; supported US intervention in WW II; and believed psychiatric screening would improve the status of psychiatrists (Wake, 467-68). He was unhappy when the CACSS’s Medical Circular of May, 1941 added “homosexual proclivities” to list of deviations that should be referred to SS advisory boards (475). For Sullivan, “psychiatric selection was not for eliminating the unfit, but for selecting those who were particularly suited to military service. . . . To put the burden on the shoulders of the mentally ill in general and homosexual men in particular was not what Sullivan wanted. He had fought against this in his earlier clinical work with ‘schizophrenic’ patients, most of whom he believed to be homosexual” (466-67). At the same time, “he recognized a certain need to screen out homosexual men from the military” viz, that “homosexuals were . . . particularly vulnerable to psychological strain in military life. He could see the point of excluding homosexuals from the service so as to protect their mental health.” (478-80). Sullivan resigned from CACSS in early 1942 owing to differences with new SS director Lewis Hershey, who believed a standardized psychological examination at an induction center was more efficient and dependable than the psychiatric screening at local and medical boards (491).