Welcoming the Fleet, with Diane Feinstein

“One day [San Francisco Mayor Diane] Feinstein and [Hadley] Roff met with her gay task force at a restaurant in the Castro. Among the diners was Jim Foster, Feinstein’s longtime gay ally…. During the meeting, she announced, ‘By the way, next week is Fleet Week, and the bay is going to be filled with aircraft carriers, and there are going to be at least fifteen thousand sailors in town. I hope they’re going to be given a warm welcome.’ Foster wiggled his brushy upper lip and replied with queenly certitude, ‘Oh, they will be.’ ‘The whole table broke out in laughter—except for [Feinstein],’ recalled Roff. ‘She just didn’t get the joke.’”

David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love

Uncorrected Proofs for "Season of the Witch"

San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein Holding a Replica of the "USS Missouri" (1979)