Robert Walter Scott McLeod (June 7, 1914 – November 7, 1961) headed the U.S. Department of State's Bureau for Security and Consular Affairs from 1953 to 1957 and served as U.S.

He was the principal U.S. government official responsible for the purge of those charged with disloyalty or homosexuality from the State Department during the McCarthy era.

Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, an anti-Communist and anti-gay crusader who kept a lower profile than his colleague Joe McCarthy from Wisconsin.

[1] While working for Bridges, McLeod helped write the Republican attack on President Truman for removing General Douglas MacArthur from command.

McLeod denied charges that he improperly furnished State Department information to Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, and said he had no personal relationship with him.

[5] When criticized for slow progress in implementing the Refugee Relief Act (1953), which expanded immigration from southern Europe, he blamed complexity that Congress had added to the legislation and proposed easing its requirements.

One described him as "a shadow that lurk[s] over every desk and every conference table at Foggy Bottom" and another called him "one of the most powerful and controversial officials in the United States government."

[1] McLeod told a congressional committee at the start of his tenure at State that "The campaign toward eliminating all types of sex perverts from the rolls of the department will be pressed with increased vigor.

"[1][11] He took a flexible approach to security issues, weighing, for example, how recent or extensive someone's contacts with leftists were, but viewed any homosexual activity as disqualification on the grounds that the employee would always be subject to blackmail.

[1] Charges of homosexuality had removed more than 500 State Department employees before him, and McLeod promised to replace them with "red-blooded men of initiative".

"[9] According to the New York Times, he had good relations with the press and "[e]ven in his most controversial days, he would joke, with a puzzled air, about what he called his reputation as a 'beast'.

He said his efforts were no "witch hunt" but an attempt "to eliminate from public service any person upon whom the investigation raises a reasonable doubt as to his security potential."

President Dwight Eisenhower appointed McLeod Ambassador to Ireland, which provoked resentment because it was considered an especially attractive posting normally used to reward an experienced career diplomat.

[4] The New York Times opposed his nomination because "no one man has represented in the public mind more than Scott McLeod all the evils of McCarthyism as applied to diplomacy."

[19] Dulles endorsed the nomination and reviewed McLeod's record when asked if he had ever considered firing him from his State Department post:[20] [T]here was a point at the very first days of our Administration when we did not always see eye-to-eye about everything, but those days have passed; and I really think that he has done an extremely able job on important matters upon which he has been engaged–the Refugee Act, for example, and things of that sort–and ... that I have gained very great confidence in his ability and judgment, his human understanding.The Senate confirmed his appointment on May 9 on a 60–20 vote, with only Democrats in opposition[21] including then Senator John F.