government - incite a kind of moral panic about homosexuality. Joseph McCarthy and his chief legal counsel, Roy Cohn - determined to root out any communists and queer people working in the U.S.

Eisenhower’s presidential victory in 1952, just as Sen. Hawk, a debonair State Department employee, and Tim, a wide-eyed recent college graduate, fall in love after meeting on the night of Dwight D. But with “Fellow Travelers,” the limited series that premieres Friday on Paramount+ and Sunday on Showtime, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter has spearheaded the ambitious adaptation of a decadeslong love story that marks the culmination of his life’s work.īased on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel of the same name, the eight-part series chronicles the deeply passionate romance between two political staffers: Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey). Ron Nyswaner has long been interested in the ways in which human sexuality intersects with the law, having written the screenplays for “Freeheld,” “Soldier’s Girl” and “Philadelphia” (the groundbreaking legal drama for which Tom Hanks won the Academy Award in 1994).