"Turing was indeed a courageous man, and he was open about his sexual
orientation at a time in Britain when homosexuality was a crime. Treated
wretchedly by the country that he helped to save, Turing was convicted of
"gross indecency" and sentenced to a year of hormone "therapy" (which he
seems to have borne with amused fortitude) in March 1952. But it was more
than two years after his conviction that he died of cyanide poisoning. (A
homemade apparatus for silver-plating teaspoons, which included a tank of
cyanide, was found in the room adjoining that in which Turing's body was
discovered.) A man who lived for his work, he was then in the midst of
exciting research, and a close friend who visited him a few days before he
died found him jolly. We wish we could explain Turing's death, but having
examined the depositions made at the inquest as well as other material, we
are less certain than Bushnell that the coroner's verdict of suicide was
correct."
Any comments?
James A. Landau