1060 lines
50 KiB
Markdown
1060 lines
50 KiB
Markdown
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# INTRODUCTION
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"A FRIEND says there are a lot of people who mistake their
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imagination for their memory." ¹
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\- Daily Oklahoman
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I am very different from the kind of person that the media
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have portrayed with the help of my brother and my mother.
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The purpose of this book is to show that I am not as I have
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been described in the media, to exhibit the truth about my
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relationship with my family, and to explain why my brother
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and my mother have lied about me.
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In fairness I should acknowledge that my brother and mother
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probably are not fully conscious of many of their own lies,
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since they both are adept at talking themselves into
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believing what they want to believe. Yet at least some of
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their lies must be conscious, as we shall see later.
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I consider it demeaning to expose one's private life to
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public view. But the media have already taken away my
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privacy, and there is no way I can refute the falsehoods
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that have been propagated about me except by discussing
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publicly some of the most intimate aspects of my own life
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and that of my family.
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Ever since my early teens, my immediate family has been a
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millstone around my neck. I've often wondered how I had the
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bad luck to be born into such a nest of fools. My relations
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with them have been to me a constant source of irritation
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and disgust and sometimes of very serious pain. For some
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forty years my brother and mother leaned heavily on me for
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the satisfaction of certain needs of theirs; they were
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psychological leeches. They loved me because they needed me,
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but at the same time they hated me because I didn't give
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them the psychological sustenance they were looking for; and
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they must have sensed my contempt for them. Thus their
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feelings toward me were, and remain, strongly conflicting.
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In my brother's case the conflict is extreme.
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I certainly can't claim that my own role in the life of my
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family has been a noble one. I had good justification for
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resenting my parents, but instead of making a clean break
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with them in early adulthood, as I should have done, I
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maintained relations with them: sometimes was kind to them,
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sometimes used them, sometimes squabbled with them over
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relatively minor matters, sometimes hurt their feelings
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intentionally, occasionally wrote them emotional letters
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expressing my bitterness over the way they had treated me
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and the way they had exploited my talents to satisfy their
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own needs. With my brother too I should have broken off
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early in life. The relationship wasn't good for either of
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us, but it was much worse for my brother than it was for me.
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This is a complicated matter that I will deal with at length
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further on.
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This book is carefully documented. It has to be because
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otherwise the reader would not know whether to believe my
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account or that of my brother and mother. Due to the
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continual need to quote documents and argue facts, the
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writing is dry and perhaps pedantic. All the same, I think
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the book will attract many readers because of the intrinsic
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human interest of its content.
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The amount of material about me that has appeared in the
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media is enormous, and I have not read or seen more than a
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small fraction of it. Apart from some straightforward
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reports of legal maneuvers or courtroom proceedings, most of
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what I have seen is loaded with errors and distortions, some
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of them trivial, some of them very serious indeed. Due to
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limitations on my own time, energy, and resources, the
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documents I've studied in preparing this book include from
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the media only a few items; principally the articles on my
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case that appeared in *Newsweek*, *Time*, *U.S. News* and
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*World Report*, and *People* on April 15th and 22, 1996; the
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"quickie" books that appeared within a few weeks after my
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arrest, *Mad Genius* and *Unabomber*, the articles based on
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interviews with my brother and mother that appeared in the
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*New York Times*, May 26, 1996, in the *Washington Post*,
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June 16, 1996, in the *Sacramento Bee*, January 19, 1997;
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and my mother's and brother's appearance on *60 Minutes*,
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September 15, 1996. The latter cover all of the public
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statements about me made by my brother and my mother that I
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have seen up to the present date, March 5, 1998. (Added
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April 1, 1998: I've recently been reminded of some other
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remarks by my brother, brief ones that have appeared in
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various newspapers, but I don't think they contained
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anything that I need to address in this book.)
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Apart from the published sources, I cite a large number of
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unpublished documents. It will of course be necessary at
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some point to make these documents accessible for
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examination so that it can be verified that I have cited
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them accurately. But I don't expect to do this immediately
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on publication of this book. For one thing, some of the
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documents are still legally sensitive, and for another, I
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don't want journalists rummaging through my papers to get
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material for sensational articles. I hope to get the
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documents housed in a university library and arrangements
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will be made so that some responsible and unbiased party can
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examine them and verify that I have cited them correctly and
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have not unfairly taken any passage out of context.
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Eventually some of them will be published. In any case, I
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will make every effort to see that the citations can be
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independently verified at the earliest possible time.
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I also make use in this book of a few reports received
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orally from investigators who worked for my defense team.
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The investigators do not want their names revealed because
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the resulting publicity about them might interfere with
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their work as investigators. But at some point I expect to
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make arrangements so that the investigators can be consulted
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discreetly and confirm the oral information that they gave
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me. (But see below for my remarks on the reliability of this
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information.) In this book I refer to the investigators as
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Investigator #1, Investigator #2, etc.
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Similar remarks apply to the psychologist whom I call Dr. K.
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Needless to say, I am not able to provide documentary
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evidence to refute all of the false statements that have
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been made about me, or even all of those that have been made
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by my brother and my mother. But I am able to demonstrate
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that informants have been lying or mistaken in enough cases
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to show that statements made about me are so unreliable that
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they should not be given any credence unless they are
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corroborated by documents written at or near the time to
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which they refer.
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In many cases I cite documents written by myself -
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principally my journals, some autobiographical notes, and
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letters sent to my family. All of these were written at a
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time (prior to my arrest) when I had no motive to lie about
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the points that are now at issue.
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They were either seized by the FBI when they searched my
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cabin, or were in the custody of other persons at the time
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of my arrest. Since my arrest I have not had physical
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possession of any of these documents; I have worked from
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Xerox copies. Thus there can be no question of my having
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fabricated any of this material for the purposes of this
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book. (Exception: Notes that I took on information given to
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me orally by the investigators and by Dr. K. were of course
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written after my arrest and while I was preparing this
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book.) Moreover, some of these documents, especially my 1979
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autobiography, contain highly embarrassing admissions that
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show that I was striving to be as honest as possible. Some
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of the documents were written almost immediately after the
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events that they record; others, while not contemporary with
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the events, were written many years ago when my memory of
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the events was fresher, and hence they presumably provide
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more reliable evidence than someone else's recollections
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taken down within the last year or two.
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In many cases I make use of sources of information that I
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know to be unreliable, such as media reports. The rationale
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for doing this is that if the reader has conceived a certain
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impression of me from unreliable sources, and if I can show
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by quoting those same sources that the impression is not to
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be trusted, then I will at any rate have demonstrated that
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the sources are unreliable and hence that the reader has no
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reason to believe them. As for statements of my brother and
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my mother that were quoted in the *New York Times*, the
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*Washington Post*, and the *Sacramento Bee*, my mother and
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brother presumably saw the articles based on their
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interviews, and, as far as I know, they never wrote letters
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to the newspapers in question correcting any errors, so they
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have to be considered responsible for their statements as
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quoted in the articles.
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In all cases when I have felt that a source was more or less
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unreliable, I have warned the reader of that fact in the
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Notes on Documents.
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Quite apart from the unreliability of the media, I was
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appalled to learn how few people provided trustworthy
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information. A psychologist (Dr. K.) repeatedly interviewed
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my brother, my mother, and me. She gave me orally some items
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of information obtained from my brother, mother, and aunt,
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and I wrote these down at the time. But when I asked her to
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confirm some items of this information several months later,
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in three cases out of a total of nine she either said she
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couldn't remember any such information and couldn't find
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it in her notes, or she reworded the information in such a
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way as to change its meaning significantly. ² Other shrinks
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misquoted me or gave seriously incorrect information in
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their reports. The investigators who worked for my defense
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team were much more reliable than the shrinks, but they too
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gave me orally a few items of information that they later
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had to correct, not because they had learned something new
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from further investigation but because they had reported to
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me carelessly in the first place. For this reason I have
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tried to rely as little as possible on information received
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orally. Wherever I have used such information the reader is
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made aware of it either in the text or in a footnote and he
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or she is advised to receive such information with caution.
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I have cited oral information from Dr. K. or the
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investigators in only a few cases. It is possible that
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Dr. K. or the investigators may decline to confirm some of
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this information if they are asked. Yet I was careful in
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recording the information and I am certain that I have
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accurately reported what I was told.
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What really horrified me, though, was the nonsense reported
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to the media or to the investigators by people who knew me
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years or decades ago. The investigators have given me
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written reports of interviews conducted with approximately
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150 people. ³ Some of the information obtained in these
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interviews dealt with matters of which I have no knowledge,
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hence I am unable to give an opinion of its accuracy. Taking
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into consideration only matters of which I have knowledge
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and speaking in rough terms, I can say that something like
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14% of the informants gave reports the accuracy of which I
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was unable to judge; 6% gave reports about whose accuracy I
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was doubtful; 6% gave reports that were inaccurate in detail
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but provided an overall picture of me that was
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not far from the truth; 36% gave reports that
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were fairly accurate; 38% gave reports that were seriously
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inaccurate; and, of these last, eleven persons gave reports
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that were so far off that they were mere flights of fancy.
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More than that: of the reports that were fairly accurate,
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72% were brief (one and a half pages or less); while fewer
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than one in four of the seriously inaccurate reports were
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brief. So it seems that people who spoke carefully and
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responsibly usually didn't have much information to give,
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while most of those who had (or thought they had) a good
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deal of information didn't know what they were talking
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about. (I was told that under normal circumstances the
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investigators would have interviewed the subjects over and
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over in order to separate the wheat from the chaff, but for
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some reason this was not done in my case.)
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To judge from what I have seen of them, statements about me
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made to journalists by people who knew me, as quoted in the
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media, were even more inaccurate than what was reported to
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my investigators.
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In some cases I have documentary evidence that shows that
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reports about me are false, but in the great majority of
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cases I am relying on memory for the information that
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disproves the reports. Why do I assume, when my
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recollections disagree with someone else's, that mine are
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usually right?
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*First:* In many cases I can be confident that I am right
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simply because I am in a better position to know about the
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matter in question than are the persons whose memories
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disagree with mine. For instance, if someone says that I
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used to wear a plaid sport-jacket four decades ago, I can
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safely assume that he has me mixed up with someone else,
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because I have owned very few sport-jackets in my life and I
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know that I have never had a plaid one.
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*Second:* I have good evidence of the accuracy of my
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long-term memory. ⁴
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\(A\) lnvestigators working for my defense team who
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researched my past told me repeatedly that my long-term
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memory was remarkably sharp and accurate. ⁵ This does not
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mean that I *never* made mistakes of memory, but that I did
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so seldom. See Appendix 11.
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\(B\) In preparing this book I've studied hundreds of old
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family letters ⁶ that my mother had saved, going all the way
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back to 1957, and I've found hardly anything to surprise
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me: to the extent that the matters covered in the letters
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overlapped with areas of which I have memories, my memories
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were confirmed with only minor discrepancies.
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\(C\) During the 1990's, for reasons that I need not take
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the trouble to explain here, I obtained from Harvard a
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transcript of my record. Before looking at it, as a check
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on my memory, I wrote down on a sheet of paper the
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number-designations of the courses I took (e.g. "Math 1a")
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and the grades I got in them. The FBI found this sheet of
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paper in my cabin and I have a copy of it. ⁷ Here is how it
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compares with the official transcripts ⁸ of my record:
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General Education AHF (which everyone referred to as "Gen
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Ed A"), Humanities 5, and Social Sciences 7 were courses
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lasting two semesters; all other courses were of one
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semester.
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<"INSERT TABLE HERE">
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As far as I can recall, I never saw a transcript of my
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Harvard grades from the time I left Harvard in 1962 until I
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wrote them down from memory in the early 1990's.
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\(D\) In the other surviving documents I have found
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reasonably good agreement with my memories. When I have
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encountered a discrepancy between my memories and someone
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else's memories as reported in the media or to my
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investigators, and when some document was available that
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resolved the discrepancy, the discrepancy has always been
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resolved in my favor, with very few exceptions. ¹² (However,
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I can think of two cases - one trivial, one significant - in
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which my memory has disagreed with someone else's and I am
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sure that the other person is right because the matter is
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one about which she could hardly be mistaken. ¹³ Also, when
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I recall things that I have read years previously in books
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and magazines, it is not uncommon for my memory of what I
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have read to be distorted; occasionally it is seriously
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wrong. ¹⁴ On the other hand, my memory of things I have
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written or read in personal letters or heard in conversation
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seems to be pretty reliable, so far as surviving documents
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have made it possible to judge.)
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*Third:* There is abundant evidence of the gross
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unreliability of the memories of me that have been reported
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to my investigators or have appeared in the media. In
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reference to the information given to the investigators,
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Investigator #2, who is very experienced, writes:
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"Lay witness reports of Ted's behavior and functioning are
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extremely suspect given the high profile nature of his case.
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Many of their anecdotes and conclusions are most likely the
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result of planted memories and suggestions they've read,
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seen, or heard from others." ¹⁵
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There are three ways by which I have been able to establish
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that they are wrong. They may contradict information
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about which I am in a position so well that there is
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hardly any chance that my own memory could be mistaken; they
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may contradict convincing documentary evidence; or the
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accounts of two different people may contradict one another,
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so that at least one of them must be wrong.
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Throughout this book the reader will find examples of
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reports that are proved wrong. But it will be useful to give
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some examples here in the Introduction also, because, among
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other things, they will illustrate some of the ways in which
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false memories or false reports arise.
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Some of the sources of falsehood or distortion can be
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identified with reasonable confidence: (a) Media planting.
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The informant "remembers" something because it has been
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suggested to him by the media. (b) Mistaken identity. The
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informant has me mixed up with someone else. (c) Remembering
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later years. The informant remembers the later years of his
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association with me, largely forgets the earlier ones, and
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attributes to the earlier years the same traits,
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relationships, or circumstances that existed in the later
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years. (d) Stereotyping. The informant sees that I have some
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of the traits of a given group, so he identifies me with
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that group and assumes that I have all of the traits that
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are characteristic of it. (e) Lying. It is difficult to say
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how many of the falsehoods told about me are conscious lies.
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At least some of the things that my brother and my mother
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have said are conscious lies and not honest errors, and I
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can identify one other individual who definitely has been
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lying about me. But otherwise my guess is that the conscious
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lying by *informants* has not played an important role; it is
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a matter, instead, of human fallibility and irrationality.
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On the other hand, some conscious lies by journalists can be
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clearly identified, and there is enough evidence of
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unscrupulousness and irresponsibility in the media to make
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it plausible that journalists may often lie when they think
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they won't get caught.
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Apart from the factors we've just listed there are four
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others that may have helped to produce false reports in my
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case, but their existence is more-or-less speculative and
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cannot be definitely proved. These are: (f) Projection.
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People who themselves have mental or psychological problems
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are prone to see others as having such problems. (g)
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Personal resentment or jealousy. This factor is clearly
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present in the case of my brother and mother. In some other
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individuals its presence may be suspected, but this is
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speculative. (h) Mass hysteria, herd instinct. Under certain
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conditions, when an individual or a class of individuals
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within a society is pointed out as evil or worthy of being
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cast out, an atmosphere develops in which other members of
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the society draw together defensively, gang up on the
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rejected person(s), and take satisfaction in reviling him or
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them. It becomes something like a fad. Possibly sadistic
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impulses are involved. Some such factor seems to be
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operating in my case, but it is difficult to prove this
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objectively. (i) Greed. Several people who once knew me have
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appeared on television in connection with my case, and I
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know of at least one person who was paid for it. Obviously,
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||
|
those who told the most bizarre or exaggerated stories about
|
||
|
me would be most in demand by talk shows and therefore might
|
||
|
make the most money. When interviewed later by my
|
||
|
investigators, they would give them the same story that they
|
||
|
gave on television so as not to have to admit to themselves
|
||
|
or others that they had perhaps allowed their memories to be
|
||
|
warped by greed.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Now some examples:
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(a\) *Media planting*. There are very many instances in
|
||
|
which I am reasonably sure that this has occurred, ¹⁶ but
|
||
|
often I can't prove it definitely. For example Leroy
|
||
|
Weinberg, a neighbor of ours when I was a teenager, told
|
||
|
investigators that when he said "hello" to me I always
|
||
|
failed to respond. ¹⁷ I know that this is false, because my
|
||
|
mother had me well trained to be polite to adults, and that
|
||
|
included answering all greetings from them. ¹⁸ It seems
|
||
|
fairly obvious that Weinberg attributes this and other
|
||
|
strange behavior to me because his memory of me has been
|
||
|
warped by exposure to the media; but how can I be certain?
|
||
|
Conceivably he might remember some instance in which I
|
||
|
failed to respond to a greeting of his because I simply
|
||
|
didn't hear it.
|
||
|
|
||
|
However, there are some cases in which it does seem
|
||
|
virtually certain that media planting has been at work.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Dr. L.Hz., a dentist who practices part of the time in
|
||
|
Lincoln, Montana, told my investigators: "Ted must not have
|
||
|
had much money because his mother usually paid his dental
|
||
|
bills.\" ¹⁹ My mother had provided me with a large sum of
|
||
|
money from which I paid my dental bills among other things,
|
||
|
but she never paid any of my dental bills directly. I
|
||
|
deposited her money in a bank and paid Dr. L.Hz. either in
|
||
|
cash or with checks on my own account. There is no way that
|
||
|
Dr. L.Hz. could have known that the money came ultimately
|
||
|
from my mother, because I was embarrassed about the fact I
|
||
|
received money from her, and I was careful to conceal it
|
||
|
from everyone. Certainly I would never have told Dr. L.Hz.
|
||
|
about it. It is clear, therefore, that Dr. L.Hz. must have
|
||
|
learned from the media after my arrest that I had been
|
||
|
receiving money from my mother, and this information altered
|
||
|
his memory of his own dealings with me.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Dr. L.Hz. also told my investigators: "Ted was an extremely
|
||
|
quiet person, so quiet that Ted appeared odd. Ted
|
||
|
was a kooky man. ... Ted did not talk much." ¹⁹
|
||
|
Media planting was probably involved here, too, as
|
||
|
Dr. L.Hz.'s account is contradicted by that of his own
|
||
|
dental assistant, R.Cb. According to my
|
||
|
investigators, R.Cb. "described Ted as, 'a sweet, nice,
|
||
|
pleasant guy.' ... She said that Ted was 'friendly' and she
|
||
|
would chat with him when he came into the office. She does
|
||
|
not remember what they talked about." ²⁰ Dr. L.Hz. was
|
||
|
present at most of my conversations with R.Cb. and he
|
||
|
participated in them.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Another clear example of media planting is provided by Dale
|
||
|
Eickelman, whom I knew in junior high and high school.
|
||
|
Eickelman, now a professor at Dartmouth College, told my
|
||
|
investigators that "Teddie did not have other friends
|
||
|
\[than Dale Eickelman\] during the time that Dale knew
|
||
|
Teddie from 5th grade until Teddie's sophomore year \[of
|
||
|
college\]." ²¹ In Chapter III of this book (pp. 79, 87, 88)
|
||
|
I mention eight people (other than Dale Eickelman), of
|
||
|
approximately my own age or up to two years older, with whom
|
||
|
I was friends during some part (or in one case almost all)
|
||
|
of the period between fifth grade and the time I left high
|
||
|
school. ²² These were good friends whom I genuinely liked,
|
||
|
not just casual acquaintances or people (like Russell Mosny)
|
||
|
with whom I spent time only because we were thrown together
|
||
|
as outcasts.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Professor Eickelman is a highly intelligent man. He must
|
||
|
realize that his house was a least a mile and a half from
|
||
|
mine, and that after fifth grade we were never in any of the
|
||
|
same classes at school. So how can he imagine that he knows
|
||
|
whether I had any friends other than himself? The only
|
||
|
evidence he cited was that when he visited my house (which
|
||
|
was not very often) no other friends were present. ²³ But it
|
||
|
was equally true that when I visited Eickelman's house he
|
||
|
never had any other friends there. Would this justify me in
|
||
|
concluding that his only friend was myself?
|
||
|
|
||
|
Professor Eickelman's belief that he was my only friend
|
||
|
clearly has no rational basis. Only one plausible
|
||
|
explanation for this belief presents itself. It was
|
||
|
suggested to him by the media portrayal of me as abnormally
|
||
|
asocial. It is true that I was unsuccessful socially in
|
||
|
junior high and high school. Thus the media did not create
|
||
|
Professor Eickelman's belief from nothing, but caused him
|
||
|
to exaggerate grossly the accurate perception that I was
|
||
|
less social than the average kid.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(b\) *Mistaken identity*. In Chapter VI the reader will
|
||
|
find several examples of mistaken identity: cases in which
|
||
|
it can be clearly shown that an informant has made a false
|
||
|
statement about me because he has confused me with someone
|
||
|
else. We give another example here.
|
||
|
|
||
|
G.Wi. owns a cabin not far from mine, though I haven't seen
|
||
|
him for several years. According to investigators who
|
||
|
interviewed him, "[G.Wi.] thinks that Ted was always looking
|
||
|
over his shoulder. Sometime during the 1970's, Ted talked
|
||
|
to [G.Wi.] about the KGB. Ted told [G.Wi.] he had a place
|
||
|
he could hide in up \[sic\] Old Baldy where no one would
|
||
|
ever find him." ²⁴
|
||
|
|
||
|
G.Wi. has me mixed up with Al Pinkston, a gentleman whom he
|
||
|
and I met up in the Dalton Mountain or Sauerkraut Creek area
|
||
|
about late December of 1974. Pinkston (now deceased) was an
|
||
|
obvious paranoiac who believed that the Lincoln area was
|
||
|
infested with KGB agents. He told me he was hiding out up on
|
||
|
the mountain because "they're gunnin' for *my* ass." I
|
||
|
related the story of this encounter three months later in my
|
||
|
journal ²⁵ and in a letter to my parents. ²⁶
|
||
|
|
||
|
I never told G.Wi. or anyone else that I had a hiding place.
|
||
|
|
||
|
In this and in some other cases of mistaken identity, it is
|
||
|
likely that media influence was at work. G.Wi. probably
|
||
|
confused me with Al Pinkston because the media had portrayed
|
||
|
me as crazy, like Pinkston.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(c\) *Remembering later years*. In greater or lesser degree
|
||
|
this phenomenon seems to affect a number of the reports made
|
||
|
to my investigators by people who have known me. In some
|
||
|
cases it is clear-cut. For example, Russell Mosny reported
|
||
|
that he and I met through our membership in the high school
|
||
|
band, ²⁷ but actually I knew him from the time I entered
|
||
|
seventh grade. ²⁸
|
||
|
|
||
|
In some cases it is difficult to disentangle the effect of
|
||
|
"remembering later years" from that of "media planting."
|
||
|
Thus L.D., the daughter of one of my father's best friends,
|
||
|
told investigators: "Ted Jr. was a very shy and quiet boy.
|
||
|
He was introverted and only involved himself in things he
|
||
|
could do alone." ²⁹ Here and throughout her interview, L.D.
|
||
|
exaggerates my shyness and introversion to the point of
|
||
|
caricature. Most likely this is the result of media
|
||
|
planting. Yet "remembering later years" would seem to be
|
||
|
involved too, since L.D. appears to have forgotten
|
||
|
completely the earlier years when I was not particularly shy
|
||
|
or introverted and we were lively playmates. I wrote the
|
||
|
following in 1979:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"I might have been about 9 years old when the following
|
||
|
incident occurred. My family was visiting the D\_\_\_\_
|
||
|
family. The D\_\_\_\_'s had a little girl named L\_\_\_\_,
|
||
|
about my own age. At that time she was very pretty. I was
|
||
|
horsing around with her, and by and by I got to tickling
|
||
|
her. I put my arms around her from behind and tickled her
|
||
|
under the ribs. I tickled and tickled, and she squirmed and
|
||
|
laughed. I pressed my body up against hers, and experienced
|
||
|
a very pleasant, warm, affectionate sensation, distinctly
|
||
|
sexual. Unfortunately, my mother caught on to the fact that
|
||
|
our play was beginning to take on a sexual character. She
|
||
|
got embarrassed and told me to stop tickling L\_\_\_\_.
|
||
|
L\_\_\_\_said, 'No, don't make him stop! I *like* it!' but,
|
||
|
alas, my mother insisted, and I had to quit." ³⁰
|
||
|
|
||
|
The most important case of "remembering later years"
|
||
|
involves my father's close friend Ralph Meister. On February
|
||
|
2, 1997 Dr. Meister signed for my investigators a
|
||
|
declaration in which he outlined what he knew about me and
|
||
|
my family life. The declaration is mostly accurate except in
|
||
|
one respect. Dr. Meister represents my mother and me as
|
||
|
showing certain traits through the entire period of my
|
||
|
childhood and adolescence, whereas in reality those traits
|
||
|
were not shown until I was approaching adolescence. Thus, he
|
||
|
writes: "Wanda put pressure on Teddy John to be an
|
||
|
intellectual giant almost from the day he was born." ³¹
|
||
|
Actually I never felt I was under much pressure to achieve
|
||
|
until at least the age of eleven. Dr. Meister also implies
|
||
|
that I had difficulties with social adjustment from early
|
||
|
childhood, ³² whereas in reality those difficulties did not
|
||
|
begin until much later. All this will be shown in Chapters I
|
||
|
through V of this book.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(d\) *Stereotyping:* The most clear-cut example of this is
|
||
|
that some people remember me as having used a pocket
|
||
|
protector in high school. ³³ I have never used a pocket
|
||
|
protector in my life. But because I was identified with the
|
||
|
"Briefcase Boys" (academically-oriented students), and
|
||
|
because some of these did wear pocket protectors, people
|
||
|
remember me as having worn one too.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(e\) *Lying:* Apart from my brother and my mother, the only
|
||
|
informant whom I definitely know to be consciously lying is
|
||
|
Chris Waits of Lincoln, Montana. Waits has been pretending
|
||
|
that he knows me well. ³⁴ He used to say hello to me when he
|
||
|
passed me on the road in his truck, and I would return his
|
||
|
greeting. I don't remember ever accepting a ride from him,
|
||
|
but it's conceivable that I may have done so on one or two
|
||
|
occasions, not more. I once had a brief conversation with
|
||
|
him at a garage sale. Apart from that I had no association
|
||
|
or contact with him.
|
||
|
|
||
|
One wonders what Waits' motive might be. Perhaps he is one
|
||
|
of those pathetic individuals who feel like failures in life
|
||
|
and try to compensate by seeking notoriety through tall
|
||
|
tales that they tell about some news event that has come
|
||
|
close to them. I recall that back in the 1950's there was a
|
||
|
derelict in Chicago named Benny Bedwell who "confessed" to
|
||
|
a highly publicized murder just in order to make himself
|
||
|
famous.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(f\) *Projection.* It does appear to be true that persons
|
||
|
who themselves have mental or psychological problems are
|
||
|
prone to see others as having such problems, but it is
|
||
|
difficult to say definitely that this factor has operated in
|
||
|
my case, since the people who portrayed me as strange,
|
||
|
abnormal, or mentally ill may have done so under the
|
||
|
influence of "media planting" or some other factor. But it
|
||
|
is a fact that many of the people who portrayed me in this
|
||
|
way had serious problems of their own. For the case of Joel
|
||
|
Schwartz see Chapter XII and Appendix 6. Many other examples
|
||
|
can be found in the investigators' reports of the
|
||
|
interviews that they conducted. ³⁵ Here I will only discuss
|
||
|
some of my suitemates from Eliot N-43 at Harvard who gave
|
||
|
false information about me.
|
||
|
|
||
|
W.Pr., Pat McIntosh, John Masters, and K.M. formed a
|
||
|
close-knit clique within the suite. To all outward
|
||
|
appearances they were thoroughly well-adjusted. They wore
|
||
|
neatly-kept suits and ties, their rooms were always tidy,
|
||
|
they observed all of the expected social amenities, their
|
||
|
attitudes, opinions, speech, and behavior were so
|
||
|
conventional that I found them completely uninteresting. Yet
|
||
|
three of the four gave my investigators a glimpse of their
|
||
|
psychological problems.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Pat McIntosh, according to the investigators' report, did a
|
||
|
great deal of whining throughout his interview about how
|
||
|
hard it was to survive academically and psychologically at
|
||
|
Harvard. For example: "\[Pat\] found life at Harvard to be
|
||
|
extremely difficult. . . ³⁶ Patrick \[had\] his own
|
||
|
adolescent insecurities . . . ³⁷ Patrick was too insecure
|
||
|
and wrapped up in his own problems . . . ³⁸ The faculty or
|
||
|
administration at Harvard was . . . unconcerned with
|
||
|
students' emotional and psychological problems. Patrick did
|
||
|
not know any students who actually sought and received
|
||
|
emotional help... At times, Patrick wanted help surviving
|
||
|
himself, but he had no idea where to go. John Finley, the
|
||
|
house master. . . didn't want to recognize the serious
|
||
|
difficulties that many of the students were having." ³⁹
|
||
|
|
||
|
McIntosh evidently assumes that I was having problems
|
||
|
similar to his own: "One day during Patrick's second year
|
||
|
at Harvard . . . he saw a student being taken out on a
|
||
|
stretcher. The student had slit his wrists after receiving a
|
||
|
C on an exam . . . Patrick . . . thought of Ted and worried
|
||
|
that maybe Ted might end up like this kid." ³⁸
|
||
|
|
||
|
John Masters told the investigators that he "was two years
|
||
|
old when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on
|
||
|
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. After that he used to dream
|
||
|
about the atomic bomb; these dreams sparked John's
|
||
|
desire of becoming a nuclear physicist but after he barely
|
||
|
earned a C in his freshman physics class at Harvard, he
|
||
|
decided that he was not cut out for a career in the hard
|
||
|
sciences. . . ⁴⁰ During John's first semester of his
|
||
|
sophomore year at Harvard, his family began to fall apart.
|
||
|
He became very depressed for several months and started
|
||
|
receiving therapy at the student health services". ⁴¹
|
||
|
|
||
|
When John Masters first moved into Eliot N-43 he mentioned
|
||
|
having been in "the hospital." I asked him what he had
|
||
|
been in the hospital for, and he answered, "just
|
||
|
nervousness." Like McIntosh, Masters made false statements
|
||
|
about me and exaggerated my solitariness. According to the
|
||
|
investigators' report of his interview, "House Master
|
||
|
Finley. . . did not intervene on John's behalf when John
|
||
|
needed counseling. The same was probably true for Ted.
|
||
|
Ted's solitary nature failed to draw Master
|
||
|
Finley's attention because diversity or unusual
|
||
|
behavior was accepted at Harvard. John believes that
|
||
|
today Ted's solitary behavior would warrant some type of
|
||
|
intervention; at the time, his behavior did not even
|
||
|
raise an eyebrow. ⁴² . . . John's solitary lifestyle meant
|
||
|
that he did not make more than five friends while at
|
||
|
Harvard." ⁴³
|
||
|
|
||
|
W.Pr. "was shy and socially backward when he went to Harvard
|
||
|
and feared that he would never fully come out of his shell.
|
||
|
. . . He had a strong desire to lead a normal life. W.Pr. was
|
||
|
an astronomy major. He originally intended to pursue
|
||
|
astronomy on the graduate level but his fears drove him away
|
||
|
from that goal. He saw that many of the astronomy graduate
|
||
|
students at Harvard were not well-adjusted and he felt he
|
||
|
would move further away from a normal life if he pursued
|
||
|
astrophysics.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"At the end of W.Pr.'s junior year, he dropped out of
|
||
|
Harvard. He was confused as a college student and this
|
||
|
confusion led him to drop out of school. [W.Pr.] went to
|
||
|
the Harvard health services for counseling before dropping
|
||
|
out of Harvard. He thought the counseling was helpful. . .
|
||
|
he returned to Harvard a year or two later. W.Pr. did not
|
||
|
last long at Harvard and soon dropped out again." ⁴⁴
|
||
|
|
||
|
W.Pr. too made false statements about me and exaggerated my
|
||
|
solitariness. "W.Pr. and the others at N-43 were too young to
|
||
|
realize how serious Ted's isolation was for him. . ." ⁴⁵
|
||
|
|
||
|
Thus McIntosh, Masters, and W.Pr. appear to have seen me as
|
||
|
having problems or needs that were, in part, similar to
|
||
|
their own. In reality I was psychologically self-reliant and
|
||
|
felt neither insecure, nor depressed, nor did I feel in need
|
||
|
of help, nor did I find it hard to face the academic
|
||
|
challenges of Harvard. Nor did I feel troubled by
|
||
|
loneliness. I did suffer from acute sexual starvation: I was
|
||
|
in daily contact with smart, physically attractive Radcliffe
|
||
|
women and I didn't know how to make advances to them. I did
|
||
|
feel very frustrated at a few mathematics teachers whose
|
||
|
lectures I considered to be ill-prepared. Apart from that
|
||
|
there was just one other thing about which I felt seriously
|
||
|
unhappy: It was a kind of nagging malaise the nature of
|
||
|
which I never fully understood until I broke free of it once
|
||
|
and for all in 1966. But that is a story that will be told
|
||
|
elsewhere than in this book.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(g\) *Personal resentment or jealousy.* Only in the case of
|
||
|
my brother and mother can resentment or jealousy be clearly
|
||
|
identified as a factor influencing reports given to
|
||
|
investigators. However, this factor may be suspected in some
|
||
|
other cases. Ellen A. (see Chapter VI) once told me that
|
||
|
"everyone" was jealous of me, presumably referring to the
|
||
|
people whom we both knew, including G.Da. and Russell Mosny,
|
||
|
both of whom seemed to become cool toward me at about the
|
||
|
time I moved a year ahead of them in school. In G.Da.'s
|
||
|
opinion, "Academically and intellectually, Ted was head and
|
||
|
shoulders above the rest of the students at Evergreen Park
|
||
|
High. His exceptional intelligence set him apart, even from
|
||
|
a group of bright young men like the Briefcase Boys." ⁴⁶
|
||
|
"The Briefcase Boys" was a clique that included, among
|
||
|
others, G.Da., Russell Mosny, and Roger Podewell. According
|
||
|
to Podewell, "It wasn't just Ted's shyness that set him
|
||
|
apart from the Briefcase Boys. He was more intelligent than
|
||
|
the others, a fact that made Roger a little jealous . . .
|
||
|
." ⁴⁷ G.Da. and Mosny both went to the University of
|
||
|
Illinois and flunked out. Roger Podewell went to Yale and
|
||
|
got a C average his first year. (How he did after that I
|
||
|
don't know.) I did not fail to josh Podewell and Mosny
|
||
|
about their academic performance, but they didn't seem to
|
||
|
find it amusing.
|
||
|
|
||
|
G.Da., Podewell, and Mosny (especially the last) gave my
|
||
|
investigators unflattering and inaccurate accounts of me
|
||
|
that exaggerated my social isolation. Is this due only to
|
||
|
media planting or are dislike, resentment, or jealousy also
|
||
|
involved? My guess is that no such factor is involved in
|
||
|
Podewell's case but that it is involved in Mosny's.
|
||
|
With G.Da. it could be either way.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Patrick \[McIntosh\] was jealous of Ted's prowess in
|
||
|
mathematics... ." ³⁹ Did this influence McIntosh's highly
|
||
|
inaccurate and unflattering portrayal of me? There is no
|
||
|
proof that it did. But it's a fact that a sense of
|
||
|
inferiority can be one of the most powerful impulses to
|
||
|
resentment. Especially when the person who appears to be
|
||
|
more able is lacking in tact, as I'm afraid has sometimes
|
||
|
been the case with me.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(h\) *Mass hysteria, Herd instinct*. This is a very
|
||
|
vaguely-defined factor that has probably been at work in my
|
||
|
case, but it is impossible to separate from media planting
|
||
|
or illustrate with specific examples.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\(i\) *Greed.* Although I know of at least one case of a
|
||
|
person receiving payment for an interview, I have no way of
|
||
|
proving that people who told stories about me on television
|
||
|
allowed themselves to alter their recollections in such a
|
||
|
way as to make them more profitable financially. But it is
|
||
|
worth noting that two of the people who appeared most on
|
||
|
talk shows - Russell Mosny and Pat McIntosh - gave my
|
||
|
investigators accounts of me that were among the most
|
||
|
exaggerated and inaccurate.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\*\*\*\*\*\*
|
||
|
|
||
|
Let us conclude with a few more examples that show the
|
||
|
unreliability of the reports made to investigators by
|
||
|
people who have known me.
|
||
|
|
||
|
My brother used to hold literary "colloquia," as he called
|
||
|
them. He and a few friends would all read some piece of
|
||
|
literature that one of them had selected, then they would
|
||
|
get together and discuss it. The participants varied, but
|
||
|
the most usual ones were my brother, my parents, Dale E.,
|
||
|
K.H. and Jeanne E. ⁴⁸ I attended one and only one of these
|
||
|
colloquia. This was shortly after I arrived at my parents'
|
||
|
home in Lombard, Illinois in 1978. To the investigators
|
||
|
Dale E. described my behavior at this colloquium as follows:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"On the first occasion Date met Ted, Wanda and Ted Sr. \[my
|
||
|
father\], Dave and he were discussing Plato, in connection
|
||
|
with something they had read in their book club. Ted came
|
||
|
out of his room and said there was no reason to read any
|
||
|
early Greek philosophers like Plato because they had all
|
||
|
been proven wrong. That was all Ted said before returning to
|
||
|
his room or leaving the house. . . . \[Ted\] never made eye
|
||
|
contact, but just looked off blindly while he spoke." ⁴⁹
|
||
|
|
||
|
Here is how Jeanne E. described my behavior at the same
|
||
|
colloquium:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"\[Jeanne met Ted\] one night when she and K.H. were back at
|
||
|
the Kaczynskis' house for another colloquy \[sic\]. When he
|
||
|
was introduced to her, Ted made a disparaging comment about
|
||
|
her and about women in general. She was completely shocked,
|
||
|
but the nature of Ted's comment made her feel that there
|
||
|
was no point in trying to get to know Ted. Later, when the
|
||
|
group began the colloquy Ted participated at first, but
|
||
|
Jeanne recalls that he soon disagreed with something in the
|
||
|
discussion. He then became nervous and fidgety and kept
|
||
|
getting up, walking out and coming back to the
|
||
|
conversation." ⁵⁰
|
||
|
|
||
|
The reader will observe that the two accounts are
|
||
|
inconsistent with one another. At least one of them must be
|
||
|
false.
|
||
|
|
||
|
As a matter of fact, both are false. I remember the
|
||
|
colloquium quite clearly. The participants were Dale E.,
|
||
|
K.H. and Jeanne E., my parents, my brother, and myself. I
|
||
|
can state exactly where each of us was sitting, I can
|
||
|
describe in a general way the demeanor of each, and I can
|
||
|
even recall some of the details of the conversation. The
|
||
|
subject of the colloquium was a dialogue of Plato that
|
||
|
discussed happiness and love; Plato's conclusion was that
|
||
|
true happiness lay in the love of wisdom.
|
||
|
|
||
|
I was present in the living room when the others entered. I
|
||
|
did not make a disparaging comment about Jeanne personally.
|
||
|
I did not make a disparaging comment about women in general
|
||
|
when I was introduced to Jeanne, but it is conceivable that
|
||
|
at some later point I may have made a comment about women
|
||
|
that might have been felt as disparaging by a woman who was
|
||
|
excessively sensitive about her gender. However, it's more
|
||
|
likely that Jeanne is remembering a joking comment
|
||
|
about women that I made in a letter to her husband, K.H.,
|
||
|
during the mid-1980's, (Added July 20, 1998: Since writing
|
||
|
the foregoing, I've obtained copies of some of my letters
|
||
|
to K.H. including the letter mentioned here. This undated
|
||
|
letter refers jokingly to "Woman, the vessel of evil.").
|
||
|
|
||
|
I did not say that the early Greek philosophers had "been
|
||
|
proven wrong." I did say that their methods of reasoning
|
||
|
were naive by modern standards, hence they were worth
|
||
|
reading today only for esthetic reasons or because of their
|
||
|
historical interest, not as a source of rational
|
||
|
understanding.
|
||
|
|
||
|
I did not become "nervous" or "fidgety", and I did not
|
||
|
leave the room at any time until all of the guests had left.
|
||
|
I did repeatedly get up to take pieces of snack food from a
|
||
|
bowl that was on a table five or six feet from where I was
|
||
|
sitting. It is probably some garbled memory of this that
|
||
|
leads Jeanne to say that I kept getting up and walking out.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Dale E.'s statement that I "never made eye contact" with
|
||
|
him is literally true, but it was he, not I, who avoided eye
|
||
|
contact. I looked at Dale E.'s face a number of times during
|
||
|
the evening, but he never looked back at me. I'm more than
|
||
|
willing to put the matter to a test. I invite Mr. E. to come
|
||
|
and visit me in the presence of witnesses. Let the witnesses
|
||
|
judge which of us has difficulty maintaining eye contact
|
||
|
with the other.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Besides his evasion of eye contact, Dale E. seemed unable to
|
||
|
deal with any challenge to his opinions. Twice during the
|
||
|
evening I made so bold as to disagree with him. In each
|
||
|
case, instead of answering my argument, he just shut his
|
||
|
mouth, elevated his nose, and looked away without saying
|
||
|
anything.
|
||
|
|
||
|
K.H. didn't give the investigators any account of my
|
||
|
behavior at the colloquium, or at least none is mentioned in
|
||
|
the report that I have. He did have much else to say about
|
||
|
me, however, and it is mostly fantasy. Unfortunately, no
|
||
|
documents are available that confirm or refute his
|
||
|
statements except in one case. According to the
|
||
|
investigators' report of their interview with K.H. and
|
||
|
Jeanne.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"\[K.H.] and Jeanne compared Ted to Jeanne's brother Dan who
|
||
|
was severely mentally ill and killed himself in 1984. In
|
||
|
fact, Dave \[Kaczynski\] also knew Dan and saw a clear
|
||
|
parallel between Dan and Ted. Dan had extremely rigid
|
||
|
opinions and was often
|
||
|
intolerant and impatient of divergent views. ... Dave, in
|
||
|
fact, found Dan and Ted so similar that when Dan finally
|
||
|
killed himself in 1984, he began to worry that Ted might do
|
||
|
the same." ⁵¹
|
||
|
|
||
|
But here is what my brother wrote to me in 1984, shortly
|
||
|
after Dan's suicide:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"I've been feeling kind of depressed the last couple of
|
||
|
weeks since learning that Jeanne's brother Dan committed
|
||
|
suicide. As he lived with K.H. and Jeanne, and didn't have
|
||
|
a regular job, I spent quite a bit of time with him during
|
||
|
my two visits in Rockport. We... often talked about
|
||
|
philosophy. ...
|
||
|
|
||
|
"\[I\]t was hard getting through to Dan. On the other hand,
|
||
|
he seemed to have a message he was trying to get across, and
|
||
|
which he didn't feel that I, K.H., or anyone had yet
|
||
|
appreciated adequately. So he must have felt a similar
|
||
|
frustration with *us*, in answer to which, according to
|
||
|
K.H., he seemed to be withdrawing from everyone more and
|
||
|
more during the last couple of years. K.H. seemed to think
|
||
|
that Dan's suicide was a 'rational act' - i.e. that it was
|
||
|
a consequence of his ideas. The arresting thing for would-be
|
||
|
intellectuals, such as K.H. and me, assuming this were true,
|
||
|
is the facility and resolution with which Dan's 'idea'
|
||
|
translated itself into an act. \[K.H.\]... is even worse than
|
||
|
me, living a bourgeois \[sic\] lifestyle in almost all
|
||
|
respects except his reading.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"... When I spoke to \[K.H.\] on the phone, he still sounded
|
||
|
unusually distraught. If Dan had intended at all to make a
|
||
|
permanent, life-long impression on \[K.H.\] - to break through
|
||
|
the barrier of mere philosophizing at last - then I think
|
||
|
he might have succeeded. The rest of the family prefers - I
|
||
|
suppose for obvious reasons - to interpret Dan's later years
|
||
|
and his suicide as symptoms of a mental disease. ... \[Dan's
|
||
|
death\] reminded me of the sometimes dismal gulfs which
|
||
|
isolate human beings from one another. It reminded me just a
|
||
|
tad of myself, having ideas and affections, but often
|
||
|
feeling at a loss for the proper means to share them. More
|
||
|
acutely, I felt somewhat guilty, as if I were being called
|
||
|
to account for my unresponsiveness to similar claims made on
|
||
|
me by others." ⁵²
|
||
|
|
||
|
In his interview K.H. goes on and on about my supposed
|
||
|
"intolerance" of other people's ideas (making, at the
|
||
|
same time, many false statements about my behavior). ⁵³
|
||
|
As a matter of fact, I never had more than a very little
|
||
|
philosophical or intellectual discussion with K.H. but
|
||
|
(though I was not knowingly tactless) that little apparently
|
||
|
was enough to show him that I did not respect him or his
|
||
|
ideas, which presumably is why he thought I was
|
||
|
"intolerant." If the reader were to make K.H.'s
|
||
|
acquaintance and familiarize himself with his ideas, he
|
||
|
would be able to make his own judgment as to whether my lack
|
||
|
of respect for them was due to intolerance or to the quality
|
||
|
of the ideas.
|
||
|
|
||
|
K.H. used to read children's comic books and claimed that
|
||
|
he found philosophical messages in them. ⁵⁴ I once asked him
|
||
|
whether he believed the messages were put there
|
||
|
intentionally or whether he created them himself out of the
|
||
|
comic-book material. He answered that he preferred not to
|
||
|
discuss the question at that time.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Among many other inaccuracies that appear in Professor Peter
|
||
|
Duren's interview with the investigators, there is the
|
||
|
following:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The last time that Professor Duren ever saw Ted was at the
|
||
|
annual meeting of the American Math Society in San Francisco
|
||
|
in 1968. Ted did not give a talk which was strange since
|
||
|
professionally it was the right thing to do. Professor Duren
|
||
|
saw Ted standing near the escalator. He went over to talk to
|
||
|
Ted, and they had a very stiff, very brief conversation. The
|
||
|
conversation consisted of Professor Duren asking questions
|
||
|
that Ted did not feel like answering. Ted did not seem
|
||
|
comfortable or happy." ⁵⁵
|
||
|
|
||
|
This may be a case of mistaken identity or it may be just
|
||
|
fantasy. I was not a member of the American Mathematical
|
||
|
Society in 1968 and I have never in my life attended any
|
||
|
kind of mathematical meeting outside of a university where I
|
||
|
was a student or faculty member. I just wasn't that
|
||
|
interested in mathematics. I suppose the names of
|
||
|
participants in American Mathematical Society meetings are
|
||
|
recorded, and if that is so, then it may be possible to get
|
||
|
documentary proof that I was not at the 1968 meeting; but at
|
||
|
present I am not able to provide such proof.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\*
|
||
|
|
||
|
A few people reported that in high school I was once stuffed
|
||
|
in a locker by some "tough" kids and left there. ⁵⁶ If
|
||
|
this had ever happened, it wouldn't be the kind of thing I
|
||
|
would be likely to forget. Nor would I conceal it; I
|
||
|
reported other humiliating incidents in my 1979
|
||
|
autobiography, so why conceal this one? I'd guess that a
|
||
|
combination of media planting and mistaken identity are
|
||
|
involved here. Ray Janz, who told the story in the media, ⁵⁶
|
||
|
probably had me mixed up with someone else. Others, who knew
|
||
|
that *some* student had been stuffed in a locker, heard Janz's
|
||
|
story through the media and subsequently "remembered" that
|
||
|
I was the victim.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\*
|
||
|
|
||
|
In reference to my brother's years at Evergreen Park High
|
||
|
School, Dale E.'s . (who was one of Dave's teachers there)
|
||
|
told the investigators:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Physically, . . . Dave was much smaller than his
|
||
|
classmates. He was also socially awkward. Dave was shy and
|
||
|
quiet and tended to keep to himself. Dale never saw Dave
|
||
|
hanging out with friends. . . . \[S\]ocially and physically,
|
||
|
he was behind \[his classmates\]. . . . Dave seemed socially
|
||
|
and physically awkward." ⁵⁷
|
||
|
|
||
|
Referring to the early 1970's, Dale E. said:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Dave was still socially awkward and inept. . . \[W\]hen
|
||
|
Dale and Dave went for walks in the Morton Arboretum, Dave
|
||
|
made Dale walk ahead of him so that Dave did not have to
|
||
|
speak to any people they passed. He told Dale he did not
|
||
|
want to have to say hello to people." ⁵⁸
|
||
|
|
||
|
Lois Skillen, guidance counselor at the school, described my
|
||
|
brother during his high school years as follows:
|
||
|
|
||
|
"David was outgoing, friendly and sociable. . . . David had
|
||
|
friends and played sports. . . . David was outgoing and
|
||
|
happy. . . . David. . . sat down in the living room with all
|
||
|
the women and immediately started to chat with them. David
|
||
|
was laughing and having a good time. He was sweet, friendly
|
||
|
and social." ⁵⁹
|
||
|
|
||
|
The admirable consistency between Dale E.'s description of
|
||
|
my brother and Miss Skillen's should help the reader to
|
||
|
estimate the value of these reports.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Much of the information that Skillen gave my investigators
|
||
|
is inaccurate, but on this particular point she is right and
|
||
|
Dale E. is wrong. My brother is occasionally a little shy,
|
||
|
and he wasn't socially polished, but he never had any
|
||
|
trouble making friends. In high school, if anything, he was
|
||
|
more outgoing than he was later. I don't have Dave's
|
||
|
medical records, but they would probably show that he was at
|
||
|
least average height for his age. Anyone who thinks Dave is
|
||
|
physically awkward will soon change his mind if he plays
|
||
|
tennis or ping-pong with him. The Morton Arboretum incident
|
||
|
may well have occurred, since my brother occasionally
|
||
|
behaves a little oddly. But it does not fairly represent his
|
||
|
usual social behavior.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\*\*\*\*\*\*
|
||
|
|
||
|
It is interesting that there seems to be little relation
|
||
|
between the intelligence of an informant and the accuracy of
|
||
|
the reports that he gives about decades-old events. We've
|
||
|
seen that an adequate university professor like Dr. Duren
|
||
|
and an outstanding one like Dr. Eickelman ⁶⁰ were among
|
||
|
those who gave grossly inaccurate accounts of my early
|
||
|
years. Yet some people of modest intellectual attainments
|
||
|
have given accounts that are fairly accurate. I suppose it's
|
||
|
a matter of character. Some people refrain from speaking
|
||
|
when they aren't sure, whereas others seem to let their
|
||
|
imaginations run away with them.
|
||
|
|
||
|
I've shown that several factors have operated in producing
|
||
|
false reports about me, but I have little doubt that media
|
||
|
planting is the most important one. The fact that so many
|
||
|
people's memories of me have been warped as badly as they
|
||
|
have been shows the awesome power of propaganda.
|
||
|
|
||
|
*Scientific American* recently published an interesting
|
||
|
article on memory planting. ⁶¹ The phenomenon is not
|
||
|
hypothetical; its existence has been proved.
|
||
|
|
||
|
\*\*\*\*\*\*
|
||
|
|
||
|
This book deals only with the way I have been misrepresented
|
||
|
by my family and by the media. But the FBI, the prosecutors,
|
||
|
and the shrinks have misrepresented me just as badly, and I
|
||
|
expect to take them on in some later writing.
|