truth-versus-lies/ch10-1e.md

CHAPTER X

Let's begin with two media reports of the Ellen Tarmichael affair. Following a paragraph that gave a badly garbled account of how I came to work at Foam Cutting Engineers in Addison, Illinois, the New York Times wrote:

"[Ted's] supervisor was Ellen Tarmichael, a soft-spoken but no-nonsense woman who is still a production manager with the company. One employee, Richard Johnson, called her 'a wonderful boss, the best I've ever had,' and added: 'She's always kind-hearted and nice to people. I can see why somebody would get interested in her.'

"Ted Kaczynski became interested in late July 1978. ... [Actually it was mid-July or earlier. ¹]

"It was a Sunday, and he had gone for a walk. 'He happened to see her car,' David recalled. 'She was filling the gas tank. [This is not quite accurate. ²] I don't know exactly what transpired. He actually went to her apartment and played cards with her and her sister and her [sister's] boyfriend.'

"Later Ted came home. 'He was obviously in a good mood,' David said. 'He told me he had gone to see Ellen, that they had spent the day together... and that some gestures indicating affection had passed between them. I was very happy about that.'...

"They had two dates, Ms. Tarmichael recalled. She said he seemed intelligent and quiet, and she accepted a dinner invitation in late July. It was a French restaurant, David said, and Ted 'ordered wine and he smelled it [false: no wine was ordered], he made a big deal of it.' David added, 'He had a good time.'

"Two weeks later, they went apple-picking and afterward went to his parents' home and baked a pie. That was when she told him she did not want to see him again 'I felt we didn't have much in common besides our employment,' she said. [This is no doubt true as far as it goes, but it is only part of the truth and by no means the most important part.]

" 'Ted did a total shutdown,' retreating into his room, David said. He also wrote an insulting limerick about Ms. Tarmichael, made copies and posted them in lavatories and on walls around the factory. He did not sign the limerick, but his relationship with the woman was known. [How? I never told anyone about it except my father, brother and mother. It could have become known at the plant only through blabbing by my father, by my brother, or by Ellen herself.]

"David confronted his brother. 'I was very, very angry,' he said. 'Part of me was disappointed. He was so close to being integrated in the most primal rite of integration. He had an interest in a member of the opposite sex, and to have him go back to this kind of angry, inappropriate behavior - to the family it was embarrassing, adolescent kind of behavior.'

"David told him to cease the offensive conduct. But Ted put the same limerick up the next day, above David's desk [actually I put it on the machine he was working with]. David told him to go home. [That is, he fired me, which he could do because he had become a foreman by that time.]...

"David said Ted wrote Ms. Tarmichael a letter that 'had elements of apology about it.' But the investigators said the letter, which probably was not sent [it was sent - ³] partly blamed the woman for what had happened and said Ted had considered harming her." ⁴

This is how the Washington Post described the affair:

"Sometime before June 23, 1978, Ted wrote saying he needed money. They told him to come work with Dad and David at the Foam Cutting Engineers Inc. plant." ⁵

Here is another one of those seemingly minor distortions that the Washington Post no doubt will claim is accidental; yet the slight misstatement seriously misrepresents what actually happened, and, as is usual with the media's misstatements, it tends to make me look bad. Readers will of course interpret the Washington Post's statement to mean that I wrote home asking for money and that my parents told me that if I wanted it I would have to come and work for it. In fact, I did not write my parents asking for money; I asked, on my own initiative, whether it was likely that I could get a job at Foam Cutting Engineers. This is proved by the letters that I quoted in Chapter VII, pp. 211, 212.

The Washington Post continues:

"Ted Sr. was a manager, and David was Ted's boss." ⁵

Both statements are false. My father was not a manager but a sort of jack-of-all-trades who worked only part of the year fixing the machines, building jigs, and troubleshooting generally. David was the boss neither of Ted Sr. (my father) nor of Ted Jr. (me). When I started at Foam Cutting Engineers my brother was only an ordinary worker. Later he was promoted to foreman of the evening shift - but I worked on the day shift, so that he was not my boss. As I remember it, the shifts overlapped to some extent; the evening shift started at some time in the late afternoon before the day shift left. That was why my brother and I were at work at the same time and he had an opportunity to fire me. Since he was not the foreman of my shift, I was in doubt about whether he had the right to fire me, but Ellen confirmed the firing. I'm not certain that I remember correctly the overlapping of the shifts and the exact authority that my brother had at the moment of the firing; but that my account is approximately correct is confirmed by an entry in my journal that was written on the very day of the firing:

"This afternoon, I went over to where my brother was working, pasted up a copy of the poem before his eyes, and said, 'OK, are you going to fire me?' Of course, he did. Wanting to make sure that the firing was official (Dave is night boss and I am on the Day crew) I went into Ellen's office and asked her if the firing was official. ...[S]he said that... she would have to uphold the firing." ⁶

To proceed with the Washington Post Article:

"Soon after he arrived at the family home, then in Lombard, Ill., Ted had a date with a co-worker named Ellen Tarmichael. Wanda and Ted Sr. were thrilled. After two dates, Ellen lost interest. Ted, in a rage, posted insulting limericks about her at the plant. David had to fire his own brother, a predicament he now sees as 'foreshadowing what I had to do later' in turning Ted in to the FBI. Ted locked himself in his room for days." ⁵

The last sentence is at best misleading. All members of my family took an angry and accusing attitude toward me after the incident, and consequently, for the next two or perhaps three days, when I was at home I spent most of my time in my room rather than with the family - as I'm sure the majority of people would have done under similar circumstances. Most of the time my door was not locked. Within a few days I went out and got another job. ⁷

The rest of the paragraph and the following two paragraphs of the Washington Post article are wholly false and reflect only my mother's inability to distinguish truth from her own fantasies. The next paragraph refers to the letter that I wrote Ellen Tarmichael on August 25, 1978 (the letter is dated) and showed to my family by way of explanation either on the 25th or the 26th:

"Ted came out of the room with several written pages in his hand, his attempt to explain himself. He wrote that Ellen had been intentionally cruel to him. None of them [the family] felt that was even remotely true. [That's false!] At the end of the missive, he repeated his insulting limerick, said David, 'like he wasn't going to take it back. No matter what.'" ⁵

This is either another lie or another error on my brother's part. I saved a carbon copy of the letter, and the insulting limerick is repeated nowhere in it. ⁸

******

Now here is the full and true story of the Ellen Tarmichael affair.

When I started work at Foam Cutting Engineers, Ellen was the day shift foreman and therefore my immediate superior. At first I did not find her sexually interesting because, while her face was attractive, her figure was not. As I wrote in my journal, "She has a beautiful face but a very mediocre figure (too much fat on her ass thighs" ⁹ But as I got to know her I found that she had a good sense of humor and was apparently a very nice person; and, as I wrote, "she is very attractive because she has charm, her personality, so far as it is exhibited to the world at large, is very attractive, she is apparently very intelligent, and probably quite competent." ¹⁰ She seemed very friendly toward me and, rightly or wrongly, I thought she liked me.

I'd had very little contact with women for several years, and I'd had no relationship with one for fully sixteen years, since I'd broken off with Ellen A. This rendered me very susceptible, with the result that within two or three weeks of starting at Foam Cutting Engineers I got infatuated with Ellen Tarmichael - as my journal records. ¹⁰

As I explained in Chapter III, p. 83, ever since the painful experiences of my adolescence I had found it extremely difficult to make advances to women. In this case I found it even more difficult than usual because Ellen, my father, my brother, and I were all working at the same shop, so that, if I made advances to her and was rejected, I would feel shamed before my own family - who were not tolerant of any weaknesses or mistakes on my part. I couldn't seem to get up the nerve to ask her out either at work or by telephone, so one Sunday afternoon I looked up her address and took a stroll in that direction with the intention of making her an unannounced visit, ¹¹ assuming I didn't chicken out, as I probably would have done. But by sheer chance I happened to meet Ellen along the way - at a gas station, though the meeting was a bit more complicated than what my brother described to the New York Times. ¹² She greeted me cordially, I told her I'd been going to drop in on her, she invited me into her car and "she drove me to the apartment that she shares with her sister Liz. Liz was there with her boyfriend George; but they shortly left to play golf so that I had a pleasant conversation of 2 or 3 hours with Ellen. She told me a good deal about herself... . [S]he has a streak in her personality that would be attractive if it were not so strongly developed; but as it is, I think it repels me more than attracts me; it is a kind of egotistical streak, or a need for superiority and dominance. You would never guess from he[r] usual behavior that she has such a streak; but she told me that when she was a kid (she was the second child in the family) she had a tremendous need to do better than her elder brother... in all activities whatsoever. In every sport, in school, etc. She would practice and practice a sport all by herself until she could beat her brother. She claims she succeeded so well that she thoroughly demoralized her poor brother. She says that up to a couple of years ago she believed she could do anything. She seems to be conceited about her job and overestimates her importance to the company. She says she intends to be president of the company some day. Yet she says all these things in a gentle and feminine manner, not in a boastful or aggressive way. ... Liz and George had returned... we all played pinochle until after 11 PM. ... [Ellen] drove me home. When we arrived, I said, 'Am I being too aggressive if I ask for a goodnight kiss?' She averted her eyes and moved her head...as if she were hesitating. Then she said 'alright.' (I suspect she really had no hesitation about kissing but was only trying to make a certain impression.) Then she leaned over toward me for the kiss and we had a nice big juicy delicious kiss with firm pressure. Now, I am so very inexperienced in these matters that I am in a very poor position to judge, but it did seem to me that she kissed me somewhat aggressively; at least, she had her mouth on mine before I was even ready for it. I said in a soft and rather fervent tone, 'Oh, I like you!' She gave the curious reply: 'You can't say that. You don't know me.' then we said goodbye. I didn't think much about her reply at the time, but it seems particularly curious in view of a rumor that my father told me about today: It is said that Ellen never goes out with any man more than once or twice." ¹³

Actually, I had overheard my father telling my mother the same thing a few days earlier; see below.

When I got home (i.e., to my parents' house) after my visit with Ellen, I went to my brother's bedroom and told him about my experiences of the day. He seemed oddly unresponsive; he showed no emotion, said little, and asked no questions. I then said, "A few days ago I heard Dad telling Ma that Female 16 says that Ellen goes out with a guy a couple of times and then you never hear any more about it. Have you heard anything about her?" My brother said he had heard nothing definite, only that there was "something funny" about Ellen in her relations with men. ¹⁴ The next day I asked my father about her and he told me directly (as indicated above) that it was rumored that she never went out with any man more than a couple of times.

Before my visit with Ellen at her apartment she had been invariably kind, obliging, and friendly toward me, but from the time I showed that I had a sexual interest in her a certain inconsistency manifested itself in her behavior toward me. Now and again she would make a remark that had a certain bite to it, not enough so that it could definitely be called rude, but enough to make me wonder.

From my journal:

"July 29 [1978]. Yesterday I took Ellen Tarmichael to an expensive restaurant for supper." ¹⁵

The table conversation was pleasant enough, except that Ellen gave further indications that she had an excessive concern with power, and maybe even a sadistic streak:

"[S]he...said to me that she was a 'very vindictive person' and would do anything 'no matter how underhanded' to get revenge if she wanted it... ." ¹⁶

When we left the restaurant,

"[S]he...invited me to her apartment, where, she hastened to add, we would not be alone. Actually we were alone for an hour or more as her sister and sister's - boyfriend were out-to eat. The situation was not such that I could readily make any sexual advances... . After her sister and sister's boyfriend returned I had a very boring time listening to a conversation in which I took very little part. Finally, at 12:30 AM, Ellen asked me if I would like to 'go out for coffee.' I said yes. So I drove her to a place nearby that she recommended. We spent an hour and a half there discussing various topics. Then I took her home, and, on arrival, asked for a goodnight kiss. I got an even better one than last time. Mouths wide open, tongues rubbing. She started that open-mouth, tongue-rubbing stuff, not me. ... All this might have lasted, say, 3 minutes. Then she said, 'I think it's time for you to go home.' So I did. Though she is very charming and attractive much of the time, by now I greatly dislike her because of her egotism and its consequences; for example: she spent some time bragging about how she was going to become president of the company and how she was in on company secrets and so forth... .

"... She says that Wynn [sic; should be Win] (the president of this 2-bit foam-cutting corporation) likes me and would like to keep me in the company, or at least is thinking along those lines. She asked me not to tell Wynn that I had gone out with her; because she said that Wynn had suggested to her that she should use herself as bait to keep me around the company; but she had refused. A couple of hours later when this subject came up again, she said that Wynn had only made the suggestion in jest. I don't know just what the truth of the matter is; I wouldn't trust Ellen for strict accuracy." ¹⁷

In spite of the fact that I wrote in my journal, "by now I greatly dislike her," I was still infatuated with Ellen. After our dinner date her behavior toward me became more inconsistent than it had been before. At times she was warm and friendly and seemed to invite my overtures; at other times, for no apparent reason, she would turn so cold that she seemed to be trying to hurt me. Hence I told myself repeatedly that I wasn't interested in her any more. Undoubtedly I would really have lost interest in her if I hadn't been so sex-starved, or if I had known how to look elsewhere for a woman. As it was, I remained infatuated.

Without revealing the extent of my feelings toward Ellen or the fact that she sometimes seemed to be hurting me intentionally, I discussed with my father and brother her egotistical and disagreeable concern with power. They agreed that she did have such a concern, and my brother attributed it to feelings of inferiority. I answered that I saw no evidence of such feelings on her part.

On Sunday, August 20, I took Ellen out to the forest preserves to pick wild apples, from which we were to make pies. Three days later I wrote:

"It now seems clear that from the very beginning of this date she was out to humiliate me, or at least to assert a certain type of superiority over me. This in spite of the fact that I had made it very clear to her that I was very sweet on her. I was at pains on this date to be attentive and agreeable; but she was very cool; not so much so as to bring out any open disagreement, but just the right amount to leave me unhappy and wondering." ¹⁸

For example, when we got out of the car at the forest preserve, instead of walking alongside me, she walked a couple of feet behind. Two or three times I waited for her to catch up and tried to walk alongside of her, but in each case she promptly dropped back again, though I was walking slowly. ¹⁹ This was particularly embarrassing to me since there were many people present at this popular picnic spot. When we headed home with the apples, she insisted that we should make the pies at my parents' house, but that I should first take her back to her apartment so that she could get her car and drive herself to my parents' house, then drive herself home afterward.

"She insisted on a peculiar way of using her auto and mine [actually, my father's]; this arrangement was such that I would have no opportunity to ask for a goodnight kiss. At this point I felt that explicit clarification was called for, so I asked her if she was intentionally avoiding a goodnight kiss. After a little hesitation she answered that she was. I then asked further questions..." ²⁰

When I thus tried to open to the light of day her indirect and half-covert maneuverings, she became quite tense, and her voice was at first slightly shaky.

"...and what she told me was essentially this: She had no sexual interest in me; she said she liked me, but the way and the context in which she said it indicated that it was the condescending sort of liking that one might have for a child or for some other kind of social inferior.

"She claimed she went out with me mainly in order to satisfy her curiosity about me because she had never met anyone like me before. She said a kiss 'doesn't mean anything.' She claimed there was no sex in it when she kissed me. (This seems a little implausible in the case of an open-mouth kiss with tongues rubbing... .)

"During the first part of the date she [had been] cool and a little glum; but...after she had humiliated me she immediately became quite cheerful and gay for the rest of the day. ...

"It seemed to me that during the rest of the day she would occasionally rub in her little triumph by making remarks that were somewhat cutting but not so much so as to bring about any open breach of friendlyness [sic]. For example, I asked her what were some of my unusual characteristics that made her feel I was 'unlike anyone she had ever met.' The first one she mentioned was: 'You are so very lacking in confidence socially.' (True enough, but not nice to say so, unless after taking special pains to be tactful.)" ²¹

One thing she told me in the course of that conversation particularly struck me. She talked about some fellow she had gone out with a great deal when she was in college, saying, "I treated him rotten, I even stood him up one time, but he still kept taking me out." What was remarkable was the relish with which she said she had "treated him rotten."

At the time, I was desperately confused about Ellen and her behavior toward me, but after the dust had settled the explanation seemed pretty clear. She, to my way of thinking, was a sexual sadist. Under ordinary circumstances she was a nice, friendly, considerate person; but when she was feeling sexy she got her kicks from hurting men. ²² Probably most men were not seriously hurt by her. After having a couple of dates with her and learning what she was like, they just stopped asking her out. But I was especially vulnerable because of my past history and my inexperience with women. During the latter part of that last date,

"I took pains to conceal my feelings, and remained outwardly cheerful and friendly, though half the time I wanted to cry and the other half the time I wanted to kill her." ²³

"I loved that damn bitch. She knew I had soft feelings toward her and she intentionally used these to lead me on and then she calculatedly humiliated me.

"I was so upset by this that for the next 2 nights I was unable to sleep more than 4 hours a night, and, what was worse, I was exhausted by nervous tension. That date was Sunday. Monday I did nothing about it because I was exhausted and had had no time to think things over. But after work I did think things over; I had an overwhelming need for revenge and I decided to get it by persistently needling and insulting her at work." ²⁴

I hoped I could bring matters to such a pass that the whole nasty business would be dragged out in front of the crew, presumably to Ellen's great embarrassment. ²⁵

"I started Tuesday morning by pasting up some copies of an insulting poem that I wrote about her." ²⁶

"I don't doubt that I could have made things very unpleasant for her by such methods - except that my weak-minded, self-righteous brother took it upon himself to interfere. Having seen the poem I pasted up, he said he would fire me...and 'maybe bust your ass, too' if I did it again." ²⁷

I asked my brother to listen to my side of the story, but he angrily refused to do so, and let stand his threat to fire me.

"Of course, that was a direct challenge, so I wasn't about to back down. This afternoon [August 23, 1978], I went over to where my brother was working and pasted up a copy of the poem before his eyes...," ²⁸ whereupon he fired me, as described earlier. When I went to Ellen's office to ask her whether the firing was valid, she seemed dismayed at the situation and was apparently reluctant to confirm my dismissal. In my journal, naturally, I put a negative interpretation on this behavior, ²⁹ but in retrospect I think she was genuinely sorry at what had happened. Despite her description of herself as "vindictive" (see p. 283) I don't think she was in reality a vindictive person under ordinary circumstances. I think her sadistic streak manifested itself only when she was feeling sexy; it was for her a source of sexual gratification and did not imply any tendency to cruelty in a non-sexual situation.

Since my brother had frustrated my retaliation against Ellen, I was choking with anger, and, to make matters worse, my mother and father turned against me too, without listening to my side of the story first. ³⁰

"[T]hat weak fool Dave has made that bitch's triumph complete: She humiliates me sexually, she gets me fired from my job, and she causes dissension in my family. I have shed more tears over that cheap whore than I have over anything since my teens... .

"What makes this particularly hard is the fact that it recalls bitter experiences over many years, reaching right back to my early teens...," ³¹ namely, the rejections I had experienced and my complete lack of success with women. I was more choked with frustrated anger than I'd ever been in my life, so I decided to retaliate against Ellen in the only way that remained to me - by attacking her physically. To abbreviate as much as possible the account of a distasteful episode, on Thursday, August 24, I waited for Ellen in the parking lot of Foam Cutting Engineers. When she arrived I confronted her, talked with her briefly, and then left without laying a finger on her. ³² After that my anger was burned out, and since then I haven't hated her.

The next day I went out and got a job at Prince Castle (by that time I'd learned how to lie on application forms), and the same day I wrote Ellen a long letter of explanation, which I did mail. According to the media, Ellen has said that she never received "any correspondence" from me. ³³ If she did say that, then she was not telling the truth. A letter is occasionally lost in the mail, but besides the first letter I also sent her a second letter (dated September 2, 1978), and the chance that both of these letters could have been lost in the mail is so slight that we can be for all practical purposes certain that she received at least one of them. Both letters are reproduced in Appendix 9.

Why has Ellen denied receiving my letter? Maybe she doesn't remember it, or maybe she wants to avoid discussing its content, which would force her to address the issue of her behavior toward me.

Probably on August 25, when I wrote it, or conceivably on the following day, I showed the letter to my parents as a way of explaining my behavior. They read it and said that now they understood better; the tension went out of the atmosphere and we were reconciled. However, my parents did not apologize for the way they'd reacted earlier. Then I went to my brother's bedroom (where he spent most of his time when staying at the house in Lombard ³⁴) and showed him the letter. He too read it, and while he did not apologize explicitly at that time, ³⁵ his manner seemed to indicate that he regretted the way he had reacted; and I was reconciled with him, too. The New York Times stated that "tensions between the brothers continued]," ³⁶ but this is false.

In fairness to Ellen Tarmichael I must make it clear that when the whole affair was finished her attitude was conciliatory and even kind. As I wrote in my journal:

"Sept. 1. Yesterday...my father brought home from Foam-Cutting Eng. a present of home-made cookies from Ellen, for the family. ...I sent Ellen a message through my father: that the cookies were delicious, that I apologize for the tone of my letter, and that I no longer have any hard feelings toward her. Today he said he'd given her the message. He said she seemed pleased and that she said: 'I think the problem was that Ted and I speak different languages.' " ³⁷

Notice that this passage tends to confirm that Ellen did receive my letter. If she hadn't received it, then, when my father told her that I apologized for the tone of the letter, she presumably would have answered that she hadn't received any letter, and my father would have reported that fact to me.

Also notice that Ellen failed to face up to the real source of the problem - that she had a streak of sexual sadism.

******

The reader will please review my brother's recent remarks on the Ellen Tarmichael affair as reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post (quoted at the beginning of this chapter) and compare them with the following passages that he wrote in 1981, some three-years after the events:

"I was wrong to fire you and threaten you. I did so in anger because you were behaving badly (which is your own business) and because you caused severe embarrassment to Dad and me. ... But I realized soon afterwards that I should have taken into account how badly you were feeling at the time." ³⁸

"I think if the manner of your taking revenge against Ellen had arisen in its own isolation, I probably would have responded very differently, though it would be impossible now to know for sure. I hope, at any rate, that I would have responded differently." ³⁹

There follows a passage in which my brother argues that during the months preceding the incident in question I had been treating our parents badly. It is a passage that I am unable to understand, since it seems to me that during that period my relations with our parents were better than at any other time since I was eleven or twelve years old.

My brother's letter continues:

"When you brought trouble into the workplace (as I conceived it) I guess I just lost my head and my discretion completely. ... ⁴⁰ I say again that I was wrong to do what I did, although I suppose I have learned (for whatever good it will do me) how thoroughly I can be undone by my bad temper. ... ⁴⁰ From my point of view, all of this is in the past, though of course I acknowledge the major injury was yours not mine." ⁴¹

These passages show that, while my conduct in the Tarmichael affair was not exactly noble and generous, my brother did realize that there were two sides to the story and that my behavior was at any rate understandable (whict does not imply that it was blameless). Yet, if the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported his remarks accurately, he gave them a one-sided version of the affair that made it appear that there was no mitigation for my behavior.

This provides further evidence that my brother's motive for talking to the media about me was not what he claimed, to "humanize" me and decrease my risk of suffering the death penalty. If that had been his motive he would have taken a softer approach, comparable to that of his 1981 letters, which recognized that there were two sides to the story. Instead, he took a hard line and portrayed me in a way that was certainly not calculated to win the sympathy of a judge or a jury.

******

I want to reiterate that I believe Ms. Tarmichael to be under normal circumstances a very decent and kindly person. Sexual peculiarities are of course commonplace and when she gave expression to hers in regard to me I'm sure that she had no idea of how badly she was hurting me - since she knew nothing about my past history. I've included this chapter only to put before the public the truth about a matter that has been badly misrepresented in the media. I ask journalists to refrain from harassing Ms. Tarmichael with questions about this affair. It's doubtful that they will honor this request, but if they don't it will be further evidence of the irresponsibility of the majority of media people.

NOTES TO CHAPTER X

1. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, July 17, 1978, pp. 1-3.

2. Same, July 17, 1978, pp. 2-5.

3. Same, August 26, 1978, p. 43.

4. (Ha) NY Times Nat., May 26, 1996, p. 24, columns 2, 3.

5. (Hb) Washington Post, June 16, 1996, p. A21.

6. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, pp. 33, 34.

7. My brother fired me on Wednesday, August 23 ((Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, pp. 32, 33). As I remember it, I was hired by Prince Castle on Friday, August 25, and began work there on Monday, August 28. Whether or not my memory is accurate on this point, it is certain that I had begun work at Prince Castle by Thursday, August 31, since on September 1 I wrote in my journal, "Yesterday I felt extremely bad again. But when I got home from work in the evening... ." (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #4, September 1, 1978, p. 5.

8. (Cb) FL Supplementary Item #11, letter from me to Ellen Tarmichael, August 25, 1978.

9. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, July 17, 1978, p. 1.

10. Same, July 17, 1978, pp. 1, 2.

11. Same, July 17, 1978, p. 3.

12. Same, July 17, 1978, pp. 3-5.

13. Same, July 17, 1978, pp. 5-10. This journal entry was written on the day after the events it describes, since we find on p. 3: "I figured I would just...drop in on her unannounced on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon."

14. (Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p. 16: "[A]t the age of 36 I found an intelligent and attractive 30-year old woman (call her Miss T.)... . I'd heard vague rumors to the effect that there was something funny about her, but beggars can't be choosers, so I took my chances... ."

15. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, July 29, 1978, p. 10.

16. Same, August 23, 1978, p. 30. I recorded this remark of Ellen's almost four weeks after the dinner date, and I did not state in my journal that the remark was made on that date, but I remember it as having been made at that time. In any case, it matters little whether Ellen made the remark then or at some other time.

    In the early months of 1979 I wrote:

    "In 1978 I knew a woman named Ellen Tarmichael. Once she told me that if anyone ever played a dirty trick on her she would get revenge no matter what; she would do anything, no matter how underhanded, etc., etc. She sounded so unscrupulous that I started to feel a little uneasy with her. Later that same day, she started giving me a spiel about how she felt everyone had a duty to help society and all that kind of stuff. I asked her how she would square this with the vengeful attitudes she had been expressing earlier. She said, 'Well, those ideas of revenge are only things that I fantasize. I have never actually done anything like that.' " (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 102, 103.

17. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, July 29, 1978, pp. 10-15.

18. Same, August 23, 1978, p. 21.

19. (Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p. 17 "[S]he refused to walk alongside me and insisted on walking a couple of feet behind."

20. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, pp. 21,22.

21. Same, August 23, 1978, pp. 22-25.

22. (Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p. 17: "From my own experience with her, from what I'd heard about her, and from things that she said, I concluded that she was probably a sadist who got a sexual kick out of humiliating men."

23. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, p. 24.

24. Same, August 23, 1978, pp. 25-27.

25. (Cb) FL Supplementary Item #11, letter from me to Ellen Tarmichael, August 25, 1978, p. 6.

26. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, p. 27, and August 26, 1978, p. 44.

    The media have stated that at work I made "loud, crude remarks" about Ellen. ((Ja) Mad Genius, p. 53; (Jb) Unabomber, pp. 97, 98.) This is false. Apart from the limericks there was some hostile eye contact between us, and at one point I pinched her behind, but I made no offensive remarks to her or about her. I might have done so later if my brother had not interfered by firing me, but I did not in fact do so. If I had made offensive remarks they would not have been loud. Everyone who knows me at all well knows that that just isn't my way. See (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, pp. 26-32, where are described the interactions between Ellen and me from the time I pasted up the limericks to the time when my brother fired me.

27. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, p. 32.

28. Same, August 23, 1978, pp. 32, 33.

29. Same, August 23, 1978, pp. 33-35.

30. (Ca) FL #458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, p. 2: "[You'll remember what happened when Ellen Tarmichael...intentionally and cruelly hurt and humiliated me, and I retaliated by trying to embarrass her. Refusing to listen to my side of the story, Dave (as well as you and Dad) jumped down on me and treated me as if I were some kind of a monster."

31. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #2, August 23, 1978, pp. 35, 36.

32. Same, August 23, 1978, p. 40, and August 26, 1978, pp. 40-43.

33. (Ja) Mad Genius, p. 53.

34. If I wanted to be nasty, I could say that he "shut himself up in his room for days at a time." He certainly spent at least as much time in his room as I did in mine.

35. (Ca) FL #458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, p. 2: "[E]ven after I had fully explained to you what had happened, not one of you three apologized to me or said a single word in sympathy for my pain. To do Dave justice,...a couple of years later he did apologize... ."

36. (Ha) NY Times Nat., May 26, 1996, p. 24, column 3.

37. (Ba) Journals of TJK, Series VI #4, September 1, 1978, pp. 5, 6.

38. (Ca) FL #245, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, pp. 2, 3.

39. (Ca) FL #247, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, p. 1.

40. The three dots are in the original.

41. (Ca) FL #247, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, p. 3.