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\title{Truth versus Lies (Context Books Copy)}
\date{}
\author{Ted Kaczynski}
\subtitle{}






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\chapter{Front Matter}

\section{[Book Jacket]}


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\begin{center}

\href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/t-k-ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-1.jpg}{(click to enlarge)}


\end{center}

\subsection{[Front Flap]}


During the media frenzy that came to be known as "Club Ted," a report surfaced that the accused Unabomber was writing a second manifesto. He was in fact at work on this compelling book that deftly treads the line between eloquent memoir and uncompromising defense. This intriguing artifact is Ted Kaczynski's attempt to tell the other side of the tale spun by his family, who told the world he was insane to save him from the death penalty. It is also an outspoken rebuttal of the lies told by the many-media-charmed acquaintances and opportunistic strangers who surfaced to offer their stories in exchange for fifteen minutes of fame.


Kaczynski's formative years are brought back to life by riveting accounts of his childhood in Chicago during the fifties and his Harvard experience as a person of humble means. With glints of deadpan storytelling, it is hard not to be fascinated by dint of the nostalgia, the moments of rather disarming comic relief, and for the deftness with which he quashes the gossip of his many chroniclers.


In \emph{Truth versus Lies}, Kaczynski particularly states the case against allegations that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. This discussion gives rise to what is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book: a Cain and Abel tale filled with ambivalence and family tragedy. The motivation underlying David Kaczynski's decision to turn in his brother to the FBI is shown here in a very different light than ever before. The family tales are painful, and some of his adventures will doubtless make the reader feel uncomfortable. Kaczynski spares no details, even when they show him in a less than favourable light.


Readers will find this book an entirely new understanding of Kaczynski, an individual with a wry sense of things whose quest for the truth undercuts the myths that have surrounded him since his arrest. Kaczynski's book is undeniably the first of its kind.

\subsection{[Back Flap]}


Ted Kaczynski is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole in Florence, Colorado. He is currently seeking to withdraw what he claims was a coerced guilty plea. His request is still being considered by the Ninth Circuit of Appeals.



\begin{center}

\emph{Jacket design by Susan Carroll}
\forcelinebreak \emph{Back Jacket photograph courtesy of Ted Kaczynski}



\bigskip


Context Books
\forcelinebreak New York
\forcelinebreak www.contextbooks.com
\forcelinebreak \emph{Distributed by Publishers Group West}
\forcelinebreak 9\Slash{}99


\end{center}

\subsection{[Back Cover]}


I am very different from the kind of person that the media have portrayed with the help of my brother and my mother. The purpose of this book is to show that I am not as I have been described in the media, to exhibit the truth about my relationship with my family, and to explain why my brother and my mother have lied about me.


In fairness, I should acknowledge that my brother and mother probably are not fully conscious of many of their own lies, since they both are adept at talking themselves into believing what they want to believe. Yet at least some of their lies must be conscious, as we shall see later.


I consider it demeaning to expose one’s private life to public view, but. But the media have already taken away my privacy, and there is no way I can refute the falsehoods that have been propagated about me except by discussing publicly some of the most intimate aspects of my own life and that of my family.



\bigskip

\section{Title Page}



\begin{center}

TRUTH
\forcelinebreak versus
\forcelinebreak LIES



\bigskip


Ted Kaczynski
\forcelinebreak 


CONTEXT BOOKS \textbar{} \emph{New York}


\end{center}



\bigskip

\section{Publisher Details}



\begin{center}

Copyright© 1999 by Theodore John Kaczynski


All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright


Conventions. Published in the United States of America by


Context Books, New York, and distributed
\forcelinebreak by Publishers Group West.


The epigraph to this book is a quotation from Stephen Jay Gould’s


“The Paradox of the Visibly Irrelevant,” \emph{Natural History,} Volume 106,


No. 11, December 1997 \Slash{}January 1998, p.12.


www.contextbooks.com


\emph{Designer: Cassandra Pappas}


\emph{Jacket design: Susan Carroll}


\emph{Production: Larry Flusser}


\emph{Typeface: Monotype Dante}


Context Books


368 Broadway


Suite 314


New York, NY 10013


Library of Congress catalog card number:


9 9-75255


ISBN l-89 395 6-0 0 -8


9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I


\emph{Manufactured in the United States of America}


\end{center}



\bigskip

\chapter{A Note from the Publisher}


On June 24, 1998, \emph{The New York Post} ran an item about the “Unabomber.” Ted Kaczynski was shopping around a book manuscript from the Federal Prison in Florence, Colorado. A representative from Simon and Schuster was quoted, “Do you think the world wants Theodore Kaczynski’s point of view on Theodore Kaczynski?” The manuscript was rejected sight unseen.


Later that day, I wrote to Theodore John Kaczynski. I expressed my conviction that a publisher should create artifacts, that Kaczynski’s account had historical significance, and would become a cultural marker for the future. I also really wanted to hear his story. My opinion was, and remains to this day, that the world most certainly does want to hear “Kaczynski’s point of view on Kaczynski,” for many reasons, and a deluge of interest has proven me right.


Ted Kaczynski’s book has opened up the possibility of a new kind of publishing. Readers should make no mistake, it was specifically Truth versus Lies that necessitated an evolution in our publishing strategy that has strongly influenced my perception of the publisher’s true mandate.


This duty goes far beyond the printing and distribution of a book. The publisher must make the contents of the book generally known, which requires close attention to the author’s goals and a pledge of loyalty. If the author has achieved notoriety, that job includes running interference when-ever popular misconceptions threaten to distort the reception of the book. The publisher must practice a very pure form of journalism. He is a transmitter that must send the clearest signal possible, and make the story known without any ornament, untrammeled by the fetters of public opinion. The goal is nothing less than a discovery of the truth-no matter what form it takes. The result will be the creation of an artifact that becomes an antidote to the wayward, and often irresponsible, media culture in which we live. Indeed, our news cycle has made the journalistic approach to nonfiction a necessity. So much occurs on a daily basis that requires our undivided attention, so much that could affect our lives, and yet there is no place for a meaningful consideration of those events to unfold. And it is sorely needed.


Over the past year I have come to know Kaczynski fairly well, and I would like to say a few words about his character. He is first and foremost an uncompromisingly accurate and honest person. A person very close to the defense during his trial went so far as to say to me that Kaczynski is “constitutionally incapable of lying.” During the intensely involved factchecking required by his book, I found this borne out again and again. Second to his truthfulness is the striking accuracy of Kaczynski’s memory. But the discovery of the above qualities is really secondary to the fact that Kaczynski is totally forthright in his bid to set the record straight. One more thing comes to mind; this project gave rise to a rather unlikely friendship.


I have just returned from a visit with Kaczynski. I was there to attend an interview with Stephen J. Dubner. Having commented on Kaczynski’s “warts and all” candor, Dubner asked a question that we subsequently decided to address in this preface. He had noted the conspicuous absence of writing about the Unabom case in Truth versus Lies. Kaczynski is currently seeking a retrial. He does not address his alleged crimes for this reason.


My hope has been that the publication of this book will have a remedial effect on both the practice of book publishing and of journalism. When all the world, it seems, has had its say about one’s life and character; when one has seen oneself picked apart, misrepresented, and exposed, it is finally right for that person to correct the errors and address that public in one’s own voice. I believe we can all see the value and justice of this, and therefore I am proud to help this book see the light of day.



\bigskip

\chapter{Foreword}


THOUGH IT’s the first part of the book, this foreword is the last part to be written. Its purpose is only to tie up some loose ends.


To begin with, while this book contains a great deal of autobiographical material, it is not an autobiography. At some later time I hope to tell the real story of my life, especially of my inner development and the changes in my outlook that took place over the decades.


Before my arrest I never thought there was anything unusual about my long-term memory. I knew that I remembered things more accurately than my parents or my brother did, but that wasn’t saying much. Since my arrest, however, several members of my defense team have told me that my long-term memory is unusually good. (See Appendix 10.) This is their opinion; I am not in a position to prove to the reader that it is correct. There are a few items in this book for which I have relied entirely on memory and which someone who is not locked up would be able to check against documentary evidence. If anyone should take the trouble to dig up the relevant documents, I hope I will prove to have been right with regard to most if not all of these items; but, whether that turns out to be the case or not, the number of such items is too small to provide a secure evaluation of my long-term memory.


However, the point I want to make here is that even if the reader doubts the accuracy of my memories or my honesty in reporting them, enough of the material in this book is supported by documentary evidence and\Slash{}or corroborating testimony to establish that media reports about me have been wildly unreliable, and that in its most important aspects my account of myself and my family relationships is substantially correct.


As for my use of names, I almost always use the full names of persons who have spoken about me to the media. When referring to persons who have not spoken to the media I usually give names only in abbreviated form.


In many cases I have identified persons only by fictitious names in order to provide maximum protection for their privacy. All fictitious names are introduced with a dagger symbol, and were chosen by a third party to rule out any connection between the actual person and their pseudonym.


Some of the facts and incidents that I recount in this book will be embarrassing to the persons concerned. However, I assure the reader that my motive has not been to embarrass anyone, but to bring out the truth and correct false impressions, for which purpose it has sometimes been necessary to demonstrate the unreliability of an informant or show the factors that may have distorted his reports. If I had wanted to embarrass people there are other facts I could have related that would have caused a good deal of additional embarrassment.



\bigskip

\chapter{Introduction}



\begin{quote}


“A FRIEND says there are a lot of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.”\footnote{(Hp) Daily Oldalwman, June 12., 1995,}


\emph{Daily Oklahoman}



\end{quote}


I am very different from the kind of person that the media have portrayed with the help of my brother and my mother. The purpose of this book is to show that I am not as I have been described in the media, to exhibit the truth about my relationship with my family, and to explain why my brother and my mother have lied about me.


In fairness, I should acknowledge that my brother and mother probably are not fully conscious of many of their own lies, since they both are adept at talking themselves into believing what they want to believe. Yet at least some of their lies must be conscious, as we shall see later.


I consider it demeaning to expose one’s private life to public view. But the media have already taken away my privacy, and there is no way I can refute the falsehoods that have been propagated about me except by discussing publicly some of the most intimate aspects of my own life and that of my family.


Ever since my early teens, my immediate family has been a millstone around my neck. I’ve often wondered how I had the bad luck to be born into such a nest of fools. My relations with them have been to me a constant source of irritation and disgust-and sometimes of very serious pain. For some forty years my brother and mother leaned heavily on me for the satisfaction of certain needs of theirs; they were psychological leeches.


They loved me because they needed me, but at the same time they hated me because I didn’t give them the psychological sustenance they were looking for; and they must have sensed my contempt for them. Thus their feelings toward me were, and remain, strongly conflicting. In my brother’s case the conflict is extreme.


I certainly can’t claim that my own role in the life of my family has been a noble one. I had good justification for resenting my parents, but instead of making a clean break with them in early adulthood, as I should have done, I maintained relations with them: sometimes was kind to them, sometimes used them, sometimes squabbled with them over relatively minor matters, sometimes hurt their feelings intentionally, occasionally wrote them emotional letters expressing my bitterness over the way they had treated me and the way they had exploited my talents to satisfy their own needs. With my brother too I should have broken off early in life. The relationship wasn’t good for either of us, but it was much worse for my brother than it was for me. This is a complicated matter that I will deal with at length further on.


This book is carefully documented. It has to be because otherwise the reader would not know whether to believe my account or that of my brother and mother. Due to the continual need to quote documents and argue facts, the writing is dry and perhaps pedantic. All the same, I think the book will attract many readers because of the intrinsic human interest of its content.


The amount of material about me that has appeared in the media is enormous, and I have not read or seen more than a small fraction of it. Apart from some straightforward reports of legal maneuvers or courtroom proceedings, most of what I have seen is loaded with errors and distortions, some of them trivial, some of them very serious indeed. Due to limitations on my own time, energy, and resources, the documents I’ve studied in preparing this book include from the media only a few items; principally the articles on my case that appeared in Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report, and People on April 15th and 22, 1996; the “quickie” books that appeared within a few weeks after my arrest, Mad Genius and Unabomber; the articles based on interviews with my brother and mother that appeared in the New York Times, May 26, 1996, in the Washington Post, June 16, 1996, in the Sacramento Bee. January 19, 1997; and my mother’s and brother’s appearance on 60 Minutes, September 15, 1996. The latter cover all of the public statements about me made by my brother and my mother that I have seen up to the present date, March 5, 1998. (Added April 1, 1998: I’ve recently been reminded of some other remarks by my brother, brief ones that have appeared in various newspapers, but I don’t think they contained anything that I need to address in this book.)


Apart from the published sources, I cite a large number of unpublished documents. It will of course be necessary at some point to make these documents accessible for examination so that it can be verified that I have cited them accurately. But I don’t expect to do this immediately on publication of this book. For one thing, some of the documents are still legally sensitive, and for another, I don’t want journalists rummaging through my papers to get material for sensational articles. l hope to get the documents housed in a university library. and arrangements will be made so that some responsible and unbiased party can examine them and verify that I have cited them correctly and have not unfairly taken any passage out of context. Eventually some of the documents may be published. In any case, l will make every effort to see that the accuracy of my citations can be independently verified at the earliest possible time.


I also make use in this book of a few reports received orally from investigators who worked for my defense team. The investigators do not want their names revealed because the resulting publicity about them might interfere with their work as investigators. But at some point I expect to make arrangements so that the investigators can be consulted discreetly and confirm the oral information that they gave me. (But see below for my remarks on the reliability of this information.) In this book I refer to the investigators as Investigator \#1, Investigator \#2, etc.


Similar remarks apply to the psychologist whom I call Dr. K.


Needless to say, I am not able to provide documentary evidence to refute all of the false statements that have been made about me, or even all of those that have been made by my brother and my mother. But I am able to demonstrate that informants have been lying or mistaken in enough cases to show that statements made about me arc so unreliable that they should not be given any credence unless they are corroborated by documents written at or near the time to which they refer.


In many cases I cite documents written by myself—principally my journals, some autobiographical notes, and letters sent to my family. All of these were written at a time (prior to my arrest) when I had no motive to lie about the points that are now at issue. They were either seized by the FBI when they searched my cabin, or were in the custody of other persons at the time of my arrest. Since my arrest I have not had physical possession of any of these documents; l have worked from photocopies. Thus there can be no question of my having fabricated any of this material for the purposes of this book. (Exception: Notes that I took on information given to me orally by the investigators and by Dr. K. were of course written after my arrest and while I was preparing this book.) Moreover, some of these documents, especially my 1979 autobiography. contain highly embarrassing admissions that show that I was striving to be as honest as possible. Some of the documents were written almost immediately after the events that they record; others, while not contemporary with the events, were written many years ago when my memory of the events was fresher, and hence they presumably provide more reliable evidence than someone else’s recollections taken down within the last year or two.


In many cases I make use of sources of information that l know to be unreliable, such as media reports. The rationale for doing this is that if the reader has conceived a certain impression of me from unreliable sources, and if I can show by quoting those same sources that the impression is not to be trusted, then I will at any rate have demonstrated that the sources are unreliable and hence that the reader has no reason to believe them. As for statements of my brother and my mother that were quoted in the New Yort Ti. the Washington Post, and the Sacramento Bee, my mother and brother presumably saw the articles based on their interviews, and, as far as I know, they never wrote letters to the newspapers in question correcting any errors, so they have to be considered responsible for their statements as quoted in the articles.


In all cases when I have felt that a source was more or less unreliable, I have warned the reader of that fact in the Notes on Documents.


Quite apart from the unreliability of the media, I was appalled to learn how few people provided trustworthy information. A psychologist (Dr. K.) repeatedly interviewed my brother, my mother, and me. She gave me orally some items of information obtained from my brother, mother, and aunt, and I wrote these down at the time. But when I asked her to confirm some items of this information several months later, in three cases out of a total of nine she either said she couldn’t remember any such information and couldn’t find it in her notes, or she reworded the information in such a way as to change its meaning significantly.\footnote{Envelope X; sec the three sheets marked with a green letter A at the top.} Other shrinks misquoted me or gave seriously incorrect information in their reports. The investigators who worked for my defense team were much more reliable than the shrinks, but they too gave me orally a few items of information that they later had to correct, not because they had learned something new from further investigation but because they had reported to me carelessly in the first place. For this reason I have tried to rely as little as possible on information received orally. Wherever I have used such information the reader is made aware of it either in the text or in a footnote. I have cited oral information from Dr. K. or the investigators in only a few cases. It is possible that Or. K. or the investigators may decline to confirm some of this information if they are asked. Yet I was careful in recording the information and I am certain that I have accurately reported what I was told.


What really horrified me, though, was the nonsense reported to the media or to the investigators by people who knew me years or decades ago. The investigators have given me written reports of interviews conducted with approximately 150 people.\footnote{I am considering here only (Qb) Written Investigator Reports. I am leaving out of considcn.tion (Kb) Lincoln Intp’Views, of which I have made very little usc in this book. and which I have not taken the aouble to tabulate; except to the cztcnt that some of the Lincoln Interviews also occur among the Written gator Reports. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I am considering here only the Written Investigator Reports that I have received as of March 6, 1998. If I receive more such reports later, I will not bother to change the tabulaon.} Some of the information obtained in these interviews dealt with matters which reflect the facts of the informants’ lives. Taking into consideration only matters of which I have direct knowledge and speaking in rough terms, I can say that something like 14.\% of the informants gave reports the overall accuracy of which I was unable to judge; 6\% gave reports about whose accuracy I was doubtful; 6\% gave reports that were inaccurate in detail but provided an overall picture of me that was not far from the truth; 36\% gave reports that were fairly accurate; 38\% gave reports that were seriously inaccurate; and, of these last, eleven persons gave reports that were so far off that they were mere flights of fancy. More than that: of the reports that were fairly accurate, 72\% were brief (one and a half pages or less); while fewer than one in four of the seriously inaccurate reports were bric£ So it seems that people who spoke carefully and responsibly usually didn’t have much information to give, while most of those who had (or thought they had) a good deal of information didn’t know what they were talking about.


To judge from what I have seen of them, statements about me made to journalists by people who knew me, as quoted in the media, were even more inaccurate than what was reported to my investigators.


In some cases I have documentary evidence that shows that reports about me are false, but in the great majority of cases I am relying on memory for the information that disproves the reports. Why do I assume, when my recollections disagree with someone else’s, that mine are usually right?


\emph{First:} In many cases I can be confident that I am right simply because I am in a better position to know about the matter in question than arc the persons whose memories disagree with mine. For instance, if someone says that I used to wear a plaid sport jacket four decades ago, I can safely assume that he has me mixed up with someone else, because I have owned very few sport jackets in my life and I know that I have never had a plaid one.


\emph{Second:} I have good evidence of the accuracy of my long-term memory.\footnote{To experimcntal psychologists, ‘long-tcrm» memory means any memory spanning more than thirty seconds. But here I usc the expression ,ong-term-to indicate memories of events that have ocCWTCd years ordead.es in the past. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I have often been surprised to find that other people have \&ilcd to remember things that I remember quite clearly. Herc is an cnmplc. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf When I took German R at Harvard I sat nczt to a student named Kostinski. We had similar last names and we were the two best students in the class; he was best and I was second-best. Nine or ten years later when I was at Berkeley, in a building that contamcd the offices of some of the math department’s junior faculty and graduate students, I encountered Kostinski. who was pacing back and forth absorbed in thought. I accosted him, saying. “Weren’t you in German R at Harvardr He looked at me blankly. “German R. . •?u To prod his memory I mentioned the instructor’s name. “Miss Dreimanis.” Kostinski broke into a broad smile and exclaimed, “Oh! Were you in that class?” I chatted with him for a few minutes, and he told me that he was a graduate student in the math department and was working on his doctoral dissertation.”[ thought you were pre•med,” I said. He answered. ‘1 was, but I switched to math.” Thus I correctly recalled Kostinski’s name, his face, and the career he’d planned at the time I knew him, while he did not remember me at all. nor did he remember the designation of Miss Dreimanis’s course (German R). \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I am relying on memory for this thirty-year-old anecdote, but any reader who is sufficiently interested can check it out. It shouldn’t be very difficult to determine whether the Berkeley math department in 1967, 1968, or 1969 had a graduate student named Kostinski who had taken German R at Harvard in the fall of 1958 and got an A in it.}


(A) lnvestigators working for my defense team who researched my past told me repeatedly that my long-term memory was remarkably sharp and accurate.\footnote{Investigators \#2. and \#6, told me this at least three times dwing 1996 and early 1997. In the fall of 1997, I asked for confirmation and received it orall\}t (Qa) Oral Repora \&om Investigator \#2. November 10, 1997 rea “My long-term memory is unusually accurate-confirmed by [Investigator \#2] and [Im\Slash{}her] investigators.” Later I asked Investigator \#2 for wntten confirmation and he\Slash{}she gave me this: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Ted appears to have a good long term memory. Many people who have been interviewed have concurred with Ted’s recollection of certain events. For example, Ted recalled that in college he had a classmate X.Y., who rocked back and forth and Prof. Y. confirmed this account. [Actually I remembered only the first name of this classmate; I’m not sure I ever knew bis lastname.] Ted has been able to recall names of teachers and people he knew \&om over thirtyyears ago as well as addresses, dates of birth and literature \&om childhood. [I don’t know what dates of birth or literature Investigator \#2 is referring to.] He has also recalled floor plans of residences that he hasn’t been at in over thi.rty years. (Qc) Written Rcpora by Investigator \#2, p.2..” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I pointed out to Investigator \#2 that “Ted appears to have a good long term mcmoryu was a considerably weaker statement than the ones he\Slash{}she had earlier given me orally. Investigator \#2 agreed, said that the earlier, stronger statements were correct, and changed his\Slash{}her written report to read: “Ted has a remarkably good long term memory. \dots{}” (Qc) Written Repora by Investigator \#2.} This does not mean that I never made mistakes of memory, but that I did so seldom. See Appendix 10.


(B) In preparing this book I’ve studied hundreds of old family letters\footnote{(Ca) FL \#42,3, letter \&om me to my mother, January 15, 1991, pp. 6, r. “What I especially hope you haven’t thrown out is some old letters of mine.••. I’m intercsted in the accuracy of long-term memory. •.. So rd appreciate it if you could send me either the letters, or photocopies of them. \dots{} If it is not convmient for you to crawl up in the attic to rummage around for the letters, then of course you need not do so.” (Ca) FL \#424, letter \&om my mother to me, late January 1991: ‘1’m too short and stiff’ to be able to climb safely into the attic\dots{}HI did find a box full of letters from you in your foot locker •\dots{} I’ll send you the bo:ic full. \dots{}” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf My mother did send me these letters, which comprised almost all of the letters \&om me that she’d saedfrom about 1968 through the 198oS, but I never even got around to glancing at them before my arrest. Later, when I was in jail, I was given copies of these letters as well as the older letters (1957-1968) that had been stored in the attic, and other letters written by orto members of my family \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf It is because the past is important to me that I have been interested in the accuracy of long-term memory.} that my mother had saved, going all the way back to 1957, and I’ve found hardly anything to surprise me: to the extent that the matters covered in the letters overlapped with areas of which I have memories, my memories were confirmed with only minor discrepancies.


(C) During the 1990s, for reasons that I need not take the trouble to explain here, I obtained from Harvard a transcript of my record. Before looking at it, as a check on my memory. I wrote down on a sheet of paper the number-designations of the courses I took (e.g., “Math ra”) and the grades I got in them. The FBI found this sheet of paper in my cabin and I have a copy of it.\footnote{(Fe) School Records of T]K. Harvard, p.81.} Here is how it compares with the official transcripts\footnote{Same, pp. 37, 38.} of my record:


General Education AHF (which everyone referred to as “Gen Ed \Slash{}\textbackslash{}’), Humanities 5, and Social Sciences 7 were courses lasting two semesters; all other courses were of one semester.

\bigskip
\noindent
 \begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{|X|X|X|X|}
\hline
\relax  \emph{Official Transcript}  &   &  \emph{My Memory}  &    \\
\relax  General Education AHF (mid–year grade)  &  B−  &  General Ed A (mid–year grade)  &  not remembered   \\
\relax  German R  &  A  &  German R  &  A   \\
\relax  Mathematics la  &  A  &  Math la  &  A   \\
\relax  Humanities 5 (mid–year)  &  C  &  Hum 5  &  C   \\
\relax  Social Sciences 7 (mid–year)  &  C  &  Soc Sci 7  &  C   \\
\relax  General Education AHF  &  C  &  Gen Ed A  &  C+   \\
\relax  Physics 12a  &  A  &  Physics 12a  &  A   \\
\relax  Mathematics 1b  &  A  &  Math 1b  &  A   \\
\relax  Humanities 5  &  C+  &  Hum 5  &  C+   \\
\relax  Social sciences 7  &  B−  &  Soc Sci 7  &  B−   \\
\relax  Anthropology I a  &  B+  &  Anthro la  &  B+   \\
\relax  German Da  &  B  &  Germ Da  &  B   \\
\relax  Mathematics 20a  &  A  &  Math 20a  &  A   \\
\relax  Physics 12c  &  C  &  Phys. 12c  &  C−   \\
\relax  Anthropology 10  &  B+  &  Anthro 10  &  B+   \\
\relax  Astronomy 2  &  B+  &  Astron 2  &  B   \\
\relax  Mathematics 20b  &  B  &  Math 20b  &  B   \\
\relax  Mathematics 101  &  C  &  Math 101  &  C+   \\
\relax  History 109a  &  B−  &  History  &  B−   \\
\relax  Mathematics 105a  &  A−  &  Math 105a  &  A−   \\
\relax  Mathematics 106a  &  A  &  Math 106a  &  A   \\
\relax  Philosophy 140  &  A  &  Phil 140  &  A   \\
\relax  History 109b  &  C−  &  History  &  C−   \\
\relax  Mathematics 105b  &  C+  &  Math 105b  &  C+   \\
\relax  Mathematics 106b  &  A−  &  Math 106b  &  A−   \\
\relax  Philosophy 141  &  B  &  Phil 141  &  B+   \\
\relax  History of Science 101  &  B+  &  Hist Sci 101  &  B+   \\
\relax  Humanities 115  &  B−  &  Hum (Ren)\footnote{“Ren is meant as an abbreviation for “Renaissance thought and literature.”}  &  C+   \\
\relax  Mathematics 212a  &  B  &  Math 212a  &  B+   \\
\relax  Mathematics 250a  &  B  &  Math 250a  &  B   \\
\relax  Anthropology 122  &  A−  &  Anthro (hum gen)\footnote{“hum genis an abbreviation for “human genetics. ..}  &  A−   \\
\relax  History 143  &  C+  &  Eng intel hist\footnote{“Eng inte.l hist is an abbreviation for “English intellectual history.”}  &  C+   \\
\relax  Mathematics 212b  &  A  &  Math 212b  &  A   \\
\relax  Scandinavian 50  &  A−  &  Scand 50  &  A−   \\
\hline
\end{tabularx}
\end{minipage}
\bigskip


As far as I can recall, I never saw a transcript of my Harvard grades from the time I left Harvard in 1962 until I wrote them down from memory in the early 1990s.


(D) In the other surviving documents I have found reasonably good agreement with my memories. When I have encountered a discrepancy between my memories and someone else’s memories as reported in the media or to my investigators, and when some document was available that resolved the discrepancy. the discrepancy has always been resolved in my favor, with very few exceptions.\footnote{l can think of two exceptions. For one thing. I remembered incolTCaly where my mother got her bachelor’s degree. For another thing. my investigators mentioned to me that someone had talked about my carrying a briefcase in highschool. l answered that l had carried a briefcase in eighth grade, but not in high-school The investigators then pointed out that in 1979 I still remembered carrying a briefcase in high-school, since I recorded in my autobiography an incident involving a briefcase: (Ac) Autobiog of ‘lJK 1979, p.28. Since I clearly remembered the briefcase incident, I agreed that they were right. Thinking the matter over later, I thought I remembered that as a rault of havingbeen needled for carrying a briefcase in eighth grade I had decided not to use one in highschool, and did not use one in my freshman and sophomore years. but went back to carrying a briefcase in my third and last year of high-school Since I recalled that the briefcase incident had happened in American History clas.,, I concluded that I must have had that class in my last year ofhigh-school I then checked my high-school record and found that this was colTCct. (Fb) School Records of T]K. E.P. High School.} (However, I can think of two cases-one trivial, one significant-in which my memory has disagreed with someone else’s and I am sure that the other person is right because the matter is one about which she could hardly be mistaken.\footnote{I remembered the name ofJ.F.Sc.’s sister as Gloria, but J.F.Sc. told my investigators that her sister’s name was Diane. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#124, \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf More significantly. when I wrote my autobiographical notes in 1979, I remembered that my mother had given my address to the daughter of a couple who were friends of my parents because she thought that the young lady and I had common interests and she hoped we would get together. This would have made no sense unless the young lady was living in or near Ann Arbor, where I was at the time; but she told my investigators that she had never lived in Ann Arbor. So it seems that my memory of what my mother wrote me was wrong. (Unless it was my mother who got the n.C13 garbled. which is possible.) Sec (Ac) Autobiog of ‘lJK1979, p. 150.} Also, when I recall things that I have read years previously in books and magazines, it is not uncommon for my memory of what I have read to be distorted; occasionally it is seriously wrong.\footnote{For an example see (Ad) Autobiog of TJK1988 ( corrected version), pp. 13, 14} On the other hand, my memory of things I have written or read in personal letters or heard in conversation seems to be pretty reliable, so far as surviving documents have made it possible to judge.


\emph{Third:} There is abundant evidence of the gross unreliability of the memories of me that have been reported to my investigators or have appeared in the media. In reference to the information given to the investigators, Investigator \#2, who is very experienced, writes:



\begin{quote}


“Lay witness reports of Ted’s behavior and functioning are extremely suspect given the high profile nature of his case. Many of their anecdotes and conclusions are most likely the result of planted memories and suggestions they’ve read, seen, or heard from others.\footnote{(Qc) Written Reports by Invcstigator\#2, p.s.}



\end{quote}


There are three ways by which I have been able to establish that many reports are wrong. They may contradict information about which I am in a position to know so well that there is hardly any chance that my own memory could be mistaken; they may contradict convincing documentary evidence; or the accounts of two different people may contradict one another, so that at least one of them must be wrong.


Throughout this book the reader will find examples of reports that are proved wrong. But it will be useful to give some examples here in the Introduction also, because, among other things, they will illustrate some of the ways in which false memories or false reports arise.


Some of the sources of falsehood or distortion can be identified with reasonable confidence: (a) Media planting. The informant “remembers” something because it has been suggested to him by the media. (b) Mistaken identity. The informant has me mixed up with someone else. (c) Remembering later years. The informant remembers the later years of his association with me, largely forgets the earlier ones, and attributes to the earlier years the same traits, relationships, orcircumstances that existedin the later years. ( d) Stereotyping. The informant sees that I have some ofthe traits of a given group, so he identifies me with that group and assumes that I have all of the traits that arc characteristic of it. (c) Lying. It is difficult to say how many of the falsehoods told about me are conscious lies. At least some of the things that my brother and my mother have said are conscious lies and not honest errors, and I can identify one otherindividual who definitely has been lying about me. But otherwise my guess is that conscious lying by informants has not played an important role; it is a matter, instead, of human fallibility and irrationality. On the other hand, some conscious lies by journalists can be clearly identified, and there is enough evidence of unscrupulousness and irresponsibility in the media to make it plausible that journalists may often lie when they think they won’t get caught.


Apart from the factors we’ve just listed there are four others that may have helped to produce false reports in my case, but their existence is morcor-less speculative and cannot be definitely proved. These are: (f) Projection. People who themselves have mental or psychological problems are prone to see others as having such problems. (g) Personal resentment or jealousy. This factor is clearly present in the case of my brother and mother. In some other individuals its presence may be suspected, but this is speculative. (h) Mass hysteria, herd instinct. Under certain conditions, when an individual or a class of individuals within a society is pointed out as evil or worthy ofbeing cast out, an atmosphere develops in which other members of the society draw together defensively, gang up on the rejected person(s), and take satisfaction in reviling him or them. It becomes something like a fad. Possibly sadistic impulses are involved. Some such factor seems to be operating in my case, but it is difficult to prove this objectively. (i) Greed. People who appear on television talk shows often are paid for it. Presumably those who tell the most bizarre or exaggerated stories will be the most in demand by talk shows and therefore willmake the most money. One cannot exclude the possibility that this factor may have been responsible, in part, for some of the stories that were told about me.


Now some examples:


(a) \emph{Media planting}. There are very many instances in which I am reasonably sure that this has occurred,\footnote{For example, in (Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#34, 47, 59, 6o, 82, 85, 124, 146, 154, 161, among others.} 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 rcspond.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#154, Leroy Wcmbcrg. p.2..} 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.\footnote{When I was a teenager, my mother told me that old Mrs. Butcher, who lived next door to the Grcensf, had said to her that I was such a nice boy. because I always returned her peting when I passed her, whereas Jill Grcent often failed to return her greeting and walked only without looking at h} 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 arc 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.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report, \#47, Dr. L.Hz.} 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\dots{} Ted did not talk much.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report, \#47, Dr. L.Hz.} Media planting was probably involved here, too, as Or. L.Hz.’s account is contradicted by chat of his own dental assistant, R.Cb. According to my investigators, R.Cb. “described Ted as, ‘a sweet, nice, pleasant guy’ \dots{} She said that Ted was ‘friendly’ and she would chat with him when he came into the office. She does not rememberwhat they talked about.”\footnote{(Kb) Lincoln Interviews, p.18. I remember a good deal of what I talked about with R.Cb. and Dr. L.Hz. On one occasion the patient who preceded me left ina bad mood, and, because R.Cb. had a suspicion that this man might be a wife beater, she phoned his wife and warned her that her husband was coming home upset. That got us onto the subjea of domestic abuse. I mentioned that some studies had found that there was abour as inuch physical abuse of husbands by wives as vice versa. Or. L.Hz. answered that the wives probably didn’t do much damage because they weren’t strong enough. “I’ve had women pound on me,” he said. “and it didn’t bother me.” I replied. “Some women are strong enough to hit hard.” R.Cb. agreed, and mentioned a local woman who had knocked some man down. I said that some time earlier I had read an article in a news magazine (probably Time) about domestic abuse. I mentioned that the article had taken the same position as Dr. LHz.: Because women were smaller they probably didn’t do much damage. But, I continued, in the nczt issue of the same magazine there was a letter from an emergency-room doctor who said that in his C\%perience women often did plenty of damage, because they were more likely than men to use weapons: he mentioned husbands who had been slashed with an ue or scalded with boiling water. .A3 the conversation continued I asked R.Cb. and Dr. L.Hz., “Why do they [the abused women] marryjcrb like thatr’ R.Cb. and Dr. L.Hz. answered. “Low self-esteem: maybe their fathers abused them and they think that’s a normal relationship \dots{} [etc.].” Either R.Cb. or Dr. L.Hz. mentioned something about a television program on the subject. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf On other occasions Dr. L.Hz. and I talked about the soluble compounds of gold, about gypsum, plaster of Paris, and Portland cement, and other subjcas, and I could go on and on recounting the details of these conversations, but I think I’ve said enough to show that Or. L.Hz’s claim that I was so quiet as to seem odd is ludiaous.} Or. 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).”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#34. Dale Eickelman, pp. 4, .5. It is my sophomore year in college, not high-school, that is referred to, since Profi:ssor Eickclman correctly states that I visited his home during the summer following my freshman yearat Harvard.} In Chapter 3 of chis book (pp. 43, 48, 49) 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.\footnote{The eight arc Larry S., Bill Moog, Barbara 8., Felix Towns, Bob Pc., Tom Kn., Greg Davis, Terry L Six of these eight friendships arc documented, but four are documented only by my own autobiographies. Two have been confirmed indcpendently (Bob Pc. by Bob Pc. himself, Tom Kn. by Tom Kn.’s mother). For ref. crenccs sec Chapter 3, pp. 43, 48, 49, and associated footnotes. Of the other friends, my imestigators spoke only to one: Greg Davis, who neither confirmed nor denied that I was good friends with him. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#lB, Greg Davis. Aaually I was close to Greg Davis only during one school year. With Felix Towns I was \&icnds from seventh or eighth grade through the swnmer following my first year at Harvard: with the othcn I was friends for shorter periods. Felix Towns, Bob Pc., and Tom Kn. visited my home, and I visited their homes, on multiple acasions. I visited the homes of Bill Moog. Greg Davis, and Terry L. on various occasions, but I don’t clearly remember that my of them visited my home. I took twO cztendcd acursions with Bill Moog. In a letter written in 1958, my mother confirmed that I had several friends: (Fe) School Records of TJK. Harvard, p.18.} 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 at 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.\footnote{One reason why Bickclman never encountered any friends at my house and why I never brought any friends to his house was that I never much liked him; in fact, I thought he was somewhat of a creep: (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 50, 51. I tended to spend time with him only when he thrust himself on me or when I could think of nothing better to do. Thus, ifI had had a friend with me. and if Eickelman had phoned to suggest that we get together, I probably would have noces, put him off with some excuse. (Since our homes were so far apart, Biclcebnan and I generally phoned before visiting one another.) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In hts interview with my investigators, (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#34, p.2, Professor Eickelman related a particularly grotesque anecdote about me. Since he may have related the same anecdote to the FBI, and since the Justice \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Deparnnent hu a habit of leaking things about my case, I bad better take this opportunity to state that the anecdote is fa1se. Anyone who knows my mother at all well knows that I would newr have dared to do such a thing inher presence. If I had done it she would have been horrified beyond all description; when we got home I would have received a vicious tongue-lashing and I wouldn’t have heard the end of it for months afterward. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Professor Eiclcehnan’ s memory is playing some trick on him here. He is perhaps recalling something that either he or I did not in my mother’s presence but under very private circumstances. I could give a plausible ezplanation for this recollection of Professor Bickelman’s, but I will refrain from doing so because I am not anxiom to reveal information that would cause embarrassment both to me and to Professor Biclcelman.} 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) \emph{Mistaken identity}. In Chapter 6 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.\textsuperscript{†} 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 1970s, 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.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\#r57, G. and O. WL, p.+}


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 a letter to my parents.\footnote{This note has been deleted in the present edition due to ongoing legal proceedings.}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#154, letter from me to my parents, late March 1915, pp. 1, 3. In this letter it is mentioned that Pinkston talked to me about the KGB in a low tone, so that G.WL couldn’t hear. However, as we were drivingback down off the mountain I told G.WL about what Pinkston had said to me. Moreover, the next spring (1915), G.Wi. met Pinkston up on the mountain again, and later told me that Pinkston was a nice, helpful fellow. “but he did talk a little bit about the KGB.” It was on this second meeting that G.W°L learned Pinkston’s name. Some time laterhe told me that Pinkston haddied. I understmd that Larry Oms, the local game warden fur the Lincoln area at the time, had been bringing groceries up to Pinkston, and it’s possible he may be able to confirm some of this information.}


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) \emph{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,\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#87, Russell Mosny. September 13, 1996, p.1.} hut actually I knew him from the time I entered seventh grade.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK19’)9, p.25.}


In some cases it is difficult to disentangle the effect of “remembering later years” from that of “media planting.” Thus Nancy White\textsuperscript{†}, 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.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#30, Nancy White, p.2.} Here and throughout her interview, Nancy White 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 Nancy White 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:



\begin{quote}


“I might have been about 9 years old when the following incident occurred. My family was visiting the [White] family. The [Whites] had a little girl named [Nancy], 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 tick.led, 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 [Nancy]. [Nancy] said, ‘No, don’t make him stop! I like it!’ but, alas, my mother insisted, and I had to quit.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK1m,p.21.}



\end{quote}


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 respeet. 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.”\footnote{(Da) Ralph Meister’s Declaration, p.1, paragraph7.} Actually I never felt I was under much pressure to achieve until at least the age of eleven. Or. Meister also implies that I had difficulties with social adjustment from early childhood,\footnote{Same, pp. 2. 3, paragraphs 8-10.} whereas in reality those difficulties did not begin until much later. All this will be shown in Chapters I through 5 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.\footnote{For enmple, (Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#6, K.BL, p.1; \#134, Lois Skillen. p.8; \#151, E. Wr., p.3. Also sec Note 56.} 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 knew me well.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#151, Chris Waits; (Hj) BLrlfoot Valuy Dispatda, January 29, 1998, February 5(?), 1998, February 11, 1998.} 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.


(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 12 and Appendix 5. Many other examples can be found in the investigators’ reports of the interviews that they conducted.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Reports.} Here I will only discuss some of my suitemates from Eliot N-43 at Harvard who gave false information about me.


Robert Applethwaite\textsuperscript{†}, Pat Mcintosh, John Masters, and Phil Alman\textsuperscript{†} 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 . . .\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#79, Patrick Mcintosh, p.1.} Patrick [had) his own adolescent insecurities \dots{}\footnote{Same, p-5.} Patrick was coo insecure and wrapped up in his own problems \dots{}\footnote{Same,p.6.} The faculty or administration at Harvard was \dots{} unconcerned with students’ emotional and psychological problems. Patrick did not know any students who actually sought and received emotional help \dots{} At times, Patrick wanted help surviving himself, but he had no idea where to go.John Finley, the house master \dots{} didn’t want to recognize the serious difficulties that many of the students were having. “\footnote{Same,p.8.}


Mcintosh evidently assumes that I was having problems similar to his own: “One day during Patrick’s second year at Harvard \dots{} he saw a student beingtaken outon a stretcher. The student had slit his wrists after receiving a C on an exam \dots{} Patrick\dots{} thought ofTed and worried that maybe Ted might end up like this kid.”\footnote{Same,p.6.}


John Masters told the investigators that he “was two years old when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. After the bombing, he used to dream about the atomic bomb; these dreams sparked John’s fantasies 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 \dots{}\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#77,John Masters, p.1.} DuringJohn’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.”\footnote{Same, p.3.}


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 \dots{} did not intervene on John’s behalf when John needed counseling. The same was probably true for Ted. Ted’s solitary narure was not enough 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. \dots{}\footnote{Same, pp. 3, + \textbackslash{}} John’s solitary lifestyle meant that he did not make more than five friends while at Harvard.”\footnote{Same,p.5.}


Robert Applethwaite “was shy and socially backward when he went to


Harvard and feared that he would never fully come out of his shell\dots{} He had a strong desire to lead a normal life. [Robert Applethwaite] 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 [Robert Applethwaite’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. [Robert Applethwaite] 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. [Robert Applcthwaitc] did not last long at Harvard and soon droppe\textbackslash{}i out again.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#98, RobertApplethwaite, pp. 4, 5.}


Robert Applethwaite too made false statements about me and exaggerated my solitariness. “[Robert Applethwaite] and the others at N-43 were too young to realize how serious Ted’s isolation was for him\dots{}”\footnote{Same, p.5.}


Thus Mcintosh, Masters, and Robert Applethwaite 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 with 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 resentmfflt or jealousy. Only in the case of my brother and mother can resentment or jealously be clearly identified as a factor influencing reports given to investigators. However, this factor may be suspected in some other cases. Doris B.t (see Chapter 6) once told me that “everyone” was jealous of me, presumably referring to the people whom we both knew, including Greg Davis t 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 Greg Davis’s opinion, •cademically 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.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#2B, G.reg Davis, P-4} “The Briefcase Boys” was a clique that included, among others, Greg Davis, Russell Mosny, and Roger Podcwell. 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 \dots{}”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#J.04, Roger Podewell, p.3.} I did not fail to josh Podewell and Mosny about their relatively dissappointing academic performance, but they didn’t seem to find it amusing.


Greg Davis, Podcwcll, 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 Greg Davis it could be either way.


Patrick [Mcintosh] was jealous of Ted’s prowess in mathematics \dots{}\footnote{Same,p.8.} 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 sensational stories about me on television allowed themselves to alter their recollections in such a way as to make them more profitable financially or whether they were paid at all.



\bigskip


Let us conclude with a few more examples that show the inaccuracy 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, Dirk West\textsuperscript{†}, and Bill Wadhamt\textsuperscript{†} and Sally Baker\textsuperscript{†}.\footnote{Sally Baker lists these as the usual participants. See (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#33, Bill Wadham and Sally Baker, p.13. Dirk West lists the usual partidpants as himself, my brother, my parena, and David and Shirley Hbr. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#3’-, Dirk West, p.7. l had never heard of David and Shirley Hbr. until l read this report. At the one colloquium I attended, the panicipants were those I’velisted.} 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 Dirk West described my behavior at this colloquium as follows:


On the first occasion (Dirk) 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\dots{} [fed] never made eye contact, but just looked off blindly while he spoke.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#32. Dirk West, pp. 7, 8.}


Here is how Sally Baker described my behavior at the same colloquium:


[Sally met Ted] one night when she and [Bill] 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 [Sally] 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.\footnote{(Qb)Written Investigator Report \#33, BillWadhamand Sally Baker, pp. L4. 15.}


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 Dirk West, Bill Wadham and Sally Baker, my parents, my brother, and myself. I can state exactly where each of us was sitting, I can describe in a general way the demeanorofeach, 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 Sally personally. I did not make a disparaging comment about women in general when I was introduced to Sally, 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 Sally is remembering a joking comment about women that I made in a letter to her husband, Bill, duringthe mid-198os.


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 Sally to say that I kept gettingup and walking out.


Dirk West’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 Dirk West’s face a number of times during the evening, but he neverlooked back at me. I’m more than willing to put the matter to a test. I invite Mr. West 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, Dirk West 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.


Bill Wadham didn’t give the investigators any account of mybehavior 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 Bill Wadham and his wife Sally, “[Bill] and [Sally] compared Ted to [Sally’s] brother [Richardt] who was severely mentally ill and killed himself in 1984. In fact, Dave [Kaczynski] also knew [Richard] and saw a clear parallel between [Richard] and Ted. [Richard] had extremely rigid opinions and was often intolerant and impatient of divergent views \dots{} Dave, in fact, found [Richard] and Ted so similar that when [Richard] finally killed himself in 1984, he began to worry that Ted might do the same.”\footnote{Same, p.10.}


But what my brother actually thought was quite different, as evidenced by a letter he wrote to me in 1984, shortly after Richard’s suicide. In that letter, David speaks of his own feelings of depression, and wonders if Richard’s suicide had not, in part, been the result of Bill’s and David’s failure to grasp the message behind Richard’s philosophizing. While David notes that Richard’s family “prefers” for “obvious reasons” to attribute the suicide to “mental disease,” David’s own thoughts ran on “the sometimes dismal gulfs that isolate human beings from one another.” Further, David states that Richard’s fate reminds him “just a tad” of himself, and confesses that he feels “sometimes guilty” for his “unresponsiveness.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#293, letter from David Kaczynski to me, October I or2, 1984 \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf ln reference to the actinides that my brother and the Wadham-Bakers’ held toward me at the time of Richard’s suicide, it may be worthwhile to quote also another letter of my brother’s. At some point during 1984, knowing that my brother was going to visit Bill and Sally, l sent him in care of them three cartoons that l had drawn, with some humorous commentary in Spanish. [n reply Dave wrote a letterinwhichheprofesses to ..marvel” atmy “inventive” and “highly originalhumor. He notes that Bill enjoyed “immensely.. the two cartoons that “might have been considered coarse” and that Sally noted “some very artful touches. David wonders why I never thought of sending my cartoons to magazines as he believes “without bias” that my cartoons are on average “the most interesting(he’s] everseen.» (Ca) FL \#289, Summer1984. pp. 2-4. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf This doesnotcontradia inanyspecific way what BillandSallytoldtheinvestigators about me, but it doesn’t comport very well with the image of me that they conveyed.}


In his interview Bill goes on and on about my supposed “intolerance” of other people’s ideas (making, at the same time, many false statements about my behavior).\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#33, Bill Wadham and Sally Baker, pp. 7-10.} As a matter of fact, I never had more than a very little philosophical or intellectual discussion with Bill, 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 Bill’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.


Bill used to read children’s comic books and claimed that he found philosophical messages in them.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#304, letter from me to David Kaczynski, late spring or sununerof1985, p.1: i was amused by the Mexican comic book. (But you should have included a critical analysis by[Bill] aplaining the hidden philosophical messagcs.r (Ca) FL \#uo, letter from me to David Kaczynski, August 28, 1979, p.:i “(Bill] sent me a copy of a ‘Red Sonja’comic book ([Footnote]: •An absurd female hero.), asserting that ‘to imaginative minds it drips of philosophical lessons.’ “In replyI senthim [mimiclcingNietzsche’s style]: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I have no time** to listen to thy teaching. Zanulivstnz,’ said the small man, ‘For I must mow my lawn and tend my melons. I have no time to listen to prophesies. I no time to be an arrow of longing for the \&rther shore.’ ([Foomote\}: **[Bill] wrote that he would read some Nicacbe [sic], m:cptthat he had no time becausehe was toobusy mowinghis lawn.tending[melons; the rest ofthis footnote is cut off’ onthe photocopythatI have.].) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf How then,’ answered Zarad11utru, ‘hastthou time to read the book of a naked harlot pretending to be a hero? Knowest thou not that a dark cloud hangs over men and that even now arc falling one by one the heavy drops that herald the lighnng? What then signify thy lawnmower and thy melons? Verily. thou art become as the last man.’ Thus spake l.anuhusmi.-Nietsche [sic], l.araduutra, part 5. (The footnotes were in the original letter. According to Nietzsche, the “last man” is a despicable and degenerate human type.) This is a sample of the way I used to tease Billabout his comic•book philosophy. I intended the teasing to be gentle and humorous, butit may be that I wounded Billwithoutrealiz.. ing it.} 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.



\bigskip


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 notfeel like answering. Ted did not seem comfortable or happy.\footnote{(Qb) Written InvestigatorReport \#29, Peter L. Duren, pp. 9, 10.}


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.



\bigskip


A few people reported that in high-school I was once stuffed in a locker by some “tough” kids and left there.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#:z.8, Greg Davis, p.2; \#55,Jobn Jc., pp. J. 2. Ray Jam’s story was reported in (Hm) San Francisco Chrrm. April 29, 1996; (Hn) Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1996; (Ja) Mad Genius, p.l.6. According to all three of these reports, Janzstatedthat I used a pocket protector.} If chis had ever happened, it wouldn’t be the kind of thing I would be likely co 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,\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#:z.8, Greg Davis, p.2; \#55,Jobn Jc., pp. J. 2. Ray Jam’s story was reported in (Hm) San Francisco Chrrm. April 29, 1996; (Hn) Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1996; (Ja) Mad Genius, p.l.6. According to all three of these reports, Janzstatedthat I used a pocket protector.} 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.



\bigskip


In reference to my brother’s years at Evergreen Park High School, Dirk West (who was one of Dave’s teachers there) told the investigators:


Physically, \dots{} Dave was much smaller than his classmates. He was also socially awkward. Dave was shy and quiet and tended to keep to himself [Dirk] never saw Dave hanging out with friends\dots{} [S]ocially and physically. he was behind [his classmates] \dots{} Dave seemed socially and physically awkward.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\# Dirk West, pp. 1,2.}


Referring to the early 1970s, Dirk said:


Dave was still socially awkward and inept\dots{} [W]hen [Dirk) and Dave went for walks in the Morton Arboretum, Dave made [Dirk] walk ahead of him so that Dave did not have to speak to any people they passed. He told [Dirk] he did nor wane to have to say hello to people.\footnote{Same, p.,4.}


Lois Skillen, guidance counselor at the school, described my brother during his high-school years as follows:


David was outgoing, friendly and sociable \dots{} David had friends and played sports \dots{} David was outgoing and happy\dots{} David \dots{} 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.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#134, LoisSkillen, pp. 3, 6-8.}


The admirable consistency between Dirk West’s description of my brother and Miss Skillen’s should help the reader to estimate the value of these accounts.


Much of the information that Skillen gave my investigators is inaccurate, but on this particular point she is right and Dirk West 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.



\bigskip


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. Bickelman\footnote{Professor Sick.clman reported to my invatigators that Harvard was attempting to recruit him. (Qb) Written Investigator ort\#34, Dale Eickelman, p.1.} were among those who gave seriously 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 memoryplanting.\footnote{(Hk) SciffltijicAmmcan, May 1997, pp.14, :z.8.} The phenomenon is not hypothetical; its existence has been proved.



\bigskip


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 mejust as badly, and I expect to take them on in some later writing.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 1. “That hospital experience”}


I will begin with one of the biggest lies of all, a kind of family myth manufactured by my mother.


I have only a vague recollection of the version of this story that I heard from my parents in childhood. In essence it was that as a baby I had been hospitalized with a severe case of hives (urticaria), and that I was so frightened by this separation from my parents that I was forever after excessively nervous about being left alone by them.


It is not clear to me why my parents thought I was unduly afraid of being separated from them. It may have been because they became accustomed to being away from their own parents at an especially early age-my mother’s mother was a drunken, irresponsible slut\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of Wanda, entire document. (Cb) FL Supplementary It.em \#4.} who probably left her children unattended on frequent occasions, and my father was an extravert who spent much of his childhood running with gangs of boys rather than in the home (according to the stories he told me). In any case, as I look back on it now, I don’t think I was any more anxious about being left alone than the average kid of my age. When I was perhaps six or seven years old, my mother began leaving me home alone for an hour or two at a time, and I did not find it difficult to adjust to this. At about the same age I once attended a movie with my father in a strange neighborhood far from home, and after the movie he left me standing alone outside the theater for ten or fifteen minutes while he went to get the car. I felt a good deal of anxiety while waiting for him, but I think not more than is normal for a kid of that age under such circumstances. I certainly did not feel panicky nor did I doubt that my father would return. He told me afterward that he had left me alone in order to help me get over what he called my fear of being away from my parents.


My parents retained their belief that I had an unusual fear of being separated from them until I was thirteen years old. •At that age I was sent away to summer camp for two weeks. Though I was somewhat homesick, I had no serious difficulty in adjusting to the experience,\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of 1)K 1979, p.36: ‘1 felt rather homesick at this place, but not uc:C\$Sivcly so. I got along alright» (Ab\} Autobiog of 1JK 1959, p.s bas: ‘1Jp co quite recently \dots{} I w.u very dependent on [my parents\} in that I became unhappy if far away from them for any length of time, say a couple of days or more. Before comingto Harvard [attheage ofsmcen], I was greatlyafraid chat I would suffer much from homesickness. butafter a couple ofweeks of unhappincss, this no longer bothered me at all. The tics seem to ha mapped completely, as it no longerbothers me at all to be away from home.u} and after that, as far as I can remember, my parents never again mentioned my supposed fear of being “abandoned” by them-until many years later, when my mother resuscitated the myth of “that hospital experience” in exaggerated and melodramatic form. Her motives for doing so will be explained in Chapter


4. For the moment, I am concerned only to describe the myth itself and to refute it. Here is the myth in my mother’s own words, from a letter that \_she wrote to me on December 24, 1984:


[Your hatred of your parents] I think, I am convinced, has its source in your traumatic hospital experience in your first year of life. You had to be hospitalized with a sudden, very serious allergy that could have choked off your breath. In those days hospitals would not allow a parent to stay with a sick child, and visits were limited to one hour twice a week. I can still hear you screaming ‘Mommy. Mommy!’ in panic as the nurse forced me out of the room. My God! how I wept. My heart broke. I walked the floor all night weeping, knowing you were horribly frightened and lonely. Knowing you thought yourself abandoned and rejected when you needed your mother the most. How could you, at nine months, understand why-in your physical misery-you were turned over to strangers. When I finally brought [you\footnote{A small part of the qriginalletter is missing here, but it is dearfrom the contat that the word “you” should appear.}] home you were a changed personality. You were a dead lump emotionally. You didn’t smile, didn’t look at us, didn’t respond to us in any way. I was terrified. What had they done to my baby? Obviously. the emotional pain and shock you suffered those four days became deeply embedded in your brain-your sub-conscious. I think you rejected, you hated me from that time on. We rocked you, cuddled you, talked to you, read to you-did everything we could think of to stimulate you. How we loved you, yearned over you. Some said we spoiled you, were too lenient, doted on you too much. But you were our beloved sonur first born and we wanted so much to have you love us back. But I think that emotional pain and fear never completely left you. Every now and then throughout your life, I saw it crop up\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#297, lcttcrfrom my mother to me, December 24. 1984.} I was surprised when I saw that in this letter my mother described my” hospitalization as having lasted only four days. She had previously told me-repeatedly-that it had lasted a week,\footnote{Both in (Ab) Aucobiogof1JK1959, p.1 and (Ac) Autobiog of1)K1979, p.1, I gave the periodofhospitalization as a week. Icouldonly have gottenthatinformation from my parcnrobably my mother, since my father rarely said anything about “that hospital experience.} and that I had been “inert,” “a dead lump,” for a month after I came home.


Herc is what my brother reportedly said about “that hospital experience” when he was interviewed by the FBI:


TED had a severe allergic reaction and was hospitalized for several weeks. His parents were only allowed short daily visits and TED became unresponsive and withdrawn during his stay in the hospital.\footnote{(Na) FBI 302 number1, p.3.}


When TED was a year or so old, he was hospitalized after suffering a ‘severe allergic reaction.’ His parents were restricted from visiting him for more than a few minutes a day, and when he recovered and was taken home two or three weeks later they noticed that he was markedly unresponsive and displayed a significantly ‘flat effect’ [sic] (emotionless appearance). It took weeks and even months for his parents to re-establish a satisfactory relationship with TEO, and WANDA attributes much of TED’s emotional disturbance as an adolescent to this early trauma.\footnote{(Na) FBI 302, number2, p.6.}


DAVE stated that on four distinct occasions, TED has displayed a type of ‘almost catatonic’ behavior which has long perplexed and mystified his family. The first was his withdrawal after a three-week hospital stay when he was an infant.\footnote{(Na) FBI 302 number 3, p.3.}


Here is what my brother told the New York Times:


David, who had been told the story by his parents, said that the infant Teddy developed a severe allergy and was hospitalized for a week. ‘There were rigid regulations about when parents could and couldn’t visit,’ David said. He recalled that on two occasions, his parents ‘were allowed to visit him for one hour.’


After Teddy came home, ‘he became very unresponsive,’ David said. ‘He had been a smiling, happy, jovial kind of baby beforehand, and when he returned from the hospital he showed little emotions [sic] for months.\footnote{(Ha) NYTimu, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.22., colunm 3.}


Newsweek cited information from federal investigators (who presumably were relaying information received from my mother or my brother) as follows:


The first clue is something that happened when Kaczynski was only 6 months old. According to federal investigators, little ‘Teddy John,’ as his parents called him, was hospitalized for a severe allergic reaction to a medicine he was taking. He had to be isolated-his parents were unable to see him or hold him for several weeks. After this separation, family members have told the Feds, the baby’s personality, once bubbly and vivacious, seemed to go ‘flat.’\footnote{(Hf) Newswtt:le, April 22., 1996, p.29.}


Time gave a similar report.\footnote{(Hg) Time, April 22., 1996, p.46.}


The FBI’s “302” reports often contain inaccuracies, and (as we will show later) journalists’ reports are extremely prone to gross inaccuracies that result from carelessness, incompetence, or intentional lying. But the fact that several different sources gave roughly similar accounts is a good indication of the kind of information my brother and mother had been giving out.


Furthermore, on April 12, 1996, Investigator \#1, an investigator for the Federal Defender’s office at Helena, Montana, interviewed my mother in Washington, D.C. According to Investigator \#x’s notes, my mother gave her the story as follows:


When Ted was nine or 10 months old, he developed a severe and sudden allergic reaction to something, his entire body swelled, and he had severe itching all over. Wanda walked with him the entire night, and took him to the University of Chicaghildren’s Teaching Hospital first thing in the morning. She described the hospital visit as very traumatic for both Ted and his mother. When they arrived, Ted was taken from Wanda by a nurse and put in a separate room. Ted started screaming and crying, calling nonstop for his mother, who also started crying \dots{} That Friday the hospital called Wanda and said she could come and pick Ted up, as the swelling had subsided. When Wanda arrived at the hospital, she was handed herson, who she described as ‘a dead lump.’ She said Ted would not respond to her or her husband at all for weeks after the hospital stay. Wanda and Theodore spent hours trying to bring Ted out ofhis shell, coaxing a smile, or attempting to get him to play with a toy, mostly without success \dots{}


After the stay in the hospital, Wanda described Ted as much more clingy, and less trusting of strangers. He would scream whenever he was taken into a strange building, fearful his parents were going to leave him. About four or five months after Ted was released from the hospital he fell while running in the house, and split his tongue. Wanda rushed him to the hospital, where he immediately began screaming and fighting \dots{}



\begin{quote}


Ted’s regular pediatric visits were always upsetting, as Ted acted terrified of doctors.”“\footnote{(Ka) IntcrVicw of Wanda by Investigator \#I, pp. 1, 2.}



\end{quote}


How accurate is this picture? Fortunately that question is easy to resolve, because my mother kept a “Baby Book,” or diary of my development as an infant. The book contained printed instructions and questions with blank spaces left for the parent to fill in. (When quoting from the Baby Book, I will put the printed matter in italics and material written by my mother in ordinary type.) The following excerpt from the Baby Book includes every word of my mother’s account of “that hospital experience,” from the first appearance of the symptoms to my apparently complete recovery.


My age at the time was just over nine months.



\bigskip


FORTY FIRST WEEK. Dares, from Feb. 26 to Mar 5 1943)


“Saturday, the 27th [of February] Mother noticed small red splotches on” baby’s stomach and neck, as the day progressed the splotches spread. In the evening we took him to the hospital. The doctor diagnosed them as hives. Sunday [February 28) the hives were worse but baby seemed not effected [sic] by them. We took him for a long ride in his buggy. Shortly after we returned we noticed the baby had a fever. Called the hospital and was told to give him frequent baths \& aspirin every 3 hrs. Monday morning [March 1] the baby was examined at Bobs Roberts [Hospital] by several doctors. The concensus [sic] of opinion was that baby had a bad case of urticaria [hives, rash] \& should be left at the hospital. Wednesday [March 3], mother went to visit baby. The doctors still think he has an extreme case of urticaria but are not sure. The [sic] ommitted [sic] eggs from his diet. Mother felt very sad about baby. She says he is quite subdued, has lost his abandoned virve [sic] \& aggressiveness and has developed an institutionalized look..



\bigskip


FORTY SECOND WEEK. Dates, from Mar. 5 to Mar. 12 1943


Baby’s home from hospital. Perfectly healthy But quiet and unresponsive after his experience. Hope his sudden removal to hospital and consequent unhappiness will not harm him.”


Later in the week-Baby is quite himself again. Vivacious and demanding. Says ‘bye•bye’ by waving his hand. [Etc.]”\footnote{(Ba) Baby Book, pp. m, m.}


According to hospital records,\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of T]K. u. Chi., March 1-6, 1943, pp. 13, 14, 19,} I was admitted on March 11 1943 and released on March 6, so I was hospitalized for five days. Since the statement that I was quite myself again could not have been written later than March 12, it took me at most six days (and possibly much less time) to make an apparently complete recovery. It should also be noted that a careful study of my medical records has turned up no mention of my supposed unresponsiveness. Furthermore, on September 6, 1996, my Aunt Freda (Freda DombekTuominen) was interviewed in Gainesville, Florida by two investigators working on my case. She told them that she was away on a twoweek vacation when I was hospitalized from March I to 6, 1943. When she returned, someone mentioned to her that I had been in the hospital, but after chat she heard nothing more about the episode until it was publicized in the media following my arrest.\footnote{(Qa) Oral report from Investigator \#2, February 5, 1997. The fact that the duration of the vacation was two weeks is from (Qa) Oral report of Investigator \#3, \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf February 18, 1997. According to (Ra) Oral report from Dr. K., March 29, 1997, in a larer interview Freda told Dr. K. that she was no longer sure that she was away on vacation at the time of my hospitalization. Instead, as a college student, she may haw been absorbed in her studies and temporarily out of touch with my parents. But she still affirmed that she bad been told nothing about ..that hospital ezperience” beyond the bare mention of the fact that I bad been in the hospital. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ra) Oral Report from Dr. K., February 12, 1998, and (Rb) Written Information \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Confirmedby Or. K., item \#J, repeat this same information, but giw: May 8, 1997 as the date on which Dr. K. obtained the information from Freda. Note that I haw a record of receiving this information from Dr. K. on March 29. 1997. So either Freda gave Or. K. the same information twice in different interviews, or else I inadvertently wrote “March 29” for “May 29” when I dated the information, or else Dr. K. made an error about the date. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In any case, the most impomnt parts of the foregoing information have been confirmed in writingby Investigator \#1. (Qc) Written Repom by lmmigator \#2, “Freda Tuommen wa.s away onvacation when Ted was hospitlllized u an infant. Upon her return she heard that Ted had been in the hospital but heard nothing about it (sic] the hospitalization untilshe read about it in the media.•} Since Freda was very close to my parents during the 1940s, this is a clear indication that at that time my mother did not attach much importance to the hospitalization and that the effect on me was not obviously serious.


What about my mother’s statement that “Ted’s regular pediatric visits were always upsetting, as Ted acted terrified of doctors”?\footnote{(Ka) IntcrVicw of Wanda by Investigator \#I, pp. 1, 2.} That is another lie. The Baby Book and my medical records show four, and only four, instances in which I appeared to be afraid of doctors or nurses, and two of these occurred before “that hospital experience.” Herc are the corresponding entries from the Baby Book and the medical records:



\begin{quote}


FIFTH WEEK. Dates, from June 19 to June 26 1942)


\dots{} When the doctor was handling him today he cried a great deal \dots{} Perhaps he was frightened of the unfamiliar surroundings and handling.”“\footnote{(Ba) Baby Book, P.74} ““SEVENTEENTH WEEK. Dares,from Sept. n to Sept. 18 1942) ““\dots{} Sept. 15. When taken for his periodic examination the child became” very frightened of the doctor.”\footnote{Same,p.85.}



\end{quote}


In the medical records the two foregoing examinations are recorded, but no mention is made of my reaction to the doctor,\footnote{(Ea) Med Records ofTJK. U. Chi., June 23, 1942, p.r. September. 1942, p.8.} which probably indicates that the doctor did not consider my reaction unusual.


My hospitalization occurred during the latter part of my forty-first week. About a month later, the following reaction was reported in the Baby Book:



\bigskip



\begin{quote}


FORTY-SIXTH WEEK. Dares,from 4\Slash{}2] to 4\Slash{}9 1943)


This week we visited the hospital with Teddy. When mother took him in to be undressed\&: weighed Teddy saw the nurses in their white uniforms \&: immediately HOWLED. It’s evident he remembered his sojum [sic] in the hospital. It took about 10 min. for mother to calm him. When the doctor entered the little room that he was taken to after being weighed there was no definite reaction other than interest in her, but as soon as she attempted to examine him he yowled.”“\footnote{Ba) Baby Book, p.113.}



\end{quote}


The hospital record of this examination docs not mention my fearful reaction.\footnote{(Ea) Med Records ofTJK, U. Chi., April 6, 1943, p.I2.} The last instance in which I showed fear of medical personnel is mentioned in my medical records, but not the Baby Book (which docs not go beyond December 25, 1943): “June 27, 1944] \dots{} Reluctant to carry examination. child [sic] is fearful of white coats since his visit for repair of his tongue.”\footnote{Same,June 27, 1sa44, p.26.}


The reference is to an injury to my tongue\footnote{Same, April 29, 1sa44, p.25.} that had occurred about two months earlier, on April 29, 1944. Note that this extract from the medical records clearly implies that prior to the tongue injury. I was not fearful of medical personnel. That I was not afraid of doctors or nurses for at least nine or ten months preceding my tongue injury is confirmed by the absence of any mention in the Baby Book or the medical records of any such fear on my part between April 9, 1943 (about a month after my hospitalization) and April 29, 1944 (the date of my tongue injury), even though the medical records and the Baby Book report that I was examined at the University of Chicago clinics\footnote{The May 18, 1 examination i., reported in (Ba) Baby Book, p.66, but not in the medical records, from which a page appears to be missing. The other four aaminations arc recorded in (Ea) Med Records of TJK. U. Chi., June 13, 1943 and Octaber 19, 1943, p.23; January II and 18, 1944, p.24-The “7\Slash{}i3\Slash{} 43» enmination reported in (Ba) Baby Book, p.66, is an error on the part of my mother. It should be 6\Slash{} 13\Slash{}43, as is shown by the fact that nezt to 7\Slash{} I3\Slash{}43, my mother has the notalion “smallpox vaccination,” and the medical records report the vaccination on June 13, 1943.} on May 18, 1943, June I3, 1943, October 19, 1943,Januaryn, 1944, andJanuary IS, 1944. Moreover, the Baby Book’s one year inventory of the child’s development (late May, 1943, less than three months after “that hospital experience”) includes the question, “Does he [the baby] .show per.sirttntfear of anything?” My mother left the question blank.\footnote{(Ba) Baby Book, p.122.}


After my tongue injury (which, by the way, did not require hospitalization), my mother told a doctor that I was “quite fearful of hospitals” (see extract below, April 4, 1945). But that I had no long-la.sting fear of doctors or hospitals is confirmed by the following extracts from the medical records:\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of TJK, U. Chi., June 13, 1943, p.13; April 4, 1945, p.26; January 4, 19,16, p.2;. April 10,1946, p.29; October 16, 1947, p.33; December 8, 1947, P.J4.}


June 13, 1943\dots{} Healthy w-d [well-developed?] well nourished infant. No pathological findings.”


(No mention of unresponsiveness orfear of doctors.)


April 4, 1945 \dots{} appetite excellent. Plays well with other children. Quite fearful(?) of hospitals.”


(Evidently the doctor is recording information furnished by my mother. The question mark after “fearful” is in the original and possibly indicates skepticism on the part of the doctor. Further along in the report of this same examination:)


Sturdy, well nourished boy with good color who tries to manipulate his mother by temper[?] outbursts. Submits [illegible) but not quickly [or quietly?] to examination-after she is sent from the room. Quite agreeable at conclusion of examination.


(The foregoing entry contradicts my mother’s claim that I was afraid of being left by my parents, since the departure of my mother calmed me and caused me to submit to the examination.)


January 4, 1946 . . . A well nourished [?] adequately muscled [?] very whiny little boy.


April 10, 1946 \dots{} A whiny butfairly cooperative boy\dots{}”


October 16, 1947 \dots{} A pleasant, quiet, alert, slender boy. \dots{}


December 8, 1947 . . . A friendly, intelligent youngster who is not acutely ill. He is extremely inquisitive of all that is said and requests explanations.


The foregoing include all of the passages in my surviving medical records up to age 6 that have any bearing on my behavior in the presence of doctors or nurses. So much for my mother’s claim that “Ted’s regular pediatric visits were always upsetting, as Ted acted terrified of doctors.”


According to the Washington Po.st, “Ted had an almost paralyzing uneasiness around strangers, a reaction, again, that Wanda traced back to Ted’s childhood hospitalization.”\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post, June 16, 1996, p.A2o.}


Apart from the few cases in which I showed fear of doctors or nurses, the Baby Book reports two, and only two, cases in which I was frightened by strangers, and both of these cases occurred before my “hospital experience.”



\bigskip



\begin{quote}


ELEVENTH WEEK. Dates, from July 31 to Aug 7 1942


Twice this week the baby was on the verge of crying when approached by unfamiliar persons. After a bit of handling and talking to by the strangers he became very friendly. cooing and smiling in response to their overtures.”\footnote{(Ba) Baby Book, p.76.}



\end{quote}


How did I react to strangers (apart from doctors and nurses) after the “hospital experience?” Only two pages in the Baby Book provide relevant information. The one-year inventory of the child’s development instructs the parent:


Underline each of the following tmns which seems descriptive of the child’s behavior. Doubly underline those which are shown myfrequently or in a marked degree\dots{}


The Baby Book then lists thirteen terms. One of them is “shyness,” and my mother underlined it once. (The other terms are “curiosity.” which my mother underlined doubly; “excitability,” “impulsiveness,” “cautiousness,” “jealousy.” “srubbornness,” “cheerfulness,” “sensitiveness,” ‘boisterousness,” all of which my mother underlined once; and “irritability,” “listlessness,” “placidity,” which my mother did not underline at all.\footnote{Same, p.122.} The same terms were listed in the nine-month inventory. and there my mother underlined “curiosity” doubly. she underlined “excitability.” “impulsiveness,” “stubbornness,” and ‘boisterousness” once, and she underlined none of the others.)\footnote{Same, p.107.}


Further along in the one-year inventory we find:



\begin{quote}


“\emph{Does child show greater interest in children or in adults? Describe}. Either definitely likes or dislikes adults. Loves to russle with other children Is he usually shy or friendly with strange women? either men? either children? friendly Does he show any special preferences for certain persons? Yes Describe For unaccountable reasons will either be very friendly or unfriendly to strangers. But almost always friendly to people he knows.\footnote{Same, p.122.}



\end{quote}


About seven weeks after the “hospital experience” and three weeks before the one-year inventory, we find in the Baby Book:



\bigskip



\begin{quote}


FORIT-NINTH WEEK. Dates from 4h. 3 to 4\Slash{} 30 1943


When the door buzzer rings Teddy, when in his walker, immediately skoots [sic] to the door, no matter what he’s occupied with at the time. When not in the walker he insists on being carried or assisted in going himself”“\footnote{Same, p.114,}



\end{quote}


Since I was so anxious to meet visitors, it’s clear that I had no particular fear of strangers and was not excessively shy. The statement that I had “an almost paralyzing fear of strangers” going back to my “childhood hospitalization” is another lie.


Did my hospitalization at the age of nine months have any lasting effect on my personality or behavior? I do not know the answer to that question. But it is obvious that if the experience tended to make me permanently fearful of doctors or of strangers, or ifit made me less social, then the effect was so mild that it is not clear whether there was any effect at all.


Psychologists consulted by my defense team searched the literature for reports of empirical studies of children who had suffered separation from their parents at an early age. They found only one study\footnote{(La) Schaffer and Callender, “Psychologic: Effects of Hospitalization,” Pediatrics, October rm. ‘Ibis study considered only babies who were not being breast-fed at the time they entered the hospital. I fitted into this group since, by the age of nine months, I was no longer being breast-fed. Sec (Ba) Baby Book, p.r04} that was closely relevant to my case. This study shows that my reaction to hospitalization and my recovery from it were quite normal for an infant hospitalized under those conditions. While the study found that all “overt” effects of hospitalization in such infants disappeared within So days, at most, and usually in a fraction of that time, the infants were not observed for a long enough period to determine whether there were any subtler, long-lasting effects.


Thus it remains an open question whether my hospitalization had any permanent effect on my personality. The aim of this chapter has not been to prove that there could not have been such an effect, but that whatever that effect may have been, it was not what my mother and brother have described.


My mother’s and brother’s motives for lying about me will be dealt with later. (See Appendix 1 for further evidence of my mother’s untruthfulness.)



\bigskip


The passage from the Baby Book that describes my “hospital experience” provides an example of the distortions that are typical of the media. In an article in the Washington Post, journalists Serge F. Kovaleski and Lorraine Adams quoted the Baby Book as follows:


Feb. 27, 1943. Mother went to visit baby. \dots{} Mother felt very sad about baby. She says he is quite subdued, has lost his verve and aggressiveness and has developed an institutionalized look.


March 12, 1943. Baby home from hospital and is healthy but quite unresponsive after his experience. Hope his sudden removal to hospital and consequent unhappiness will not harm him.”\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post, June 16, 1996, p.A2o. The three dots appear in the excerpt as printed in the Post.}


Compare this with the accurate transcription of the passage given a few pages back. Kovaleski and Adams have made important changes. On February 27] I was still at home. I was not hospitalized until March I, and the entry that Kovaleski and Adams dated “Feb. 27” actually refers to March 3. Kovaleski and Adams assign the date March 12] to an entry that was obviously written earlier, and they completely omit the entry that shows that on or before March 12] I had already recovered completely from “that hospital experience.”


Kovaleski and Adams altered not only the dates but also the wording of the passage. The most important change was that, where the Baby Book states that I was “quiet and unresponsive,” Kovaleski and Adams wrote that I was “quite unresponsive.”\footnote{My mother first wrote in the Baby Book that I was “Petfealy healthy but quite and unresponsive.” She then aosscd out the “e” at the end of “quite” and insertcdan “c”betwecn the “iN and the “t” to make the word “quiet” My attorneys Judy Clarke and Quin Dcnvir eumined the original of the Baby Book (in the possession of the FBI) and confirmed that the correction appeared to have been made with the same ink and the same pen as the rest of the writing in the Baby Book, so that there was no reason to doubt its authenticity. The c:orrcc:tion was clear and unmistakable. The reader can form his own opinion as to whether the alteration of “quiet and unresponsive” to “quite unresponsive” was an innocent erroror intentional deception on the partof Kowlcski and Adams.}


The effect of these changes is to give the impression that the “hospital experience” and its consequences were much more long-lasting and severe than they really were. The reader can judge for himself whether the changes were intentional or merely the result of careless errors.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 2. My early years}


My mother, my brother, and the media have portrayed me as socially isolated to an abnormal degree from earliest childhood. For example, shortly after my arrest, Time reported: “Investigators were told that in childhood Ted seemed to avoid human contact.”\footnote{(Hg) Timt, April.U. 1996, p,46.}


According to Investigator \#i’s interview with my mother,


As he grew older (age 2-4) Wanda spent a great deal of time attempting to get Ted to play with other kids, mostly without success. Friends and relatives always told her Ted was too clingy, so she attempted to encourage his interaction with other children. She would invite children from the neighborhood over to play. only to have Ted leave the group and go to his room to play alone. She said he always managed to have one friend at a time, but would rebuff the attempts of friendship from all other children. Wanda also took Ted to a play school for children for an hour or so each week so that he could play with other kids. Ted didn’t mind going, but would play alongside the other children instead of with them. Ted would get angry if another child tried to join or interfered with what he was doing. Ted went to preschool and kindergarten, and seemed to enjoy it. The teachers did not complain about his behavior, but did mention Ted always wanted to work on projects alone, and did not interact with other children. “\footnote{(Ka) Interview of Wanda by Investigator \#I. p.2.}


The Washington Post told a similar talc on the basis ofan interview with mymothcr.\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post, June 16, 1996.}


Here again the documentary evidence shows that my mother is lying. I will not try the reader’s patience by addressing all of her false statements, but will stick to the essential point, that my interaction with other children was normal until, at about the age of 11, Ibegan to have serious social problems for reasons that will be made clear later.


According to the pediatricians who examined me:


April 4, 1945 \dots{} Plays well with other children\dots{}”


May 18, 1950 \dots{} Healthy boy. Well adjusted \dots{}


May 8, 1951 \dots{} Plays well with children in school and neighborhood. Very happy.\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of T]K. U Chi.; April 4, 15. p.26; May 18, 1950, p.51; May 8, 195?, p.5t.}


The doctors could have obtained this information about my social adjustment only from my mother. It was always she, and not my father, who took me to my examinations at the University of Chicago clinics.


Thus, statements of my mother’s that were recorded during my childhood clearly contradict her recent statements concerning my early social development. If she wasn’t lying then, she is lying now. Either way. the record shows herto be a liar.


What then is the truth concerning my social adjustment in early childhood? My mother’s reports to doctors carry little weight because, as we will show later, she often did lie in order to present a favorable picture of me to persons outside the immediate family. But since the Baby Book was private there is no particular reason to doubt the statements she made there that show that I was not socially withdrawn.


It’s true that at one point in the Baby Book my mother indicated I was somewhat shy.\footnote{(Ba) Baby Book, p.1::u.} as notedin Chapter 1, and I myself have a vague memory of beinga little shy up to the age offive orso. Furthermore, I wrote in my 1959] autobiography:


As far as I can remember, I have always been socially reserved, and used to be rather unpleasantly conscious of the fact. For example, I remember that when I was very little, 3 or 4 years old, I was very concerned over the fact that when my mother bought me an ice cream-cone, I was always afraid to take it directly from the lady’s hand; my mother had to take it from her and give it to me. Eventually I overcame this \dots{}


I learned to whistle and to swim later than most of my companions, and I never did learn to skate. And it often bothered me that I was less socially active than the rest of the boys, which I think was partly due to shyness and partly due to a certain lack of interest in some of their activities. I’ve always kept to myself a lot.\footnote{(Ab) AutobiogofT]K1959, p.2.}


The second paragraph of this passage evidently applies not to my earliest years but to a much later period when I did indeed have social problems. As a result of these problems I began to take a perverse pride in being unsocial, and this is probably what led me to imply (as I did in the first paragraph above) that I was “socially reserved” even in my earliest years.


But even if that first paragraph is taken at face value, there is plenty of evidence to show that my social interaction with other children was easily within the normal range until my real problems began in early adolescence. As we saw in Chapter 1, my mother indicated in the Baby Book that at the age ofone year I was consistently friendly to other children:


ls he WMally shy or friendly with strange women? either menr either children? friendly. \dots{}s


From age one to three I developed a dose friendship with Adam.Ks., a boy about eight months olderthan I was. The attachment left a long-lasting impression on both of us. Adam was the son of the couple who occupied the first floor of the house of which my parents and I had the second story; when we moved to another house I was separated from him.\footnote{(Ba) Baby Book, pp. u3, u5; (Ac:) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. t, 2. In (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#68, Adam Ks. himself confinns the strength of this fiicndship. However, much of the information he gives is incorrect}


In the new house we again occupied the second story, and with the little girl downstairs, Barbara P., I formed another strong attachment,\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, p.3.} though it was not as strong as my attachment to Adam. During this same period (age 3] to 4) I had at least one other frequent playmate, whose name, if I remembercorrectly. was Jackie.\footnote{Jackie was the four--old boy referred to on p.1 of (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979.}


Shortly before my fifth birthday we moved to a house on Carpenter Street (the first house that my parents owned),\footnote{(Ab) Autobiogof TJK1959, p.2; (Ac:) AutobiogofTJK 1979, p.5; (Ga) Deed \#I.} and from that time until I entered Harvard I always had several friends. My friends on Carpenter Street indudedjohnny Kr., Bobby Th., Freddie Do.,Jimmy Bu., Larry La., and Mary Kay Fy.\footnote{Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 51 6, ro, II, mentions all these friends by name.} As long as we lived on Carpenter Street, I attended Sherman School, a unit of the Chicago public school system. All of my friends on Carpenter Street either attended the Catholic school or were a year older than I was, so that they were in a different grade. Consequently my school friends were not the same as those with whom I played near home. My school friends included Frank Ho., Terry La C., Rosario (an Italian kid whose last name I do not remember) and Peter Ma.\footnote{(Ac:) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 6-8 describes my relations with Frank Ho., Terry La C., and Rosario. My friendship with Peter Ma. is not documented.}


I not only had friends but, on a few occasions, exercised leadership. For example, I once came up with the idea of putting on a “carnival,” as we called it. I persuaded Johnny Kr. and Bobby Th. to help me arrange games and simple entertainments, and after advertising the event by word of mouth for several days we made up tickets by hand, sold them to neighborhood kids, and made a modest profit.\footnote{(Ac:) AutobiogofTJK1979, pp. 10, II.}


Thus there is no truth in my mother’s portrayal of me as abnormally solitary from early childhood. There was no need for her to “invite children from the neighborhood over to play,”\footnote{(Ka) Interview of Wanda by Investigator \#I, p.2.} nor did she ever do so during these years as far as I can remember.


The first indication of any significant social difficulties on my part came when I was perhaps eight or nine years old,\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK1979, p.a.} and it very likely resulted from the face that our family was different from its neighbors. My father worked with his hands all his life; my mother, apart from teaching highschool English for two years during her fifties, never did anything more demanding than lower-level secretarial work; and our family always lived amongworking-class and lower-middle class people. Yet my parents always regarded themselves as a cut above their neighbors. They had intellectual pretensions, and though their own intellectual attainments were extremely modest, to say the least, they-especially my mother-looked down on their neighbors as “ignorant.” (But they were usually careful not to reveal their snobbish attitudes outside the family.)\footnote{(Ac:) Autobiog of TJK1979, pp. t7, 24, 79; (Na) FBI 302. number 2, p.6.}


Our block of Carpenter Street was part of a working-class neighborhood that was just one step above the slums. As my playmates grew older some of them began engaging in behavior that approached or crossed the line dividing acceptable childhood mischief from delinquency.\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, pp. 11, 194.} For example, two of them got into trouble for trying to set fire to someone’s garage.\footnote{(Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, p.3; (Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1979, pp. 12-14, 16, 17, 194: (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 9, 10.} I had been trained to a much more exacting standard ofbehavior and wouldn’t participate in the other kids’ mischief\footnote{(Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, p.3; (Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1979, pp. 12-14, 16, 17, 194: (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 9, 10.} Once, for instance, I was with a bunch of neighborhood kids who waited in ambush for an old rag-picker, pelted him with garbage when he came past, and then ran away. I stood back in the rear and refused to participate, and immediately afterward I went home and told my mother what had happened, because I was shocked at such disrespect being shown to an adult-even if he was only a rag-picker.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.194; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 9, 10. “Rag-pickers” were very poor people who made their living, such as it was, by picking through trash to find anythmg that could be sold as scrap,}


So it may be that the reason why I ceased to be fully accepted by my Carpenter-Street playmates at around the age of eight or nine was chat they saw me as too much of a “good boy.” In any case they did seem to lose interest in my companionship-I was no longer one of the bunch.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.11: (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991. p.9.} I continued to get along well with the kids in school.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.12; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother. July 5, 1991, p.10.} Unlike some of the kids on my block they showed no tendency to serious mischief, either because they were better-behaved kids or because the supervised environment of school left few opportunities for misbehavior.


My parents noticed the face that I was becoming isolated from my Carpenter-Street friends, and they repeatedly expressed to me their concern that there might be something wrong with me because I was not social enough. ls To me it was acutely humiliating to be pushed out to the fringe by these kids with whom I had formerly associated on an equal basis, and I was too ashamed to tell my parents what was really happening, or even to admit it to myself until many years later. My mother invented an explanation for my isolation that was consistent with her intellectual pretensions: I wasn’t playing with the other kids because I was so much smarter than they were that they bored me. This was absurd. I was bored with the other kids when (as often happened) they moped around aimlessly rather than pursuing some activity. but there can be no doubt that I wanted to continue playing with them and was deeply hurt by the fact that I was no longer fully accepted. Yet, because my mother’s explanation soothed my vanity. I half. believed it myself. In a very brief (one and a quarter-page) autobiographical sketch that I wrote at the age offifteen, I said:


Beginning in the second or third grade I began to become somewhat unsocial, keeping to myself and seeking the companionship of my comrades less often. This was probably due, in part, to the level of education and culture in my old neighborhood, where no one was interested in science, art, orbooks.\footnote{(Aa) Autobiog of TJK 1958. When. in (Ab) Autobiog of 1JK1959, p.1, I wrote, , was less socially active than the rest of the boys. \dots{} partly due to shyness and partly due to a certain lack of interest in their activities; I probably was still under the influence of my mother’s theory that I was bored with other kids because I was smarter.}


Actually. I wasn’t so terribly interested in science, art, or books myself. The autobiographical sketch was part of an application for admission to Harvard and therefore was written under the close supervision of my mother. Rereading it now I feel almost certain that the first paragraph of it was actually composed by her. That paragraph is written in a kind of language that I rarely use now and that I can hardly imagine myself having used at the age of fifteen; but it’s just the sort of thing that my mother would write.\footnote{The first paragraph of this document ((Aa) Autobiog of 1JK 1958) reads: “My first vague memories are ofa golden age ofblessed irresponsibility. But the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. and I suppose at that time I looked forward to the unbounded joys of growing up.”}


I’m quite sure that my partial isolation from the Carpenter-Street kids did not begin before I was eight, at the earliest, and that I had no serious problems with the kids in school at the time. Yet the sketch refers to “the second or third grade,” which would make me seven oreightyears old. Possibly my mother’s hand is seen here too.


Notwithstanding all of the foregoing, I think my parents had an inkling of the fact that the bad behavior of the otherkids had something to do with my isolation. Not long after my tenth birthday we moved to Evergreen Park, a suburb of Chicago, and my mother told me many years later that she and my father had decided to move mainly so that I “would have some decent kids to play with.” Though my mother is hardly a reliable source of information, her statement is probably true in part; yet it’s likely that there were also other reasons for the move. Not far from where we lived, a case of “block-busting”\footnote{Block-busting” was a practice whereby unsaupulous realtors would contrive to sellto blackpeople a house ona white-occupied block.near black territory. White householders on the block, fearing that they would be left isolated in the midst of a black neighborhood, sold off their property as quickly as possible. Thus the realtors were able to buy houses from whites at reduced prices and sell them again to black families at inflated prices.} gave rise to some very serious race-riots that were essentially territorial conflicts between the black and the white working class. All white householders in the area were put under pressure to place in their windows a small sign saying, “This property is not for sale,” which was intended as a show of white solidarity against black “intrusion.” My parents had very liberal attitudes about race and felt that it was against their principlcs to put up such a sign. But they received a threat, and, fearing that I might be attacked on my way to school, they gave in and placed the sign.\footnote{This account of the placement of the sign is based in part on what I myself observed at the time, but also in part on what my mother told me many years later. Given my mother’s unreliability. it cannot be assumed that the account is strictly accurate.} This was extremely upsetting to them and it must have contributed to their decision to move out to the suburbs.



\bigskip


Meanwhile, when I was a bit less than seven-and-a-half years old, I had acquired a baby brother. My brother David for many years has argued that I unconsciously hate him because the attention that my parents devoted to him on his arrival made me feel deprived of their affection.\footnote{(Ha) NY Times, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.:u, colwnn 3; (Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me. March or April 1986, p.r.t (Ca) FL \#33r, letter from me to David Kaczynski. April 16, 1986, pp. 3, ,4.}


The New York Times quoted my auntJosephine Manney, nee Kaczynski, as follows:


Before David was born, Teddy was different,’ the aunt said. ‘When they’d visit he’d snuggle up to me. Then, when David was born, something must have happened. He changed immediately. Maybe we paid too much attention to the new baby.’\footnote{(Ha) NY Thus, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.:u, column 3. The Times quoted only an “aunt” who preferred to remain anonymous, but the aunt in question is obviousJy Josephine. I have just four living auna: Sylvia, Madeline (aunts by marriage), Freda, and Josephine. Sylvia married my uncle Benny when I was in my teens, and I’d never met her before that time; I was never chummy enough with Madeline to “snuggle upN to her; and Freda informed me in (Cb) FL Supplcmentary item \#6, letter from Freda Tuominen to me. July 20, 1996. that she was not the unnamed aunt quoted by the Tinu:s (which l already knew from the content of the quotations). So that leavesJosephine.}


Little did my auntJosephine know the real reason why I stopped snuggling up to her! rn explain in a moment. But first let me make it clear that I’d never heard anything of this sort from Josephine before I read the New York Times article, and it’s evident that my brother never heard it either, since, in our discussions of his theory about my reaction to his birth, he never mentioned any such statement on the part of our aunt;’ nor did he ever cite any other rational evidence in support of his theory. The theory; apparently, grew entirely outof his own imagination.


As to the real reason why I stopped snugglingup to my aunt: Josephine was a good-looking woman; though she was over forty at the time of my brother’s birth, she’d kept herself in shape and was still attractive. I don’t know whether it was normal orprecocious, but by the age of about seven I already had a fairly strong interest in the female body.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, pp. n, 20.} Not long after my brother’s birth, my family and I visited the apartment whereJosephine lived with her mother (my paternal grandmother). My aunt and I were sining on a couch, and, attracted by her breasts, I slid over against her, put my arm over her shoulder, and said, “Let’s play girlfriend.” Josephine laughed and put her arm around me, and I had the decided satisfaction of feeling her breast against my body. My aunt just thought it was cute, but my mother was sharp enough to see what was really going on. After a short interval she said, “I think I’ll go to the store and get some ice cream” (or maybe it was candy or something else), and she invited me to come with her. I declined, but she insisted that I should come. As soon as she got me out of the house she gave me a tongue-lashing and a lecture on appropriate behavior with ladies. It will not surprise the reader that, from then on, I kept my distance from Josephine.


To return to my brother’s theory that I resented his arrival in the family: He first indicated his suspicion that I unconsciously hated him in a letter to me written some time during the summer of 1982. That letter has not been preserved, but there is a reference to it in a letter that I sent to my brother in 1986. I wrote: “I recall that a few years ago you said you had feared that I had (as you put it) a hatred for you so great that even I was unable to acknowledge it.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#331, letter from me to David Kaczynski. April 16, 1986, p.4}


In a letter that he wrote to me in 1986, my brother expounded his theory David first proposes that I should have hated the new arrival as it might have “awakened [my] fears of abandonment”(My brother is here referring to the alleged “fear of abandonment” that I was supposed to have as a result of “that hospital experience.”) But he notes that, according to our parents, I treated him with affection rather than withjealousy. This apparent paradox David resolves by recourse to “the Freudian theory of ‘denial’.” Citing a dream I once reported in which (as he misremembered it) I had a vision of “murdered babies in a Nazi camp” and “vowed to protect” my little brother with my own life, David then suggests that I was really vowing to protect him from mt:. He ends: “I have no idea how much or little truth there may be in this interpretation.”\footnote{(Ca) PL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me, Mm:b or April 1986, p.14}


The disclaimer in the last sentence is perhaps disingenuous, as my brother has clung to the theory persistently over the years. According to the New York Times, “David said his mother told him that she gradually encouraged Ted to hold him and that ‘from that time forward, he showed a great deal of gentleness toward me.\footnote{(Ha) NY nmu, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.:u, column 3. In mis same column we find: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf David said his parents told him about how his father, grandmother and Teddy had gone to the hospital after his birth\dots{}’So my father and grandmother left Ted in the lobby and went up to visit me,’ he said, ‘When they all went down to the lobby \dots{} he was sitting there alone in tears and very deeply upset.’I don’t remember any such incident, and I doubt that it happened. My brother is very prone to get his facts garbled.} The implication, that I had resented him at first, is contradicted by my brother’s own statement, noted above. It is also contradicted by a statement of my mother’s: “Ted seemed to easily accept having a brotherin the house, and liked to hold David when he was a baby.”\footnote{(Ka) Interview of Wanda by Investigator \#I. p.2.}


As I remember it, prior to my brother’s birth my parents told me repeatedly that the new baby. when it came, would require a great deal of care and attention, and that I must not feel that my parents loved me any less because they were devoting so much time to the baby. When David was born I wondered why my parents had put so much emphasis on this point, because I by no means felt Jett out or deprived of attention. As I wrote in my 1979 autobiography:


My brother David was born when I was 7. I considered this a pleasant event. I was interested in the baby and enjoyed being allowed to hold it\dots{}


One reads much about ‘sibling rivalry’-the older child supposedly resents the new baby because he feels it has robbed him of his parents’ affection. I do not recall ever having had any such feeling about my baby brother. . . . I think my parents were aware of the problem of ‘sibling rivalry’ and made a conscious effort to avoid this problem when the new baby came.”\footnote{(Ac) Autobiogof TJK1979, pp. 17, 18.}


In those years my parents and I got all ourmedical care at the University of Chicago teaching hospitals, which were among the finest in America, and the docrors no doubt had talked to my parents about the way to handle my relationship with my new brother.


Why then docs my brother think that I have an intense, unconscious hatred for him? People often attribute their own motives and impulses (including unconscious ones) to other people. Further on in this book we will show that my brother has a hatred for me that he has not acknowledged-probably not even to himself At the same time he has a strong affection for me, and it appears that he has never faced up to the profound conflict between his love and his hatred. My brother habitually retreats from conflicts rather than strugglingwith them.


My feelings toward my brother in his infancy are well illustrated by a dream that I described to him in a letter that I sent him during the summer of 1982. After making some highly critical comments about his character, I wrote:


I am going to open to you the window to my soul as I would not open it to anyone else, by telling you two dreams that I’ve had about you. The first dream is simple. It is one I had more than thirty years ago, when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old and you were still a baby in your crib. Some time before, I had seen pictures of starving children in Europe taken shortly after world war II [sic)-thcy were emaciated, with arms like sticks, ribs protruding, and guts hanging out. Well, I dreamed that there was a war in America and I saw you as one of these children, emaciated and starving. It affected me strongly and when I woke up I made up my mind that if there was ever a war in America I would do everything I possibly could to protect you. This illustrates the semi-maternal tenderness that I’ve often felt for you.\footnote{JJ. (Ca) FL \#266, letter from me to David Kaczynski. Summer 1982, pp. 5, 6. I described the dream in nearly identical terms in (Ac\} Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 17, 18, andadded that I felt a sense of pity and love toward my brother\dots{}.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Characteristically. my brothergotthe dream garbled in the 1986 letter ofhis that rreferred to earlier: “ \dots{} the murdered babies in the Nazi camp. .. : (See Note 30 above.) Compare this with the correct account of the dream. Later we will sec other instances in which my brother has gotten bis facts garbled.}


In reply to the foregoing letter my brother wrote to me expressing his gratitude for the affection I had indicated, and for the fact that I “cared for [him] more than anyone else ever had.” He then added the remark mentioned earlier-that until then he had feared that I had a hatred for him so great that I could not acknowledge it.\footnote{his letterhas not beenpreserved, and I am relyinghere on memory and on the 1986 letter in which I mentioned the remark about “great hatred.H See Note 29 above.} I referred to this letter of my brother’s in a note that I wrote him inf September 1982:


I received your last letter and note that it shows your usual generosity of character. Instead of being sore over the negative parts of my attitude toward you, you were favorably impressed by the positive parts.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#271, letterfrom me to David Kaczynski. September1982, p.:z..}


My brother does have a good deal of generosity in his character, but I now think that the nature of his reaction to my letter was less a result of generosity than of his tendency to retreat from conflict.



\bigskip


Not long after my brother’s birth my mother’s personality began to change. The cause may have been post-partum depression, a hormonal imbalance brought about by her pregnancy. or something else, but, whatever the reason, she began to grow increasingly irritable.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, lctterfrom me to my mother,July 5, 1991, p.9, (Ca) PL \#423, letter from me to my mother, January 15, 1991, pp. 4, s: i always felt you were a good mother to me during myearly years. It was when Iwasaround 8 years old that your behavior and the family atmosphere began to deteriorate, and it wu duringmy teens that I wusubjected to constmt, cuttinginsults such u imputations of immaturity or mental illness.My photocopy of the copy of this letter that I mailed to my mother is illegible in places. Therefore, for one line of the foregoing quotationIhad to refer to p.2 ofthe copyofthis letterthatI kept in my cabin.} The symptoms were relatively mild at first, but they worsened over the next several years so that, by the time I reached my teens, she was having frequent outbursts of rage that expressed themselves as unrestrained verbal aggression, sometimes accompanied by minor physical aggression\footnote{Example ofmmorphysicalaggressionis given in (Ac) AutobiogofTJK 1979, P-47 (throwing saucepan).} (though never enough of the latter to do any physical harm).


The change in my mother’s personality affected my father and brought about a gradual deterioration of the family atmosphere. I described this in a 1986 letter to my brother:


You don’t realize that the atmosphere in our home was quite different during the first few years of my life than it was later. You know how it was during my teens-people always squabbling, mother crabby and irritable, Dad morosely passive. Too much ice-cream, candy; and treats, parents fat and self-indulgent. A generally low-morale atmosphm. But it was very different up to the time when I was, say, Bor 9 years old. Until then, the home atmosphere was cheerful, there was hardly any quarrelling, and there was a generally high-morale atmosphere. Ice-cream and candy were relatively infrc. quent treats and were consumed in moderation . . . . Our parents were more alive and energetic. When punishment was necessary it was given with little or no anger and was used as a more-or-less rational means of training; whereas during my teens, when I was punished it was commonly an expression of anger or irritation on the part of our parents. Consequently this punishment was humiliating. The more-or-less rational punishment of the early years was not humiliating.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#339, letter from me to David Kaczynski. May 1986, pp. 3, 4-A similar accowit is given in (Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1979, pp. JS, 39, Por confirmation see (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother,July 5, 1991, p.9, (Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, p.5, has: “My relationship with my parents used to be generally afi’ectionate, butthe lut few years it has deteriorated considerably. \dots{}N}



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 3. My adolescence; family dysfunction; verbal abuse}


About June 1952 my family and I moved to the suburb of Evergreen Park.\footnote{(Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, p.3; (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.23; (Ga) Deeds \#2, \#3. .} If my parents made the move in order to provide me with “some decent kids to play with,” they did not choose the location well. The only kid in my age group on our block was 8.0., who was about a year younger than I was. He was a frequent playmate of mine for one or two years after we came to Evergreen Park, but he was a rather obnoxious character as all the members of my family agreed.


Shortly after we arrived in Evergreen Park, my parents, in order to encourage me to be socially active, made me enroll in a summer program of organized recreation that was conducted at Evergreen Park Central School. I didn’t like it, and soon stopped attending. At some later time my father forced me to enroll briefly in the Boy Scouts, and I didn’t like that any better. I wrote in my 1979 autobiography. ‘i\textbackslash{}s a kid I usually didn’t like activities that were organized and supervised by adults, other than my parents.”\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK1979, p.23.} Apparently this is typical for mathematically gifted kids. According to a book on the psychology of adolescence, “.An interesting characteristic of mathematically gifted adolescents was their independence with regard to how they spent their out-of.class time. ‘Though they played some individual sports and some musical instruments, they completely resisted any regimented activity in the way of planned recreation.’“\footnote{Karl C. Garrison, Psychowgy of Adolucmce, 6th Edition. Prentice-Hall, pp. 199,}


In September 1952, I entered the fifth grade at Evergreen Park Central School. At Sherman School we had spent the whole school day in one classroom and with one teacher, but at Evergreen Park Central the students shifted from one classroom to another to be taught different subjects. Because of this new system and the unfamiliar people I felt very insecure at first, but after a few weeks I adjusted comfortably.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK1979, p.23.}


I made some friends at school, including Dave Jackson\textsuperscript{†}, Bill Moog\textsuperscript{†}, Barbara B., Dale Eickclman, and Larry S. Larry S. was the best of these. The friendships with Dave Jackson and Bill Moog didn’t last; the former turned out to be decidedly peculiar, and the latter was a boy with little self.. control who once tried (unsuccessfully) to get me to participate in a petty theft. Dale Eick.elman had a few peculiarities ofhis own, and I can’t say that I ever really liked him, but I continued co associate with him throughout my grade-school and high-school years. My friendship with Barbara B. had nothing to do with sex. Her family moved away before we completed fifth grade, and thereafter I corresponded with her for a short time.\footnote{Ac) Autobiog of1JK 1979, p.23 states: ‘1 had a few friends in school, especially Larry S •\dots{}Dale Sickelman is discussed on pp. 50-52 of (Ac) Autobiog of1JK 1979-ln (Qb) Written Inwstigator Report \#34, Eickclman confirmed his friendship with me. None of the other friendships is documented; for them I rely on memory.}


Also in fifth grade, I carried on an intense flirtation with a beautiful female classmate named Darlene Cy. Because she teased me and provoked me, I loved her and hated her at the same time. She gradually began to conquer me, however, and love undoubtedly would have won out in the end if circumstances hadn’t separated us. What happened was that upon completing fifth grade I was placed directly in seventh, and after that I rarely saw Darlene.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK1979, pp. 47-50.}


Skipping a grade was a disaster for me. It came about as follows. While I was in fifth grade the school guidance counselor, Miss Vera Frye, gave some of us a battery of tests including a Stanford-Binet IQ test. On the latter, I scored very high,\footnote{(Fa) School Records of TJK. E. P. Elementary; (Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, p.3; (Ac) Autobiogof TJK 1979, p.24} r67. The Washington Post quoted my mother as follows:


“A school psychologist [Miss Frye] gave Ted a Stanford-Binet IQ test \dots{} But his mother took more comfort in the results of a personality test, which showed him to be well-adjusted.


For a while [Wanda said] all my uneasiness about these residual effects from his early childhood were laid to rest because this psychologist said, Oh, he is fine,” \dots{} In fact, she said he had a strong sense ofsecurity, which surprised me\dots{} She said he could be whatever he wanted to be\dots{} He was the cat’s whiskers’ \dots{}



\begin{quote}


[The family] now believe that perhaps Ted was smart enough to figure out the most appropriate answers to the test and outwit it.\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post, June 16, 1996, p.A2o. Unforrunately, the results of the personalicy test are not fowtd in my surviving school records. That I did take such a test is confirmed by (Aa) Autobiog of TJK 1958: “[In fifth grade] I came to the attention of the curriculum and guidance counselor•\dots{} I was taken out of class sevcrai times that yeuto take a battery oftests, including I.Q., achievement. personalicy and aptitude tests. ff}



\end{quote}


Psychological tests include devices to detect cheating, and it is hardly likely that a ten-year-old (however bright) with no knowledge ofpsychological testing would be able to outwit such a test.


In any case, Miss Frye telephoned my parents, informed them of my high IQ score, and (according to my mother’s account) wentso far as to tell them that I had the potential to be “another Einstein.”\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, p.24} This was foolish, because there is a lot more to being an Einstein than scoring high on an IQ test. It’s possible that Miss Frye may havebeen laying it on thick because she had previously encountered parents who had shrugged their shoulders at information about their children’s IQ scores and she was therefore trying to impress my parents with the importance of what she had to say. If she had known something about my mother, she would have been much more cautious.


My mother came from a very poor background-poor not only financially but in every other respect.\footnote{(Ae) Autobiog of Wanda (the entire document).} Her position at the bottom of the social scale had been very painful to her, and she saw academic achievement, much more than financial success, as the avenue to the social status that she craved. She had neither the intelligence nor the self-discipline to achieve anything herself, however, so she sought to fulfill her ambitions through her children.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 78, 79; (Da) Ralph Meister’s Declaration, p.1, paragraph 5; p.2, paragraphs 7, 8,} Duringmyearly years her expectations were reasonable and she put only very moderate pressure on me to perform well in school, but from the time of Miss Frye’s phone call, she was filled with grandiose fantasies of what I was supposed to achieve.


Even at that time I felt that my mother’s reaction to Miss Frye’s call was childish. Her excessive exhibitions of pleasure seemed ridiculous, and she immediately telephoned some ofour relativesinorder tobragto them. She told me a great deal that Miss Frye had asked her to keep secret from me. She admonished me not to reveal these things to anyone, because “Miss Frye says we’re not supposed to tell you; but we feel that we can treatyou as an adult.” It was from this time that I gradually began to lose respect for my parents.\footnote{Regarding the last sentence of this paragraph, see (Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, p.39; for all the rest of the paragraph, see same document, p.24}


It was essentially Miss Frye who decided that I should skip a grade. She had the consent of the school authorities and the enthusiastic support of my mother, but they relied on herjudgment as the supposed expert. Why did she make that decision? My mother told me at the time that it was because the tests showed that my greatest ability lay in the area of mathematics and physics, and(supposedly) mathematicians and physicists burned out young. Hence they were to be educated rapidly so that maximum use couldbe made of their ability while it lasted.


Many years afterward, in a discussion with my mother, I bitterly criticized the decision to put me in seventh grade. At that time she tried to justify the decision by claimingthat Miss Frye had said I was drawing “violent” pictures during my free time in school, and that pushing me a year ahead was somehow supposed to cure me of this.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 2.4. 25; (Ca) PL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, p.10; (Cc) Notes on Family Letters, Number 3 (written in 1991), p.5.} The proposition that academic acceleration will cure anyone ofviolent fantasies seems dubious, to say the least. Anyway, I replied to my mother that drawing war pictures and the like was commonplace among boys of that age at that time and place, but she insisted that no, my drawings were different.\footnote{(Cc) Notes on Family Letters, Number 3 (written in 1991), p.5.} I brought the subject up again in 1991] in a letter to my mother: “You claim that Miss Frye said I was drawing pictures of violence during my spare moments in school\dots{} I’m not aware that I drew violent pictures any more often than the other boys. Miss Frye may have thought I did, but I certainly wouldn’t trust her judgment. \dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, p.10.} My mother now changed her story. She wrote: “Mour memory of Frye is faulty. She considered your drawings quite normal. Just drawings of battle scene strategy.”\footnote{(Ca) PL\#459, letterfrom my mother to me.July 12, 1991, pp.1, 2.} This is a typical example of the way my mother plays fast and loose with the truth in order to suit her purposes of the moment.


Was I drawing abnormally violent pictures at the age of ten? All I can say is that I do not remember making any drawings that would be considered unusual for a ten-year-old boy.\footnote{(Ac) Auto biog oflJK1979, p.25: “[M]any of the other boys drew warlike or gruesome pictures. Whether I drew such pictures more frequently than the other boys is a point on which my memory does not enlighten me.N} And my mother’s statement quoted above, that Miss Frye considered me “well-adjusted,” weighs against the abnormal-drawing story (assuming, of course, that my mother’s statement is true, which may not be the case).



\bigskip


It was from the time I skipped a grade that I began to have serious problems with social adjustment. I was not acceptedby the seventh-graders with whom I was put. I quickly slid down to near the bottom of the pecking order, and I stayed there until I graduated from high-school. I was often subjecred to insults or other indignities by the dominant boys.\footnote{(Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, pp. .3, 4; (Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1979, pp. 25-29; (Ad) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Auto biog of TJK 1988, pp. 2, 3; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 10-12.. In (Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959 I greatly understated the humiliations to which I had been subjected in school because I was profoundly ashamed of them. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf The abuse I suffered in school was mostly psychological. but there was a small amount ofphysical abuse. (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.28: 1A] certain fellow verbally abused me, kicked my leg. and kicked my brief. case-all for no apparent reason\dots{} (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.26: “‘[In gym classJa large, heavy boy intentionally ran into me during a game, knocked me down, and fell on me, bruising my ann very painfully.ff \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf The injurywas severe enoughso that my parents took me to the hospital and had my arm CDminid to make sure that it wasn’t broken. (Ea) Med Records of TJK, U. Chi, September 21, 1956, pp. 69-71. The “large, heavy boyN referred to was Junior Hufft. When investigators working on my case tried to track him down. they found that his last known address was a transient hotel.} My attempts to make advances to girls had such humiliating results that for many years afterward, even until after the age of thirty, I found it excruciatingly difficult-almost impossible-to make advances to women.\footnote{(Ab) Autobiogof 1JK 1959, pp. 4, 14; (Ac) Autobiog-of 1JK1979, pp. 25, 52-55, 131; (Ad) Autobiog of 1JK 1988, pp. 2-4, 9, u, n; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 14, 15. Again. shame led me to understate the case in(Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959.}


Investigators working for my defense team obtained the following information from Michael Johnson, an administrator at Evergreen Park Community High School.


Johnson \dots{} flatly declared that the experiment of skipping kids ahead grades was a huge failure. The experiment was a notable failure during the era that Ted Kaczynski was promoted. Johnson added that the experiment was most especially a disaster with boys and indicated that he could document the face that many of the boys who had been skipped ahead during Ted’s era ended up as outcasts \dots{} Less-bright kids become resentful of those boys who are advanced ahead, causing the smartand accelerated kids to be even more acutely ostracized from their peer groups. More important, Johnson added, girls do not go out with boys who are younger. Thus, these boys have been set up for failure, and fail they do. The act of pushing youngsters ahead is almost never done anymore as a result of these past experiments. In fact, the state of Illinois now requires kids to be older before they can be promoted ahead a year.\footnote{(Qb) Written lnvcstigator Report \#57, MichaelJohnson.}


I was not the only kid who was rejected for being smart. There were several other boys who had a reputation for being academically oriented and as a result were harassed or treated with contempt by the “tough” kids.\footnote{Sevual. funner studena at Evergreen Park Community High School who were interviewed by investigators confirmed that academically oriented kids were harassed and insulted. These included Greg Davis. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#1.8, pp. 1-3; Roger Podewell ( Qb) Written Investigator Report \#104, pp. r, 2; Wayne Tr. (Qb) Written Investigator Report p.3. As I’ve indicated in the Introduction, information reported to investigators about decades-old events has often proved wildly inaccurate, especially when (as in this case) there have been media reports that may have influenced it. However, Greg Davis’s reports of bitter personal experiences should probably be given weight as showing the enstence ofharassment.} But in my case the problems were compounded by the fact that, during the same period. I was being subjected to psychological abuse by both my parents.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 442, 47: (Ca) FL \#329, letter from me to David Kaczynski, March 15, 1986, p.2; (Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p.3; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 5-8, 12; (Da) Ralph Meister’s Decluanon, p.3, paragraph 9 states: ‘i\textbackslash{}t\dots{}times, Wanda lost control and Vffllally abused him.” Further documentation will be given inChapter 4 \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Some people seem to think that only physical and sexual abuse constitute real abuse and that Vffllal, psychological, and emotional abuse arc relatively insignificant. I’ve been corresponding with a young woman who fur years wu subjected to sezual abuse by her stepfather, so that no one will deny that she knows what real abuse is. Later, in adult life, she was subjected to verbal and psychological eby her husband, and here is what she wrote to me about it in a letter dated Navember 23, 1998: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf You asked me on the phone Sunday. if I had ever broken down-Did you mean if I had evi:r succumbed psychologically. i.e., had a ‘breakdown’ on account of the verbal\Slash{}psychological abuse? I know that I have broken into sweats, felt horribly nerwus, and have felt my pulse racing, etc. Howevu, the most prominent\Slash{}unnerving of all feelings, is the intense, as well as uncontrollable anger I have felt coward him. I have also aied-if not hysterically. then as if I might never stop. The abuse has done something to me Theodore; it has made me prone to horrible anger\dots{}” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (This letter is not covered in the Notes on Documents, since it had not been written when those notes were prepared.)}


I’ve already described the change in my mother’s personality that began not long after my brother’s birth. By the time I was in my teens, she was having frequent outbursts of rage during which her face would become contorted and she would wave her clenched fists while unleashing a stream of unrestrained verbal abuse.\footnote{During October or November of 1996, Invatigator \#3 told me that Dr. K.. had told him that my brother had told her that my mother would have outbursts of rage during which her face would become red and contorted and she would make angry gestures that frightened my brother. It is true that my mother did have such outbursts, but I am relying on memory fur the fact that Investigator \#3 made this statement to me, since I did not write it down at the time. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf On August 14, 1997, I asked Or. K.. to confirm •this, and what she gave me then was a weaker version: “K asked, what did you see when (your mother] was angry? [Dave] said: Change of color in her face, her speech became quicker, she might make sudden movements. K asked what he meant. He said she would shake her hands and stomp her foot. As a child he felt that it felt close to feeling what violence would feel like-it was threatening.” (Ra) Oral Report from Dr. K.., August 14, 1997. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I had the distinct impression from Dr. K. that Hit felt dose to feeling what violence would feel like” wu a verbatim quote of my brother’s words, and I clearly remember that I asked her to repeat the sentence so that I could be sure that I bad it written down corre Nevertheless, when I asked herfur confirmation of this report onFebruary n, 1998, she gave me the following version, which seems somewhat weaker: “Or. K asked how did he know my mother was angry. When she was very angryyou could tell because her color would change. speech would get quicker, would make sudden movements, that one could imagine would be closer to violence. Dr. K asked him what he meant. He said like shake her hands and stomp her foot.” (Ra) Oral Report from Dr. K., February 12. 1998. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I asked Or. K. about the words, “it felt close to feeling what violence would feel like,” and she said she couldn’t find them in her notes. IfDr. K. is askedabout this matter again, I have no idea what she will say. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In any case, I know from my own memories that my mother did have outbursu of rage as I’ve described} Even when she wasn’t having one of her outbursts, she was often very irritable and would scold or make vicious remarks at the slightest provocation.


The change in my mother affected my father. He became morose and pessimistic, and when family squabbles arose, he tended to sit in his easy chair and retreat behind a newspaper or book, ignoring the sordid turmoil around him.\footnote{(Ra) Oral Report from Or. K., July 24, 199;. “Wanda \dots{} Spoke of Ted R. withdrawingbehind the newspaper. He didn’t like conflict, would withdrawfrom it and pick up the paper.” 1nisis what Or. K. told me, but. as I’ve noted elsewhere, she sometimes changes her story or claims she can’t remember something she told me, so I do not know whether she will confirm this infurmationifshe is asked.} Sometimes, however, his patience became exhausted and he would have angry arguments with my mother orwith me.


But my father’s moroseness was not exclusively an outcome of the family situation. I believe that he had deep-lying negative feelings about himself, about people, and about life in general. When he was in his mid-sixties and more ready to express his feelings than he’d been when he was younger, he took a car-camping trip by himsel£ On returning he said, “I can’t be alone, because I don’t like myself.” He tended to sec other people as dirty or sick. For example, when I visited my parents in 1978, my father described his emplyer; Wm Pl., to me as a pathologically compulsive talker. Later I got to know Wm Pl. myself, and I found that he was rather talkative, but by no means abnormally so. My father also used to speak of some of our relatives and other people in terms that exaggerated their fail. ings and portrayed them as sick or repellent.


Throughout my teens I was the wget of frequent verbal aggression (often unprovoked) from both my parents, especially my mother.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 442, 47: (Ca) FL \#329, letter from me to David Kaczynski, March 15, 1986, p.2; (Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p.3; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 5-8, 12; (Da) Ralph Meister’s Decluanon, p.3, paragraph 9 states: ‘i\textbackslash{}t\dots{}times, Wanda lost control and Vffllally abused him.” Further documentation will be given inChapter 4 \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Some people seem to think that only physical and sexual abuse constitute real abuse and that Vffllal, psychological, and emotional abuse arc relatively insignificant. I’ve been corresponding with a young woman who fur years wu subjected to sezual abuse by her stepfather, so that no one will deny that she knows what real abuse is. Later, in adult life, she was subjected to verbal and psychological eby her husband, and here is what she wrote to me about it in a letter dated Navember 23, 1998: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf You asked me on the phone Sunday. if I had ever broken down-Did you mean if I had evi:r succumbed psychologically. i.e., had a ‘breakdown’ on account of the verbal\Slash{}psychological abuse? I know that I have broken into sweats, felt horribly nerwus, and have felt my pulse racing, etc. Howevu, the most prominent\Slash{}unnerving of all feelings, is the intense, as well as uncontrollable anger I have felt coward him. I have also aied-if not hysterically. then as if I might never stop. The abuse has done something to me Theodore; it has made me prone to horrible anger\dots{}” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (This letter is not covered in the Notes on Documents, since it had not been written when those notes were prepared.)} The insults that cut me deepest were the imputations of mental illness or gross immaturity.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 40, 41,} I think it was my father who started these when I was about twelve years old. The rejection I experienced from my peers at school, in combination with the deteriorating family atmosphere, made me often sullen and cranky,\footnote{Same, p.42,} and my father, characteristically. interpreted this in terms of psychopathology. He began calling me “sick” whenever he was annoyed with me. My mother imitated him in this respect, and from then on until I was about 21 years old. both my parents would apply to me such epithets as “sick,” “immarure,” “emotionally disturbed.” “creep,” “mind of a two-year-old,” or “anotherEugene P.t.”\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 442, 47: (Ca) FL \#329, letter from me to David Kaczynski, March 15, 1986, p.2; (Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p.3; (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 5-8, 12; (Da) Ralph Meister’s Decluanon, p.3, paragraph 9 states: ‘i\textbackslash{}t\dots{}times, Wanda lost control and Vffllally abused him.” Further documentation will be given inChapter 4 \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Some people seem to think that only physical and sexual abuse constitute real abuse and that Vffllal, psychological, and emotional abuse arc relatively insignificant. I’ve been corresponding with a young woman who fur years wu subjected to sezual abuse by her stepfather, so that no one will deny that she knows what real abuse is. Later, in adult life, she was subjected to verbal and psychological eby her husband, and here is what she wrote to me about it in a letter dated Navember 23, 1998: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf You asked me on the phone Sunday. if I had ever broken down-Did you mean if I had evi:r succumbed psychologically. i.e., had a ‘breakdown’ on account of the verbal\Slash{}psychological abuse? I know that I have broken into sweats, felt horribly nerwus, and have felt my pulse racing, etc. Howevu, the most prominent\Slash{}unnerving of all feelings, is the intense, as well as uncontrollable anger I have felt coward him. I have also aied-if not hysterically. then as if I might never stop. The abuse has done something to me Theodore; it has made me prone to horrible anger\dots{}” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (This letter is not covered in the Notes on Documents, since it had not been written when those notes were prepared.)} (Eugene P. was a man we knew who ended up in a mental institution.) [twas always in an outburst of anger that my mother called me these things, but my father sometimes did so in a tone of cold contempt that cut worse than my mother’s angry shouting.\footnote{Same, p.41.} Neither of my parents ever suggested that I should be examined by a psychologist or psychiatrist.\footnote{This is confirmed in the interview with my mother in (Hb) Washington Post.June 16, 1996, p.A2.o.} My mother never actually thought that there was anything wrong with me mentally. and I doubt that my father saw me as any sicker than he saw many other people.\footnote{From (Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late March or early April 1986,p.21: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf “I never, ever recall the parents berating you to me. In mt, they always encouraged me to look up to you. H \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf My parents would hardly have encouraged my brother to look up to me if they had thought I was the kind of sicko that the media have portrayed with my mother’s and brother’s encouragement.} In saying cruel thing:s to me my parents were only using me as a butt on which to take out their own frustrations.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letterfrom me to my mother, July 5, 1991, pp. 3, 6.}


Though the imputations of mental illness were what hurt me most, they comprised only a small part of the constant verbal bullying to which I was subjected day in and day out. My mother was continually shouting. scolding, insulting. and blaming me for everything that went wrong. regardless ofwhether I could have been responsible for it. During the summer before I entered Harvard. she made an appointment for me to see a professional photographer for a picture that the university wanted for its records. When the day of the appointment arrived, as it happened. I had a pimple on the end of my nose. My motherangrily scolded me for it. “Look at you! Now you’ve got a pimple on your nose! You’re going to lookterrible in your Harvard photo! \dots{}”Andon and on, as ifit were my fault that I had a pimple.


In another case my mother drove me and some other members of the high-school band to a usic lesson. On the way back, the other boys, who were older than I was, •talked a good deal about cars and driving. It made me feel small, since I was still too young to drive. After she dropped the other boys off, my motherbegan scolding me angrily: “Whydon’tyou get a driver’s license like the other kids so I won’t have to be drivingyou all over the place all the time?” I quietly pointed out that I was only fifteen years old and couldn’t get a license until I was sixteen. Instead ofacknowledgingthat she was wrong and apologizing, my mother answered in an angry tone, ‘Well then, get a license as soon as you are sixteen! \dots{} (etc.]”


Once when I ade a negative remark about someone’s competence, my father answered in a cold and sneering tone, “You’ll never be half as competent as he is.” My father did not typically lose his temper openly. Yet he sometimes did so; in a few cases, he shouted at me, “I’ll smash your face!” I didn’t believe he would really smash my face, but still it was frightening to hear him say that.


These are only a few examples of the kinds of things that went on constantly.


Physical abuse was minimal. but there was a little of it. A couple of times my father threw me on the floor in the course of family squabbles. My mother occasionally would flail at me with her fists, but by that time I was old enough (and my mother was weak enough) so that she didn’t hurt me.


Contrary to what my motherand brotherhave told the media, up to the age or seventeen or so I was not socially isolated. Throughout my gradeschool and high-school years I had several friends at all times.\footnote{(Ad) Autobiog of TJK 1988, p.12. In (Ab) Autobiog ofTJK 1959, p.n, I wrote: “My friendships arc usually of long duration. Fairly close. but never really intimate.I was not aware of41l.)’ really intimate friendships among the boys in high-school The reader who thinks that there should have been such friendships should bear in mind that the teenage culture of Bvergrcen Park in 1955-58 may have been quite difl’ercnt from what he is familiar with. Boys simply did not bare their souls to one another. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I went to Harvard at the age of sixteen and made no close or lasting friendships there. However, during the summer following my freshman year at Harvani I continued to associate with some of my high-school friends ((Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.94; (Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, pp. 10, u; here, the “rather dull fellow” is Felix Towns, the “large fat fellow” is Russell Mosny. and the Hvcry tall lank fellow” is Bob Pc.). Consequently I date my social isolation fiom age seventeenrather than sixteen. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf By the way. there is an error on p.94 of (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979-I wrote: ‘1 think I became pretty well separated fiom all my Evergreen Park friends within about a year after leaving college.” Instead of “college,” I should have written “high’schooL” I meant that I became separatedfrom these friends after the summer following my first year at college. Actually; my memory of the chronology is rather fuzzy here. It’s pomblc that I may have continued to associate with some of my high-school friends even during the summer following my second year at college. In (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 94, 95, l may have inadvertently telescoped the events of two summers into one.} Though I was not accepted by most of the seventh-graders with whom I was put when I skipped a grade, I continued to associate with some of the friends and acquaintances I’d made in fifth grade. For cnmple, Larry S. was a patrol boy, and I used to stand on his comer with him during the lunch hour; and I continued to associate with Dale Eickclman\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK rm, pp. 54; (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#34, Dale EickeIman.} until I finished high-school Moreover, I soonbegan to make friends amongtheboys in my own grade;\footnote{(Ab) Autobiog of TJK 1959, p.3, referring to seventh grade: “I did malce a couple of good friends among the better students \dots{} “} but most of these friends had low status among the other boys,\footnote{(Ad\} Autobiog of TJK 1988, p.12..} and some of them, like me, hada reputation as “brains”.and for that reason were subjected to insults and indignities. On the other hand, one of my best friends had below-average intelligence.\footnote{(Ab) Auto biog of 1JK1959, p.10: “One of my oldest friends is a rather dull fellow, avuage intelligence \dots{}” This wu Felix Towns. I was probably giving him a little too much credit in describing his intelligence as average.} Apartfrom those already mentioned, a list of my friends from seventh grade through high-school would include Bob Pe.,\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 30, 94-95. Bob Pe. is the “very tall lank fellow” desatbed as one of my best friends in (Ab) Autobiog of1JK1959, p.n. Bob Pe. confirmed his friendship with me in (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#loo.} Tom Kn.,\footnote{Ruth Kn., Tom’s mother, has confirmed that he and I were friends. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#64. p.1. I mention this report for whatevu it may be worth, but some of the other information given by Mrs. Kn. is incorrect.} Felix Townst,\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, p.} and Greg Davis.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, p.} I hung around with Russell Mosny\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 15, 94. 119-111. Mosny is the “large. fat fellow” referred to in (Ab) Auto biog of1JK1959, pp. 10, n.} quite a bit, but I never liked him much. We tended to be thrown together because we were in many of the same classes and were both “brains” who were treated with contempt by the “tough” kids. Both Mosny and Greg Davis seemed to become cool toward me during my last year or so of high-school,\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, p.} but at the same time I became closer to Bob Pc. and Tom Kn., and I made a newfriend, Terry L.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofT]K1979, pp. 19,}


Having these friends, however, by no means compensated me for the pain of the humiliatingly low status I had in school. I skipped my junior year in high-school,\footnote{(Fb) School Records of 1JK. E.P. High School; (Fe) School Records of lJK, Harvard, pp. u. 14: (Ac) Auto biog of 1JK1979, p.18; (Ab) Autobiog of 1JK 1959, p..a; (Aa) Aurobiog of T]K1958, p.2.} and after that I was with kids who were two years older than I was. Most of these kids didn’t insult me, but they treated me with condescension,\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TjK1979, p.:z.8.} which was perhaps worse, and, with the exception of Terry L., none of them had any interest in making friends with me.


Even though I had friends, I spent a good deal of time alone. By the time I was in high-school, B.O. had moved away and four other boys in my age group had moved into our block. One of these was simply a jerk. The other three. the Tr. boys, were joclcs and belonged to the “set” in school by which I was intimidated; and moreover I had little in common with them. With the exception of Bob Pc., all of my friends lived far enough away so that visiting was inconvenient, and consequently we went to each other’s homes only occasionally. Our activities tended to consist of aimless time-killing. We rarely engaged in athletics apart from occasional games of catch. we never undertook any significant joint projects, we never attended y sodal functions together. As I’ve already noted, most of my friends had low status, and. while I was in school with them. none was very active socially and none had girlfriends. If they ever dated, they never mentioned it to me.


The only serious activity I had was trombone playing; my music lessons brought me into contact with one of the very few adults I knew at the time whom I really respected, my teacher, Jaroslav Cimera. Two of my friends, Tom Kn. and Fellic Towns, also played the trombone, and I often played ducts with one or the other of them.


Still, until I went to Harvard, my adolescence tended to be an alternation among different kinds of boredom: A boring day in school, a boring visit with a friend. a few boring hours piddling around in my attic room, another boring day in school. This doesn’t mean that I never had fun with my friends or alone, bur that boredom was a nagging problem for me.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 46, 47 has: ‘i’broughout my earlier teem I suf. fered inaeasingly \&om chronic boredom. \dots{} Often I would visita mend’s home, or a mend would visit my home. But if these visits lasted any length of time, I would usually get bored. \dots{} Best. I liked physical games such u playing catch: but \dots{} outside ofgym classes, l never had a chaace to participate in complicated games lik.e softball and football, which I suppose would have held my interest better. Because there Weie never enough guys available for a regular game, we had to play very simple games like catch\dots{}}


@@@Now let’s look at the way my brother and mother have portrayed me and our family life during this period. rlffl, the entries in my medical records that are evidently based on my mother’s statements to the doctors\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of 1JK. U Chi., April 14. 1951, p.53; April 17, 1953, p.57: April 27, 1954, p.58; April 14, 1955, p.59; April 10, 1956, p.6r, June 1957, p.73; April 11, 1958, P.74}:


“April 24, 1952 \dots{} Appetite, activity and general adjustment arc all quite good\dots{}


“April 17, 1953 \dots{} He eats well. plays accively. presents no behavior problems. . April 27, t954 \dots{} Now in ]th Grade and does well. Does well socially.”“ April 14, 1955 \dots{} Eighth grade. Good grades. Active in some sports. No further[?] problem except for some adolescent [illegible]”


“April 20, 1956 \dots{} He does very well at school-not too much of a socializer, but is known as a ‘brain’. Gets along well with others when he tries-seems popular but a little aloof. ..


“June [?], 1957 \dots{} Accelerated in high school and will finish next spring by going to summer school Has his eye on Harvard and [illegible] in physics and math.


Health has been good but mother is concerned lest program be too strenuous for him. Appetite good. Not very much physical activity. No great interest in girls as yet.”



\begin{quote}


“April 21, 1958 \dots{} Ted has been well during the past year. No problems.



\end{quote}


Is doing very well at school. \dots{}”


The reason why my mother gave rhe docrors a rosy picture of my adjustment (with barely a hint of social difficulties in the April :w. 1956 entry) is that she has always been enremely concerned with respecrability\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, p.79: “Respectability is important to her.”} and with presenting to the world an attractive picrure of our family, and to this end she docs not hesitate to lie.


In response to a request from Harvard. during the summer before I entered college she wrote a long (two single-spaced pages) letter in which she desaibed my personality. [n it she gives a fairy-tale portrait of me as a budding intelleaual For cnmplc. she speaks of my “serious goals” and “ivory•towerish intellectuality,” when in reality I didn’t have any clear goals at all and had little respect for intellectualism. In fairness to my moth I should mention that in this letter she probably was not lying calculatedly. She talked herself into believing all that crap before she wrote itdown and sent it to Harvard. Her capacity for self-deception is remarkable. What is significant for us here, though. is the way she desaibcd my psythological and social adjustment:


Ted is strong. stable. and ha.s an acellent capacity for self-discipline. However. I feel that he may be lonlier [sic] than most boys the first few months away from home.


\dots{} Ted does not respond quickly to friendly overtures. He is pleasant and polite. but reserved; and accepts only an occasional. individual as a friend. Once he does, however, the relationship is permanent. All of his friends share at least one of his strong interests. One of these friendships is based on a mutual fondness for exploring the countryside and searching for fossils, arrowheads, and unusual rocks \dots{} He meets with another couple of friends because of a shared appreciation for listening to and making music. \dots{} Ted is also very fond of another boy who shares with him a love for intelleccual sparring. witty exchange and endless polemics. The written and verbal communication of satire and analysis on innumerable subjects by these two boys would fill a volume. [My mother has surpassed herself here. The two musical friends must have been Tom Kn. and Felix Towns, but I have no idea who the other two friends could have been.]


The fact that he taw so little initiative in finding friends. that he accepts the advances of so few people.\footnote{l can think of few instances (prior to the time when my mother wrote this letter) in which I intentionally rejected friendly advances. No doubt I often seemed cool toward people; this was because my aperiences in school had conditioned me to be afraid of social situations and of the possibility of rejection. Moreover, one of the symptoms ofabuse is social withdrawal. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf From (Ac) Autobiogof 1JK1979, pp. 18, 19: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Asa result of[the rejection l’d ezperienced] I dunk I dC’Jdoped a kind ofstoical coldness. (Not daring to fight back. and not wishing to show weakness, my only choice in the face of hostility was to be cold and Stoical.) The cold impression was often accentuated by shyness, andI suspect that my apparent cold aloof.. ness may halienated some kids who might otherwise have been friendly.} and makes no attempt to join social groups makes us worry about the pombility of his being a pretty lonely boy (from our point of view-he claims he never feels lonely because there is so much to do.) \dots{}\footnote{Actually I suffeied from chronic boredom. See Note 42.} rred] has, as his counselor and teachers have said ‘a delightful personality. very witty and very clever’ \dots{}\dots{} rred is] working successfully as a busboy this summer and being well-acceptedby the other people working there.\footnote{The truth: “(M]y parents put pressure on me to cam money to help pay for my education\dots{} l was supposed to be not only brilliant, butindustrious\dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I felt very shy and uncomfortable among the people on these jobs. When asked about my personal background I should have lied. The first job I had the first summerwas as a busboy in a restaurant. One waitress theie gave me a hard time, beingevidentlyjealous of myeducation; she would bitterly make remarks like: ‘We don’t need brains around here-we need a strongback.’»-(Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, p.95.}


One of the things that Ted’s counselor hoped be would learn to do was bring ‘his light out from under the gushcl (sic; bushel” is meant]’. He has always functioned naturally and creatively \dots{} almost devoid of the desire to impress or communicate\dots{} Perhaps the poor quality of the school and neighborhood cnviomment [sic] of his first ten years had something to do with this. Looking back, we realize how little stimulation and understanding he found there. Our own confusion, uncertainty, and worry about his ever-increasing propensity for solitary play didn’t help matters. The high-school counselor feels that Ted should become increasingly aware of the desircability [sic] of projecting his ‘brilliance and wit.’ More often now, he will be placed in situations in which a stranger may want to assess his talents in half an hour’s time. His whole future may depend on his ability and awareness of the need to project himself at will at a particular time.”\footnote{(Fe) School Records ofTJK. Harvard. pp. 18, 19; letter from Wanda Kaczynski to Slciddy Von Stade (Harvard Dean of Freshmen), July 16, 1958. I had already been admitted to Harvard. so there was no need for my mother to fib in order to secure my admission.}


Contrast the foregoing with my mother’s portrayal of me in her interviews with the Washington Post\footnote{(Hb) Washington Pose, June 16, 1996,} and on 6o Minuta,\footnote{(He) 6o Minutes, September 15, 1996.} in which she depicted me as severely disnubed and almost completely isolated socially. You can believe one version orthe other, ifyou like. but you can’t bcliboth, since they arc clearly inconsistent. Thus my mother is again shown to be a liar. For present purposes it is beside the point whether she lies calculatedly or talks herself into believing her own crap before she tells it to others.


It is true, though. that my mother may not have realized the full extent of the social difficulties that I encountered from the time I skipped sixth grade. I said nothing to my parents about those difficulties because in our family talking about personal problems, particularly on the part of my brother and me, was almost taboo.\footnote{My brothertold Or. K. that there was no Hpermission» to talkwith parents about internal struggles. (Ra) Oral Reports from Dr. K., July 24, 1w, and February 12, 1998. \& noted elsewhere, oral reports I’ve received have not proved reliable; but sec Note 52.} n Tim was especially true in my case, because, ever since Miss Frye had told her about my high IQ score, my mother expected me to be her perfect little genius. If ever I revealed to her any failure, any weakness, it disappointed her and consequently her response was coldand aitical.\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofTJK 1979, p.115; (Ca) FL \#458, lettcrfrom me to my mother,July 5, 1991, pp. 6, 7. (Da) Ralph Meister’s Declaration, p.3, paragraph IO has: Teddy John was . . . afraid to tell Wanda about emotional problems or difficulties he encountered with his peer group because that would have caused a rent in the pictureshe had ofherson.H”}



\bigskip


According to the New York Times. my brother descibcd our father as “always gcncrous.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 16, 1996, p.:22., column 1.} In his interview with the SIICr4fflffltD Bo:, my brother asserted that both our parents were “wmn and nurturing.”\footnote{(He) Sacr4fflfflta Bee, January 19, 1997, p.AI6, columnI,} According to the transaipt of the 6o Mimaa interview of my brother and my mother, Leslie Stahl stated:


Ted’s fancasies, his family says, included accusations that his parents had verbally abused and rejected him; accusations that became more and more bizarre.\footnote{(He) 6o Mintats, September 15, 1996, PartOne, p.8.}”


Laterin the interview, my brother said:


[Ted’s) feelings about our family bear no relationship to the reality of the family life that we experienced. These were laving. supportive parents.\footnote{Same, PartTwo, p.3.} But here is what my brother told the FBI. according to the latter’s “302” reports of interviews with him:


The relationship between TED Sc [Theodore R. Kaczynski, my father] and TED was mostly difficult and conflicted. \dots{} DAVE remembers specifically that his father often told TED, ‘You’re just like [EUGENE],’ identifying[EUGENE] as a ca.worker ofhis father’s at the sausage factory who was diagnosed schizophrenic. His father would often tell TED ‘you have the mind of a two year-old’ DAVE remembered a specific incident when TED ran to his father saying. ‘Give me a kiss,’ and was rebuffed; TED Sr. pushed him away and said. ‘You’re just like a little girl. always wanting to kiss.’ TED eventually ‘got his kiss,’ DAVE said. but he never remembered that TED asked his father ever again for affcaion. TED became increasingly redusive, and quarrelled constantly with his mothcc TED Sc’s behavior toward his oldest son became increasingly cold and distant, and he ‘mostly showed his disapproval’ concerning TED.\footnote{(Na) FBI Jen number 2, pp. 6, 7.}


Family members often ridiculed TED when they compared TED with DAVE who was well liked because he bad better social skills.\footnote{(Na) FBI 3en numberI, p.3.} [False; I was not ..ridiculed” for this.]


DAVE noted that despite WANDA’s concerns that certain actions she and her husband cook during TED’s childhood must been at least partly responsible for TED’s lifelong problems and isolation, WANDA is defensive of her own actions in general. and secs herself as having unfairly carried the main burdens of both her family of origin and her own family. DAVE characterized his mother as ‘often difficult herself’ \dots{}\footnote{(Na) FBI Jen number3, p.5.}


Thus, my brother is. dearly shown to be a liar. It’s true chat the FBI’s “[302” reports often have inaccuracies, and chat the foregoing passages contain significant errors. (Whether the errors originated with the FBI or with my brother is an open question.) But it is hardly likely that the FBI would just make all this up out of nothing; and. as a matter of fact, much of it is corroborated by my autobiographies and by family correspondence.\footnote{See Note 21 above. But contrary to what the FBI says my brothertold them, Iwas compared to Eugene P. only twice, and in at least one of those cases it was my motherwho made the comparison.}


In my 1979 autobiography, I wrote: “One day. when I might have been about 6 years old, my mother, father, and I were all set to go out somewhere. I was in a joyful mood. I ran up co my father and announced that I wanted to kiss him. He said. ‘You’re like a little girl. always wanting to kiss. I immediately turned cold and drew back resentfully. My father immediately regretted what he had done and said, ‘Oh, that’s alright. You can kiss if you want to.’ But there was no warmth in his voice. Of course, I didn’t kiss him then\dots{}”\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, p.18. The story is also told in (Ca) FL \#339, letter from me to David czynski, Summer 1986, p . .i. My brother probably got the story from this lettcrd at some subsequenttime began to imagine that he had witnessed theincidenthimseJf.}


1bis agrees fairly well with the account in the FBI report; but notice that the incident occurred when I was about six years old-before my brother’s birth. Thus the FBI report’s implication that my brother personally witnessed this incident is false. My 1979 autobiography continues:


But the reader should be careful not to get an exaggerated idea of the coldness that my father occasionally exhibited-generally speaking I felt r had a good relationship with my parents that didn’t show any serious decerioration until I was about 11 years old.\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofT]K1979, pp. 18, 19.}


My father didbecome rather cold toward me during my teens, though my brother’s account, as reported by the PBI, somewhat overstates the case. I wrote in my 1979 autobiography. rcmngto my teen years:


[M]y father tended to be cold. Duringmy middle teens I felt there was an undercurrent of scorn in his attitude towardme\dots{}\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofTJK 1979, p.41. (Ca) FL \#4a,, letter from me to David Kaczynski, October 13, 1990, p.r ha.s: “.. during my teens, but, while Dad was always rather coldto meduringthat period\dots{} Also sec (Ca) FL \#41’8, lettcr from me to my mother, October13, 1990(copykept in cabin).}


My brother and my mother state (more-or-less correctly) that, during my adolescence, when visitors arrived at our house, I would often retreatto my room.\footnote{(He) 6o Mintats, September 15, 1996, PartOne, p.3: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf WANDA KACZINSKI: \dots{} if ffed] heard cars driving up, he’d say ‘ooh, there’s so-and-so.’ He says, ‘don’t call me down. I-I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to sec them.He’d go upstairs. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf This is roughly true. See also (Hb) W4.fhingra,t Post, June 16, 1996, p.A2.o, middle of last column on che page. And sec (Na) FBI 301 numberI, p.3: “DAVE noted chat TED would often retreat to the attic whenever anyone came to die house co VlSit.”} Thus they unwittingly revealed information that helps to confirm the abuse: According to investigators who have experience with cases that involve child abuse, withdrawing from visitors is a common reaction of abused children.\footnote{(Qc) Written Repom by Investigator \#2. px “Withdrawal is a common reaction for abwed children and includes withdrawingfrom visitors.”}



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 4. My parents’ treatment of me during my adolescence, as discussed in the Family Letters}


Even afterward, I nursed a grudge against my parents for the insults rd had to take from them as a teenager. But that wasn’t the only source of my resenancnt against them. Thcic were other ways in which they had thrown burdens on me; for c:zample. they aied to exploit my talents to feed their vanity. And evm after I’d reached adulthood my mother’s behavior continued to be troublesome. especially her nagging and her insults. Only in the case of my brother did I enjoy a relationship that was, from my point of view, more positive than negative; and with that relationship too thcic were very delying problems that did not become fully apparent until much later. The fact is that I simply didn’t fit with the other members of my family, and while my memories of verbal abuse fot!Ilcd the focal point of my resentment, that resentment really had broader origins and was my respome to the unworkable relationship that I had with my parents and my brother.


All this will be explained in due course. Our wk in the present chapter will be to review all of the survivingfamily correspondence that has abearing on my parents’ treatment of me during my adolescence. Almost all of my discussion of this issue with them was carried on by letter from my cabin in Montana.


It wasn’t until about the beginning of March 1974 that l confronted my parents openly on this matter. The letter in which I did so has not been preserved, hue ic is referred to in a letter that I sent my brother several weeks later. rd been enjoying a solitary winter in my Montana cabin. I described to my brother what happened, as follows:


I suppose you know that I am noc on speaking terms with ourparents. In case they haven’t given you the full story. here it is: I told them repeatedly. in letters and on the telephone, ‘Don’t worry about me over the winter-you won’t hear from me until I get out of here in the spring.”“ I made a particularpoint ofemphasizing this, because I know what motheris like. Some time in February I got a card from the old bag saying she was worried and wanted to hear from me. Then about the end of February I got a letter from them saying that if they didn’t hear from me soon they wmdd conraa tu authoritia and have tlttm chlc up on nt£. The text ofthe let-tcrstated (in effect) that it was from Dad, but the style and the worries were so like the old bag that I assume she induced him to write the letter. [Actually. she probably wrote it herself and signed it ““Dad.”“ My mother’s handwriting is not very easy co distinguish from my father’s.] So I had to get a letter out to them so as nottothe cops come up here to checkon me. This cost me considerable embarrassment and inconvenience [I had a roadside mailbm, but at that time I think I didn’t know that I could use it to send mail as well as receive it, so I walked four mile:s to Lincoln to mail the letter], and worse still, itbroke into that sense ofisolation thatI so value up here. You may be sure that I cussed them out pretty thoroughly. 111 is cussing out was further aggravated by some f’cstcring past n:sentments against them-some of recent origin and some going all the way back to myteens.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#149, letter from me to David Kaczynski. April,i. 1974. pp. t, 2.}


The recent resentments mentioned here had to do with difficult behavioron my mother’s pare that we will speakoflacer.


My mother’s first answer co my letter of March 1974 was vituperative, but she soon followed it with another letter in which she attempted co mend fences with me. (Neither of these letters has been preserved.) I ignoredboth letters anf:l refused to communicate with my parents for more than a year, thougn they continued to write to me. F”mally I softened and wrote co them in March 1975, outlining my activities over the preceding year. My letter began:


I happen to be in a comparatively mellow mood, and besides, you have lately given some faint signs ofadmittingyour moral fallibility. thougn not nearly co the extent you should. So I decided co be nice and write you a letter.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#154, letter from me to my parcnrs, late March 1975, p.1.}


I do not nowremember what the nfaint signs ofadmitting \dots{} moral fal. libilicy” were. I imagine my mother conceded that she and my father were less than perfcet parents, but I am certain chat she did not apologize for the verbal abuse or anything else.


My resentment of my parents’ trcaancnc of me was ne\%C referred co in a letter I wrote in 1977. My mother had irritated me by sanctimoniously objecting to an obscene word that I’d used in an earlier letter. In reply I gave her a rich sample of insulting obscenity and explained:



\begin{quote}


The reason [for my hostile attitude] is that whenever you rub me the wrong way. it reminds me of all the old. old reasons I have for hating you, which I explained quite clearly in a letter some time ago\dots{} Go ahead and call me an ‘ungraceful monster.’ You’ve called me that name before. and enough other names so that it doesn’t bother me in the least any more.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#:198, lctter from me to my parena. February 7, 1977.}



\end{quote}


(The letter of some time ago”“ referred to here was the 1974 lettcr that r mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.) My mother replied:



\begin{quote}


““Naturally we have been pretty depressed since your last letter. No one ever gets a perfect set of parents, nor do parents, for that matter, ever get a perfcet child.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#:199, \&agment of a letter from my mother to me, Spring1rn,.}



\end{quote}


This was an answer that (repeatedly get from my mother in response to my (usually hostile. ru admit) attempts to discuss with my parents the psychological abuse to which they had subjeetcd me. “No parents are perfect,” she would say. conveniently ignoring the fact that some are much more imperfccr than others. And generally she would add that no c:hildren.are perfcet either, implying that my parents had as much to blame me for as I had co blame them for. My mother never ezplained what imperfections of mine she was referring to, but I know her well enough to guess what she had in mind: rrefused to follow the prestigious career that she had dreamed offor me, I didn’tlove my parents, and I insulted them. But what could they ezpeet after the way they had treated me during my teens? Especially in view of the fact that they refused to apologize for the abuse or even acknowledge it explicitly.


Accually; my parents were not always mean to me during my teens. They never hesitated to:..!ieap insults on me when they were in a bad mood, but my mother was often warm and affectionate when she was in a good mood. and there were happy family times as well as bad ones to remember. Thus, if my parents had fully and frankly acknowledged and apologized for the way they had treated me. I probably would have forgiven them.\footnote{Even if my parents had apologized satisfactorily and I had forgiven them, it’s not clear whether I would have been able to get along with them. There were other serious problems in the relationship, among them my parents’ self.righteous attitude. which underlay their refusal to give me a \&aak and open-hearted apolog1 \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf My conftiaingfeelings toWard my pumaare illusttated bythefamily correspondence. In addition m my bitter lcttm to them there are some affi!aionace ones. For example, (Ca) FL \#n5, letterfrom me to my mother, May 5’, 1970: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf You [illegible) to have been concemed. about whether you haw been too aabby C,,eing crabby.. wu my mother’s euphemism for coasanr. vituperative nagging]. whetheryou have been a good motherto me, ere. So I want to say that I think you are the best mother that anybody could ask for. In\&er. both my parem:s have been the best thatanybody couldultfor. I hope you willforgM me for disappointing you in ce:rr:ain ways. Pleau Trf not to worryaboutme so much.• \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Of course, I hadn’t fos:gatten the way rd been treated during my ceem, but I was fi:cling sorry for my parents. especially my mother, because she seemed so grieved and upsetover our difficult rclatiom.} But my (admittedly hostile) attempts to get an apology from them were answered at first only with recriminations, acuses, or evasions on the part of my mother. When I did eventually cmact an apology from h it was cold and grudging, and obviously given in order to placate me and not in a genuine spirit of remorse. My father ncver gave any answer at all to the letters in which I raised chese issues, acepc once, and then his answer was as self-righteous as it could possibly be. I will quote ic later (p. 68).


Probably around 1977 or 1978 my mother wrote:


Both dad and I arc searching for answers trying very hard to understand ourselves and our children. Who or what arc we? Who arc our children? What motivates them and us? Are we culture-bound? Have we hurt our children? Has the culture hurt them.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2o8, possible letter from my mother to me, probably late 1977 or early 1978.}


This extract is from a very messy. scrawled-over, and much-corrected document that my mother saved. It appears to be the first draft of a letter thac was intended for me. But I do not remember receiving such a letter, so it’s not clear whether a final draftwas ever prepared and sent.


I next raised the issue of my parents’ treatment of me in a hostile letter that I senc them in the autumn of 1981. That letter apparently has not survived. and I do not now remember what set off my anger against my parents in that instance. Nor has their reply to that letter been preserved; but I do remember that the reply consisted of a very brief note from my mother in which she coldly and stiffly apologized ( on behalf of my father as well as herself) for the fact that they’d been poor parents to me. In spite of the coldness and brevity of the apology I was somewhat mollified. and I answered as follows, some time around Christmas. 1982.:


As to your last letter, in which you said you were ‘truly sorry to have been such failures as parents’: Its [sic] a satisfaction to me to have you admit your faults for once, instead of trying co make excuses for them. The resentment I have toward you will always remain, but your last letter docs soften my attitude a little. Enough. anyway, so that I will take back what I said about hoping you drop dead on Christmas-cause it’s true that you were always good to me on Christmas, and on the whole I have pleasant memories of Chrisonases. I trust you got the chrisanas card I sent you.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#173, letter from me to my parents. around Chrismw time, 19\&1. p.1.}


My mother’s note of apology was also mentioned in a letter that I sent my brother in March 1986:


[A]bout 3 years ago after I’d written them on the subject. mother did write back: ‘We are truly sorry to have been such f.iilurcs as parents.(But isn’t there a hint there of something like. ‘we are truly sorry you turned outso rotten?) But even then she tried to excuse iton the grounds of ‘ignorance.’ (They can hardly have been ignorant of the \&ct that it is extremely painful for a teenage kid to have his parents repeatedly tell him, in anger, that there is something wrong with him mentally.) Getting that much of an apology from her was somethinglike squeezing a nickel out of a miser. It was cold and curt, and afterward she seemed to just shove it under the carpet and forget about it. Certainly it dno sense of remorse; and very likely it was something she said mcrcly co get me to soften towards them \dots{} “\footnote{(Ca) FL \#3. letter from me to David Kaczynski. March 15, 1986, pp. 3, 4}



\bigskip


Let’s digress for a moment to clear up yet another item of dismfonnation from my brother. According to his interview as reported by the New York TimtS:


The parents had visited [TcdJ several times at his cabin until the mid198os. and each time they had come away pleased at his cordiality, only to find another angry letter in the mail soon after returning home.\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 16, 1996, p.24, column 3.}


According to an FBI “302.. report, my brother told the interviewing agents:


TED’s stormy relationship with his parcna reached an impasse in 1984. Prior to that year, TED Sr. and WANDA had visited TED in Montana for several consecutive summers. They stayed at a motel in Lincoln. and traveled to the cabin during daylight. \dots{} DAVE recalled chat after their return from such a visit in the summer of 1984. his parents were elated at the success of that visit. \dots{} One week later a letter arrived from TED breaking off relations with his parents, accusing them ofgross mistreatment. \dots{}”\footnote{(Na) FBI 302 number 2, p.7. According to the FBI. my mother told them that her and my father’s ‘1ast trip to Momma in the mid 1980S was a most wondcnul visit. TED took them to see the flowers in the meadow and they gmerally had a great time. Shortly after returning to Illinois (sic; dangling participle], TED sent an angry letter in which TED said he did not want to hear from die family anymore. That was die last visit that they made to Montana and she belieYl:d that it must havebeen about 1985.-(Na) FBI 302. number IO, p.3.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Thus, my mother’s account agrees with my brother’s. Yet the family letters show that they a.re both wrong. Probably my brother got his information from my mother and that’s why their accoums agree.}


In reality, the last time I ever saw my parents was inJune of 1982.. The ..angry letter,. was not sent until several months later, in the autumn of 1982, and I did not tell my parents until the spring of 1983 that ( was breaking off relations with them.


On May 17, 1982, I wrote my parents, ..sec you June 11 or 12,\footnote{(Ca) FL \#158, leaer from me to my parents. May’!T, x9h. p.3.} and on May 25, 1982, I crust that this is the last communication chat will be necessary before you guys get here; so I will just assume that you will get here on June 11 or 12.\footnote{(Ca) FL ‘\#l6o, letta” from me to mypuma, May15, 15’82} This clearly dates their visit toJune. That my angry letter was not sent until late autumn of 1982] is shown by the letter\footnote{(Ca) FL \#173, letter from me to my parents. around Chrismw time, 19\&1. p.1.} that I quoted above, from around Christmas time 1982, in which I referred to my parents’ last letter as an answer to my angry letterand quoted my angry letter as saying that I hoped they would drop dead on Chrisanas; a dear indication that the angry letter was written not too long before Christmas.”


I was on reasonably amicable terms with my parents from around Christmas 1982. until the spring of 1983, at which time I broke off relations with them completely, for reasons that I will desaibe in due course. My parents visited me a few times becween 1971 and 1977, but my brother was wrong in telling the FBt that they had visited me ..for several consecutive summersN up to their last visit. In reality they visited me only twice after Im; once in 1980 or 1981 and once, as already noted, in1982.\footnote{This note basbeen deleted inthepresemedition due to ongoinglegalproceemnp}


My brother was also mistaken when he told the New Yorie Tuna (see passage quoted above) that after their several visits to my cabin our parents “had come away pleased at [Ted’s] cordiality. only to find another angry letter in the mail soon after reruming home.” I sent my parents many letters in which I expressed more or less irritation at them (we will sec later some of the reasons for this irritation), but. prior to my brief correspondence with my mother in 1991, there were only three angry letters-ones in which I complained of myparents’ misttcaanent of me. These are the ones already dcsaibed. As we’ve seen, they were sent in early March 1974. early February 1971, and about Christmas time 1982. It’s already been shown that this last letter was sent several months after my parents’ visit. The March and February letters could only have been sent several months, at least, after -any visit by my parents, since naturally they didn’t come to sec me during the months of cold and mow. My brotherhimselfdescribes the visits as occurringduringthe summers; though acrually some of them were in late spring Uune) orearly fall (October).



\bigskip


The next letter in the family correspondence that refers to the abuse issue is one that my mother wrote me on Christmas Eve 1984-This is the letter quoted in Chapter I in which she gives an cx:aggerated and mcla. dramatic account of my “hospital experience\dots{} Herc arc some further excerpts:


No word, no small word of greeting from you. How that hurts! \dots{} Have you no memory of our love and care?


All fiunilies haw their fights. That is inevitable. We arc imperfect humans in an imperfect world. But most of us arc able to forgive, forget, apologize and go on loving and caring. Some are unable to conttol hatred, to overcome it. Why?


(At this point my mother recites her embellished on of the hospital experience.”“ After that:]”


Remember how you would react to anybody’s correction or criticism of you? \dots{} How (can \textbackslash{}ve] convince you that we love you? How convince you that fighting and difference of opinion doesn’t mean rejection. How can we be at lasta normal family? \dots{} Surely, we have notbeenso bad as parents that we should be denied the minimum respect of a word of greeting at Christmas time. Whatis this unnatural satisfaction you take in makingus suffer so needlessly?\footnote{Ca) FL \#197, letter from my mother to me, December 24, 1984.}


These excerpts illustrate boch the self.pity that is characteristic of my mother and the evasive. euphemistic way of speaking chat is even more characteristic of her. Insults are dcsaibed as correction or criticism\dots{}” abuse is described as “fighting” or “difference ofopinion.” Of course, when a parent heaps vicious insults on the head of his or her fourteen-year-old kid. it’s not a “fight,” it’s justabuse. It’s worth notingthat my mother never in any ofher letters denied thefaas that I alleged. She never denied that she frequently screamed at me, or that she and my father used to say that I had “the mind of a rwo-year old,” that they called me “sick” and “a creep,” or that when I talked back in response to their insults they often shouted at me, “Speak respectfully to your parents or we’ll throw you out of the house.” My mother merely evaded the issue by dcsaibing this treatment in euphemistic terms; or she would say that her and my father’s behavior toward me was a “mistake,” as if they didn’t realize that it is extremely painful for a kid to have bis parents shout such things athim.


Of course, I don’t claim that I took it all like a lamb. I would shout insults at my parents, too. For instance, I used to call my mothera “fat pig\dots{} But in the end I always lost the verbal battlesbecause my parents had all the power and I had none; and moreover a kid is far more vulnerable to insults from bis parents than vice versa. lt would have been easier if rd had a strong peer group to which to retreat, but, as we’ve already seen, I was an outcast amongmy schoolmates.


My mother’s implication that I was unable to apologize (which by the way is not rrue) is ironic, to say the least. What I needed in order to forgive my parents was precisely an apology from dttm-a good. clean, heartfelt apology reflecting genuine remorse, with acknowledgment that theirtreatment of me was not due to “mistakes.. or “ignorance” but to the fact that they used me as a butt on which to take out their feelings of hostility or frustration. The longer they refused to give me such an apology. the more they built up my frustration and anger toward them. I made this clear to them, but they were just too self-centered and too self-righteous to apologize fully and honestly.


What especially used to anger me were my mother’s repeated attempts to portray my rcscncnt of my parents as the result of “that hospital experience”:


\dots{} Some arc unable to controlhatred, to overcome it. Why? “Yours, I think, I am convinced, has ics sourcein yourtraumatic hospital experience.”\footnote{Ca) FL \#197, letter from my mother to me, December 24, 1984.}


This was one of the gimmicks that my motherusedover and over again in an effort to evade responsibility for hertreaanent of me, and (alongwith her usual tendency to exaggerate) it was her motive for dramatizing and distorting the “hospital experience .. outofallproportion.



\bigskip


In December 1985 or January 1986 my brother wrote me, “I know you arc estranged from our parents.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#320, letter from David Kaczynski to me, December 198s or January 1986, p.l.} Again in a letter of late January 1986, he referred briefly to my estrangement from our parcnts.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#322.. lettcr from David Kaczynski to me, latter half ofJanuary 1986, p.1.} On March r5, 1986, I wrote to my brother as follows:


I’d like to make some comments on my reasons for hating our parents. First. I’ll quote some passages from a letter that mother sent me about Christmas time, 1984,


J\textbackslash{}.ll families have their fights\dots{} But most of us are able to forgive. \dots{}’[Your hatred] I think, I am convinced. has its source in your traumatic hospital experience in your first year of life\dots{} “ ‘Somehow you were never able to overcome thac embedded distrust of the people around you:


I could quote some other accusations from that letter, but the above I think is enough to make the point. Which is, that our parents will not accept any blame for the way they treated me during my teens. Any resentment I have toward them they attribute to there being something wrong with me. ‘That hospital experience’ that mother always likes to dredge up is very convenient for them because ic’s something that was beyond their control. Of course, if my resentment of them was caused by that apcricnce, then it remains to be explained why I never resented thcm•bcforc my teens.; (By the way. I don’t know how severe ‘that hospital apcrience’ accually was. but it’s a safe bet that mother’s account of it is considerably exaggerated-you know how she always does exaggerate whenever she is emotionally involved in something and Dad will generally back her up against any third party.”)


When she mentions ‘fights’ in the first passage quoted above she is referring to my complaints about their having applied to me such epithets as ‘another Eugene P.,’ ‘a acep,’ ‘sick.’ ‘mind of a tw0-year old.’ etc. The term ‘fight’ here is hardly appropriate, since it implies some sort of rough equality of power between the 2. combatants. If a 200-lb. bully bears up a c.o-pounder you don’t call that a fight, it’s just abuse. The same applies when parents shout the most cutting sort ofinsults at a 14 or 15-year old kid who is in their power. It is easy for t1ttm to talk about forgiveness-they don’t have much to forgive, since they always won what they choose to call the ‘fights’; they finished them by sending me up to the attic or by shouting ‘speak respec:tfully to your parents or we’ll throw you out of the house.’ Mother’s calling these things ‘fights’ is one of her typical evasions and an illustration of our parents’ self.righteousness. They will admit to having ‘made a mistake’ and things of that sort, but they will never admit the real reasons for their behavior toward me: first, that they were too lazy to make the effort needed co exercise sclf•restrainc; second, they evidently had cerrain frustrations or irritabilities. and I was a convenient target on which they could vent these. [n later years, if they had felt and expressed a real sense of remorse and regret about these things I probably would have forgiven them. But as you can sec from the passages I quoted above, their sclfrighceousness is incorrigible. Far from having any sense of having been in the wrong, they attribute all problems to there being something wrong withme.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#J. letter from me to David Kaczynski. March 15, 1986, pp. I•J.}


At this point in the letter there follows the passage that I quoted above on p. ;;, beginning “[A]bouc 3 years ago\dots{}” The letter then continues:


Certainly [mother’s 1982. apology] conveyed no sense of remorse; and very likely it was something she said merely in order to get me to soften towards them, since her lacer letter, from which I quoted above, reveals the same old self-righteous attitude. A3] for Dad, from him I never had any shadow or hint of an apology.\footnote{rs. Same,p.+}


In his answer to this letter, my brother wrote, in lace March or early April 1986:


I am venturing to discuss our family and our childhood, focussing mainly on your relations with the parcncs\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me, I.arc Man:h or early April 1986, p.8.}\dots{} [A]lthough I aclcnowlcdgc that Mom and Dad performed their role as parents in many respects very stupidly and poorly in relation co you, ncvmhelcss they were quite good parents come\footnote{Same, p.u.}\dots{} I don’t believe at this point that their motives for treating you badly were the motives of a bully. \dots{} I have also heard mother’s interpretation of your childhood trauma, and \dots{} I couldn’t •help feeling struck by the number of correspondences between the theory and some of the fiuniliar tendencies of your pcrsonality\footnote{Same. p.13.} .••(It’s not dear what theory” my brother is referring to here. He is not learned in psychology.] Anyway-regarding the the.cry of your supposed trauma as a whole-I have felt for some years that it has, or might have some bearing on your feelings toward the parents. I have also cautioned them against using it as a moral escape hatch, since in some ways their treaancnt of you (for instance, threatening to throw you out of the house, i.e. to abandon you again) was the absolute worst they could have nc. At this they say. ‘if only we had known!’ and their eyes become sorrowful and a little scared. Ifyou have any doubts about their feelings of guilt, you should sec them then. \dots{}\footnote{Same.p.15.}


This brings me to the point of acknowledging \dots{} that I believe Mom and Dad’s sins as parents toward you were real and not mel’C!y the products of your imagination. I confess that at first I didn’t think so, and Ido still tend to think that some of your complaints are overstated. but I have also been searching my memory and I can recall some scenes that are painful to remember (how much more painful for you!) given my affection for them.\footnote{Same, p.16.} \dots{} I don’t think a reconciliation can begin without a full and plain acknowledgment of the parents’ errors-in other words, no more shoving things under the rug.\footnote{Same,p.11.} .•Their feelings of failure are mixed up with their feelings of resennnent toward you (since you have refused to acknowledge their good qualities along with the bad)\footnote{Same, p.18.} \dots{} Dad told me that once he wrote an apologetic letter to you \dots{} and all he got back was a short reply which he interpreted as spuming his overture and apology-\footnote{Same, pp. 18, 19.}\dots{} I suspect your intelligence and emotional complcty made you a very difficult”child-far moreso [sic] than me-fora parent to deal with. \dots{} You remember primarily the humiliations and the threats, but I remember times when mother \dots{} cried to give you sympathy and find out what was malting you unhappy. (Although. as must be admitted \dots{} she would have refused to accept the a-uth. had you been able to tell her.)\footnote{Same, pp. 20, 21.} \dots{} One of the most common tendencies I have observed is for a parent to trJ to humiliate a child into behaving in what he considers to be the proper way. It’s the last ugly resort of parental authority and I have seen it clutched at many times in families outside of our own.\footnote{Same,p.23.} ••The job is the parents’ to apologize..But I. think you are a han:l man if you close your heart to forgiveness against the day when they may someday do so.\footnote{Same,p.25.}



\begin{quote}


\dots{} I hate to think that at times our family may have organized itself according to the pattern of 3 against I. [That is, mother. father, and Dave against Ted.\footnote{Same. p.2.6.}



\end{quote}


My brother’s letter was quite well-intentioned and conciliatory. but it nevertheless made me very angry. My anger arose partly from certain passages (not quoted above) of his letter and from certain aspects of his accustomed style of argument that will be dealt with later. But most of all my anger arose from bis partial acceptance of my mother’s theory of the hospital experience,”“ and especially from the fact that throughout his letter he followed my mother’s procedure of portraying my parents’ trcannenc of me as well-intentioned but mistaken; whereas it was obvious that their verbal cruelty arose notfrom good but misguided intentions, but from uncontrolled anger. My own anger was of course intensified by frustration at the failure of my attempts to get other members of the family to acknowledge the truth about the abuse.”


Yee there was no doubt chat my brother’s letter represented a kindhearted effort to make peace between my parents and me, and consequently, while I e.’tprcsscd my anger to him, I kept it from getting out of hand. I wrote:


You son of a bitch. Your letter made me so mad that I was on the point of cutting off all communication with you forever. \dots{} I got over being mad at you-or partly got over it-just in time.


Clearly you don’t realize that every time I bring up that issue and someone says ‘Oh, it’s only cawe you were warped by ““that hospital experience,”“‘ all it does is make me more angry. \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#3]1, letter from me co David Kaa:ynski. April 16, 1986, p.1.}


OK, look. I’m still mad at you. I still haven’t fully got over it. The only thingthat prevented me from sending you that letter cutting off all communication for good was the fact that the night before I was going to send it I had a dream that brought to the surface my real feelings toward youwhich arc soft and affectionate. Since I’m still mad, don’t write to me for awhile [sic]\dots{} Later, when I get over being mad-say after a few montbsI’ll write to you again and then you can resume corresponding with me if you like. But don’t ever argue with me about my relations with ourparents . . . . I flatly refuse to accept any contradiction on this point. No doubt this is unreasonable. But you’re jwt going to have to humor me if you want to get along with me.\footnote{Same. pp. S, 6.}


Five days later I wrote my brother again:


I apologize for calling you a son of a bitch and other harsh language that I wed in my last letter. But, you know, I was mad. rm not mad any more\dots{} But don’t send me any letters for awhile [sic] yet. unless for some urgent reason cause if you start raking up all that old family scuff’ you may just get me upset again. and having just got over being upset I don’t feel like getting upset again for awhile [sic] yet. Later on we can discuss some of these things further if you want to.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#Jp.. lctter from me co David Kaczynski. April 21, 1986, p.1.} \dots{}


You say Dad claims he once sent me an apology. I don’t remember it\dots{} [T]hat’s not the kind of thing I would be likely to forget. \dots{} [A]re you sure that you are remembering correctly what [Dad] told you? \dots{} I’ve noticed that from time to time you make errors of memory in your letters -unless it’s my memory that’s wrong. Example:


In your last letter you wrote ‘When you saw the murdered babies in the Nazi camp \dots{} you vowed to protect me at the expense of your own life \dots{}’“


As I remember it. I didn’t refer to ‘murdered’ babies, but to kids who had been reduced to extreme emaciation through starvation. Also, I said that I decided to ‘do anything I could to protect you’-1] don’t think I said anything about ‘at the expense of my own life.’ If you still have that letter you might look up the relevant passage and see which of us is remembering more accurately.\footnote{Same, pp. 3, 4.}


The letter in question has been preserved. and ic shows that my memory was exactly right.\footnote{See Chapter :i, pp. 19, 20, and Note 33.} It is typical of my brother to get his information garbled. We will sec other examples of this later.


That my father never gave me an apology is confirmed by a note that he sent me within a couple of weeks of the foregoing letter of mine to my brother. This note dealt with another matter that we will consider lacer. For the moment. let it suffice to say that he wrote:


The last couple of years have been painful. Your rejection of us. we feel. is unfair. uncalled for and at the least shows lack of understanding, tolerance or a sense of family.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#334. letterfrom my parents to me, April1986.}


The sclf..righteous attitude shown here by my father is hardly consistent with my brother’s claim that he once apologized to me. My brother never repeated that claim. He had probably made it on the basis of a misunderstanding or misremembering of something my father bad said.


After receiving my father’s note I quoted it in a letter to my brother (April 30, 1986) and commented as follows:


Their self-righteousness is actually funny! \dots{} Note where the old son of a bitch accuses me of a lack of understanding and tolerance! When I was a kid. ifI annoyed him he would insult me in the most cutting way \dots{} and now he accuses nu: of a ‘lack of understanding and tolerance’!! \dots{} Not that I claim to be understanding and tolerant. But it’s like a thief who steals something from somebody and then accuses his victim of dishonesty. . ..


Can you wonder at the fact that I won’t forgive them? If they had ever shown any remorse, any sense of having mistreated me and wanting to make up for it. I might have forgiven them. But \dots{} it is quite dear that they will never change. So you might [as] well give up the idea that there will ever be reconciliation between me and them.”


You claim to have seen ‘guilt’ expressed in their faces during discussions of this subject. I don’t believe it! How can you square it with the tone of that letter [my fathcr’s note] . . .\footnote{(Ca) FL \#335, letter from me to David Kaczynski. April 30, 1986, pp. 4, 5.}


In yet another letter I commented again on my brother’s letter of lace March or early April 1986:


[Y]ou give a list of traits of mine that you imagine are caused by my supposed ‘traumain the hospital. The trouble with your theory is that you didn’t know me till I was older and already affi:ctcd by our parents’ mistrcaancnt and by the badsituationin school after I skipped a grade. Most of those traits I did not have as a very young child. Of course, you can always speculate about delayed-action crauma-tbis psychoanalytic crap is flexible enough so that you canjustify anythingyou want to believe. Butsince thCl’C arc dear reasons in my later childhood for my developing such traits, these arc the more likely cause. You don’t realize that the atmosphere in our” home was quite different during the first few years of my life than it was later\dots{} Also, after l skipped a grade. I was subjected to certain humiliations in school.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#339, letter from me to David Kaczynski. May 1986, pp. 3, 4} \dots{}”


There was no further discussion in the family correspondence of my parents’ creatment of me until shortly after my father’s death on October 2, 1990. On October 13 of that year [wrote co my brother:


I haven’t shed any tears over our father’s death-you know how’1] felt about him. I must say, though. that r feel very sorry for our moth All this must be a severe blow to her. I never resented her quite as much as I resented Dad. I had to cake a lot of verbal abuse from both of them during my teens, but, while Dad was always rather cold to me during that period, Mother often made up for the abuse with warmth and affection at other timcs.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4a1, letter from me to David Kaczynski. October IJ, 1990 (copy from cabin), p.1.}


On the same date I wrote my mother a letterin which I said practically the same thing and added. ‘“If you’d like co be reconciled and resume correspondence with me, I am willing.”‘\footnote{(Ca) FL \#408, letter from me to my mother, October t;, 1990 (copy from cabin).} My mother and I did resume correspondence, but the abuse issue was not discussed untilJanuary 1991. About December 1990, my mother had sent me an autobiography\footnote{This is (Ac) Autobiophy of Wanda.} that covered her life up to age ten, together with a letter from my aunt Freda (my mother’s sister)\footnote{(Cb) FL Supplementary Item \#4, letter from Freda Dombek Tuomincn to Wanda Kaczynski. October 1, 1986.} that substantiated her account of the gross physical abuse she had suffered. In a letter of January 15 I commented as follows:


I read your family history with gteat interest. \dots{} [O]n a number of occasions in the past when I’ve heard you recount incidents that I myself had wimessed, your stories were very in.accurate through beingovcrdramatizcd. Consequently I have no rational choice but to be skeptical about the accuracy of your history. I hasten to add that I don’t doubt for a moment that your mother abused you very badly. and rm even prepared to assume that the abuse was, in a general way. as bad as you depicted it, since that seems to be confirmed by Freda’s lecc But for me it necessarily remains an open question to what extent your account is accurate in detail Of course, quite apart from your\_penchant for dramatization, a’s long•term memories may contain inaccuradcs.


One might possibly sec a connection between the physical abuse you suffered as a kid and the psychological abuse you inflicted on me during my teens. The psychologists claim that people who abuse their kids arc usually people who were abused themselves as kids. I don’t know to what extent this is actually true-there is a lot of B.S. that gets peddled in the name of psychology. And Dad didn’t fit that pattern-he inflicted as mU:ch verbal abuse on me as you did.\footnote{ln terms of sheer quantity my mother certainly inflicted more abuse than my falher did, but. as I indicatedearlier, myfather’s insults tended to be more cutting than my mother’s. So if quantity can be balmced. by severity. then my f.dher might be said to have abused me verbally as much as my mother did.} yet I never heard anything that would indicate he ever suffered any abuse himselt: rn fairness to you I should add that I always felt you were a good motherto me during my early years. Itwas when I was around 8 years old that your behavior and the family atmosphere began to deteriorate\dots{}


Actually, though, youjudge your mother too harshly. Bearin mind that thee at? no perfect pamits . . .\footnote{The three dots are in the original.} or perfect childmt, either. \& you have reminded me several timcs:\footnote{(Ca) FL \#423, letter from me to my mother, January IS, 199r, pp. 4-6. On me photocopy of the original that the FBI bas provided. some pans are illegible or cut off. These hm: been filled in from the copy of this letter that I kept in the cabin.}


In reply to this letter my motherwrote:


I’m very sorry you have such bad memories of me during your teen years. I guess Ijustwasn’tthegoodparentlthoughtl couldbe. It’s amazing chat you turned out so well in spite of those traumatic scars.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#427, letter from my mother to me. January 19, 1991, p.1.}


Obviously. my mother’s description of me as “having turned out so well.. is inconsistentwith the crap thatshe and my brotherhave recently fed the media to the effect that the f.unily always saw me as a distwbed sicko.


On January:22 I wrote to my mother:


I should acknowledge that your mother apparently treated you a lot worse than you treated me. (But that still doesn’t excuse the way you treated me during my teens\dots{})\footnote{(Ca) FL \#428, letterfrom me to my mother,January 22, 1991, p.1.}


On 30 my mother replied:


I flinch every time you remind me of your unhappy teen years. Was I that horrible? rm sorry. Can’t you believe that we loved you very much even when we showed very angry amiow disapproval? I never realized how ourinsensitivity hurtyou.\footnote{(Ca\} FL \#430, letter from my mother to me, January 30, 1991.}


Observe that my mother persisted in descnbing their treatment of me in euphemistic terms ( .. disapprovalj, and still refused to face up to the fact that the abuse consisted of verbal aggression that was intendd to hurt. On June 5, 199I she wrote me:


Several times in your lettcrS during the winter you mentioned that you would later expand on the hum I inflicted on you during your teen•age years. I mentioned to you chat I winced ever,time you made this comment in your letters. After chat you no longer referred to your adolescent pain.


\dots{} If you feel the need to unburden yourself please do so\dots{} Whatever scupid mistakes w made, Dad and I loved you very much.”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#453, letter from my mother to me. June 5, 1991.}


She still referred to the abuse as “mistakes.” Maintaining her pretense that her mistreatment of me consisted in well-intentioned errors rather than in outbursts of angerand aggression. she wrote me onJune 2t:


I don•c like co make anybodyfeel bad: (Ezcept, ofcourse, my kids \dots{}in the interest[mistakenly so] ofcorrcaion anddiscipline.)’\footnote{(Ca) FL \#456, lctter from my mother to me, June 21, 1991.} The bracketed “[mistakenly sor is in the original as written by my mother. OnJulys I wrote her a longletter about my grievance against the family:


Not long ago you invited me to write to you about my ‘adolescent pain,’ as you called it. I’m going to do so now. \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to mymother,Julys, 1991, p.1.}


In your note of June 21 you wrote, ‘I don’t like to make anybody feel bad. (Except, of course, my kids when they were young in the interest [mistakenly so] of correction and discipline.)’“


The more you resort to rationalizations and evasions to ercuse your trcaancnt of me, the more I hate you. The insults you heaped on me were not honest but mistaken attcmpa at discipline, they were just uncontrolled outbursts of anger. Often the anger was not even a response to my behavior, since in many cases you would scream at me on the most trivial provocations. You once wrote me that your trcaancnt of me was ‘not malicious.’ [t wasn’t calculatedly malicious. But the things you said to me were certainly full of malice. You can’t possibly claim that you didn’t know that the things you said to me would be painful You said them because you knew they would be painful-your angry outbursts against me were aas of and were intfflded to cause pain. By no stretch of the imagination can it be supposed that you actually believed this sort of thing to constitute a rational system of discipline.


There is no evidence whacever that you attempted to restrain your temper toward me. I can remember no instance in which you ever apologized for your behavior to me and only one instance in which Dad ever did so.”


So quit trying to evade responsibility for your behavior by claiming chat what you did was the result of ‘mistakes’ or ‘misunderstanding.’ You were simply using me as a defenseless butt on which to take out your frustrations\dots{}..,\footnote{Same. pp. 5, 6.}


After extensive expressions of grief over my problems with social adjustment, and especially over my difficulty in making advances to women, I concluded:


In one of your letters you gave me a little lecture about how I should 1eam to forgive.\footnote{“(M]aybe you would feel less messed if you could learn to forgive. (Ca) FL \#41,9, letter from my mother to me, January 23, 1991, P4.} It’s..easy for you to preach, especially when you expea to be the beneficiary of the forgiveness. But I don’t notice that you arc particularly anxious to forgive your own parents.\footnote{Here I wu referring to the fact that my mother has often apressed bitterness against her own parents.} I hate you. and 1will not forgive you, because the harm you did me can never be undone.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, July S, 1991, p. r,.}


I was worked up emotionally when I wrote the foregoing. It would have been more accurate to say that the reason I wouldn’t forgive her was that she had always refused to accept, fully and honestly responsibility for the way she had treated me.


At any rate, my mother answered me on July 12 in a letter full of self-justification and attempts to throw on me the blame for my problems with social adjusnnent. As usual. she tried to explain everything as a consequence of “that hospital experience.”


“How can parents convince a child that they have always loved himncvcr. never rejected him? . . . Could your terrible feclings of insecurity stem from chose traumatic fears of abandonment when you had to be left ac the hospital at an emotionally critical stage in your infancy? I remember yelling in anger at Dave because he bad the bad habit of teasing you. I remember a couple of bad quarrels with Dave. but he seems to love us and not blame us for’shouting’ at him.


\dots{} [Y]ou don’t seem to remember how eagerly I welcomed any one” chat came over to visit you. But you rejected everyone who aicd to be your friend. Remember \dots{} Loren [De] Young\dots{} ? •.I could never convince you to be kinder and more tolerant of the many people who made ovcrrurcs to you. You always arrogantly pushed people away.


I went back to school and embamd on a new career in my fifties. Why can’t you? I am deeply sorry for whatever way I have hurt you. but I have always loved you \dots{}


\dots{} [Y]ou would have to \dots{} be a kinder, gentler person. less vengeful” whenever people don’t measure up to your expectations.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4sg, lett.er from my mother to me.July 12., 199L}


The foregoing letter was quickly followed by another in which my mother continued in the same vein:


“[S]ec aside your tendency to arrogance and bossiness, which probably is a cover up for shyness and awkwardness. And don’t push people away when they make overtures. Be patient! You get angry too easily at slights. Be gentle and kind. . . . Be Jcmd, be 1cmd, be 1rind, and you’ll have plenty of friends.


I love you, dear son •\dots{} Aie you going to let memories of adolescent difficulties immobilize you?\footnote{(Ca) FL \#46(), letter from my mother to me. mid-July 199L}


Certain pro fonna expressions of love and sympathy notwithstanding, the tone of my mother’s letters was essentially cold and aitical. This was chc way she answered my a:y from the heart, and it was typical of the way in which, ever since my earliest adolescence. she had responded to every attempt I made to discuss any problems I might have. In.stead of sympathy I got cold and often unjust criticism.


Shortly after receiving these letters. I wrote a notc\footnote{(Cc) Notes on Family Letters, Number 3 (written in1991).} which I kept with the letters and in which I rebutted some of the irrationalities they contain, including the portrait that my mother painted of my personali I will not bore the reader by reproducing this rebuttal here, but will merely mention a few points as CDinples.


She claims they always loved me. Yes, they did love me-in the same way that a small child loves his teddy bear. When he’s in a good mood he cuddles his teddy bear, but when he’s in a bad mood he doesn’t hesitate to kick his teddy bear around.\footnote{Same,p.1.} \dots{}


[S]he argues that Dave does not resent ourparenrs for shouting at him. Bue while they occasionally vented their ill-temper at Dave, they vented it on meFquently. Moreover, I never heard them inflict on Dave the kind of cutting. vicious insulrs that they inflicted on me\footnote{Same., p.1.} \dots{}


My mother asserts that I “rejected” or “pushed away” various people. For the most part her assertions make no sense. For example, Loren DeYoung (mentioned in my mother’s letter) was one of the high-status boys among my high-school classmates; he was a decent fellow who tolerated me with little or no condescension, but he certainly never made any overtures of friendship to me, nor did I ever in any sense reject him.\footnote{Same. p.3. See ChapterJ, Note 45.}


My mother says she “went back to school and embarked on a new career” in her fifties. Indeed she did. But, characteristically, she didn’t stay with it very long. She became a high-school English teacher but quit after two years because, she said, the job was too stressful. A media report describes her teaching as inadequate,\footnote{(Hf) Newswtde, April22. 1996, p.32,: “Wanda Kaczynski had become a high-school teacher, bm not a very e\&c•tivc one. The mother who had so determinedly pushed her own children could not connect with ninth graders. They mocked her, calling her ‘Siz Toes,’ and meowing at the back of the class, saying they could mt hear their teadier the sound of the cats. Frustrated by the wkof 1Nmging cbildrcn, Wanda gave up thejob.•} but I don’t know whether it was or not, given the unreliability of the media.


My mother wrote, “I am deeply sorry for whatever way I hurtyou.” She was still refusing to face up to the fact of the abuse: The word “whatever” indicates that the way she hurt me is something indefinite and unknown, and even casrs doubt on whether she hurt me at all


After receiving the foregoing letters from my mother, I wrote my brother an emotional letter\footnote{(Ca) FL \#461, letter from me to David Kaczynski. July 2.0, 1991.} in which I begged him to persuade my mother to stop writing to me because I could no longer endure the anger and frustration that she caused me. With the copy of this letter that I kept in the cabin I put a note in which I wrote:


Concerning the foregoing letter \dots{} :


Quite intentionally. I grossly exaggerated my real feelings. I did this because Dave is so inert \_and passive that I figured that in order to be sure of getting any action out of him I had best lay it on pretty thick.”


Actually I was very upset after reading those two letters from my mother \dots{}


I don’t know how I ever got born into such a family of incapable, silly fools. When I broke off correspondence with my brother a couple of years ago, l felt so good to be rid of them! I felt dean and free! When, last October, I resumed correspondence with my mother because I felt sorry for her after my father died, it gave me a kind ofsick feeling to be coming back into contact with that family again. I would compare it to a scene in the movie


African Quan. Humphrey Bogart gets out of the water and is horrified and disgusted to find himself covered with leeches. He sprinkles himself with salt and the leeches drop off. to his great relief. But after awhile [sic] he realizes that he is goingto have to get backdown in the water again, among the leeches. Well, that’s the kind of feeling I had about getting back into contact with my rotten family again. So I’m glad now to be breaking off with that family once and for all.\footnote{(Cc) Notes on Family Letters, Number 4 (writtenin1991).}


Having learned through long experience that my brother was inaccessible to reason, I had reluctantly decided to play on his emotions, and it worked. Dave did intervene with my mother. At first, however, he did not do so forcefully enough to stop her from writing to me. Within about three weeks she sent me a letter and three postcards, one of which said, “I am deeply. deeply sorry for having hurt you,”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#463, postcard from my mother to me, early August 1991.} and nothing more. For once, no evasions, excuses, or accusations. It was beginning to sound like a real and honest apology, but by that time it was too late. I wanted no more contact with my stinking family. I sent my brother a second emotional lettet\footnote{(Ca) FL \#466, letter from me to David Kaczynski. August 13, 1991 (copy from cabin: copy mailed to Om: bas not survived. as fu as l know).} in response to which he must have intervened more forcefully with my mother, because she did stop writing to me, apart from one or two minor relapses over the next couple of years.


tedious. It docs, however, establish clearly that my brother and mother understood the significance of the way my parents had treated me, and that they knew it was highly important to me to have that treatment acknowledged.\footnote{DAVE noted that TED bas long been furious with his parents over the implication that his angerstems from this early incident[the ‘hospital aperience1, since he insists that his anger issues from the emotional abme he received from his parems during his adolescence, and the fact that they haw refused to take iaponsibility fur it.(Na) FBl 302. number 2, p.6.}



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 5. Pressure to achieve; Harvard; how people saw me prior to my arrest}


I have already described in Chapter 3 (p. 44) how news of my high IQ score filled my mother with grandiose fantasies of what I was going to accomplish to the glory of the family. From that time until I left for Harvard she put me under considerable pressure to achieve academically. In this she was abetted by Lois Skillen, the guidance counselor at Evergreen Park Community High School. \& I wrote in my 1979 autobiography,


[Skillen] was not very old, but too homely to hope for marriage. She developed a maternal crush on me. By that I mean that she became em<r tionally involved with me as a substitute for the son of her own that she would have liked to have. I hated her.


I believe she was the one who put my parents onto the idea that I should go to Harvard. and I think she impressed them with the high standards I would have to U up to in orderto go there. I would get all this crap from my parents, ‘Miss Skillen says this and that and the other. A couple of times itwas, ‘Miss Skillen says you’re behaving too immaturely in the classroom. You won’t get into Harvard if etc. etc. etc.’ On a couple of other occasions, when Ibrought home a report card with all Ks except for one B,\footnote{r. Tbac is, in academic subjeccs (not gym. etc.) (Fb) School Records of 1JK, E.P. HighSchool.} my parents sat me down in the living room and gave me a solemn little lecture (in which my mother took the lead].”


We don’t want you to think thatwe feel this is abad report card. Actually, it’s a very good report card. We don’t want you to feel that we’re putting any pressure on you. It’s just that we feel you’re not working up to the level of your ability. We feel that you’re capable of getting all Ks. If you want to get into Harvard, etc., etc.’


Actually, I didn’t give a f.--k about whether I got into Harvard. But I had to pretend to be interested in all that aap just so as not to shock my parents. Acrually I did sometimes feel a half-hearted interest in it, but I never had any enthusiasm for it. \dots{}


During my last couple of years of high-school, I became convinced (correctly] that my parents, Miss Skillen, and some of my teachers were pushing the idea of a scientific career for me not because they had rationally concluded that this was best for me, but because this satisfied their own emotional needs. Either it would vicariously gratify their own craving for scholarly glory, or.it would gratify their egos to get their pupil or their son into a prestigious career. Of course, all these people had real affection for me, and they persuaded themselves that they were ‘guiding’ me for my own good. But their motives were essentially selfish \dots{}”


J\textbackslash{}ftcr rdbeen in college for a year, I happened to visit the high-school \dots{} Mr. H\_ci, the Assistant Supcrintendant [sic] \dots{} said to me, ‘You should come and sec Miss Skillen some time. It would mean a great deal to her.’ He repeated this a couple of times. Therefore I took satisfaction in NOT coming co sec Miss Skillcn.”\footnote{(Ac) Autobiogof1)K1979, pp. 33:35”}


Not only was I expected to be an academic achiever, I was expected never to show any faults or weaknesses in other areas either, because that would have interfered with the pride that my parcncially my mother-tookin me. rve already mentioned this in Chapter 3 (p. so). Itwas my mother’s craving for status that was behind the bigpush to get me into Harvard. I would have preferred to go to Oberlin.


Publicly my brother has denied this picture of my parents’ exploitation of my talents. From the 60 Minutes interview:


MIKE WALLACE: Let me just read a little bit from one letter that [Ted] sent \dots{} ‘SO, GENERALLY, IF I EXPERIENCED ANY FAILURE OR SHOWED ANY-WEAKNESS, I FOUND THAT I COULDN’T COME TO YOU FOR SYMPATHY. YOU WERE SIMPLY USING ME AS A DEFENSELESS BUTT ON WHICH TO TAKE OUT YOUR FRUSTRATIONS. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR PERFECT LITTLE GENIUS.’


DAVID KACZ¥NSKI: Mike, this is not the fam-samc family that I grew up in, that he grew up in. This is not the same mother that he’s describing here. This is-thisis a fiction or a fantasy.”“\footnote{(He) 6o Mi1ttau, September I5, 1996, Put One, p.7. The letter quoted by Mike Wallace is (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother,July5, 1991. The quotation is actually a composite made by mtermixing matena.lfrom twe different passages on p.6 of the letter •}


According to the New Yorle Times, my brother told interviewers that a certain letter from me was an “indictment of [our] parents, accusing them of being ‘more interested in having a brilliant son than seeing that son happy and fulfilled.’ “ The article continues:


Was it a valid accusation? ‘No’, David said, ‘I believe he may very well believe that. When he decided to end his career after they invested so much of themselves\dots{}’\footnote{(Ha) NY Timu, Nat., May 2.6, t996, p.24, column 5. The letter referred to was probably FL \#458, cited in the preccdiog note.}


The three dots at the end arc in the original; if Dave ever finished his sentence, the New York Times did not report it.


Herc my brother’s own words hint at his untruthfulness. What does he mean in saying that my parents “investedso much of themselves?” He can’t be referring to financial investment; since I had a scholarship, putting me through Harvard placed no great strain on my parents’ finances; and I earned my own way through graduate school. I certainly did all the academic work myself. my parents didn’t know enough to have assisted me with that even if they bad wanted to. Media reports that my mother helped me to undentand articles from the Scifflti.ftc Ammcan arc ludicrous-my mother doesn’t know as much science as the average fifth-grader. So what did my parents “invest of themselves?” My brother can only be referringto their emotional investment in my achievements, and to the fact that they pushed me during my high-school years. Maybe the reason why he didn’t finish his sentence was that he suddenly realized he was revealing what he didn’t want to reveal. Earlier he had told the FBI:


TED was interested in attending Oberlin College in Ohio. TED’s parents insisted that TED enroll in Harvard because of the prestige\dots{}Al far as DAVE could recall, his parents insisted thatTED attend Harvard, but did not pressure TED into majoring in math.\footnote{(Na) FBI 302 number 1, p.4.}


In a 1986 letter to me my brother wrote:


The fact of your unhappiness was consistently shoved under the rug, consistently eclipsed (in [our parcnts’] own eyes and other’s [sic]) by the glory of your intellectual achievements. In effect, they made their child carry the burden, ora good partoftheburden, of theirself-deceptions.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#]Jo, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me, late March or early April 1986. pp. 16, 17.}


Further along in the same letter my brother wrote, somewhat inconsistently:


Once you said that many ofthe nice things the parents did for us were” attributable to the desire to fulfill their ambitions vicariously. but I doubt if this is true when you consider how little shit they gave us overdroppingout of the mainstream\dots{}\footnote{Same, p.18.}


Actually. my mothergave me a greatdeal of “shit” overdroppingout of the mainstream, but my brother wasn’t around to sec it. rn have more to say about that later.


One of my father’s closest friends was Dr. Ralph K. Meister. They knew each other for more than fifty years. lnvestigators working on my case interviewed Dr. Meister concerning my family background, and I have before me a copy of a declaration that he signed for them on February 2, 1997. It strongly supports my account of our family life as opposed to my brother’s, but it is heavily affected by the phenomenon of “remembering later years” (see the Introduction, pp. 10, 13-14) and only with that reservation can I quote from it.


Dr. Meister states:


Wanda put pressure on TeddyJohn to be an intellectual giant almost from the day he was born. She was obsessed with his intellectual development.”\footnote{(Oa) Ralph Meister’s Declaration. p.:z. paragraph 7.}


My motherdid take an interest in my intellectual development from my birth, but in reality she was not obsessed with it, nor did she put any unusual pressure on me to achieve, until after Miss Frye foolishly told her that I had the potential to be “another Einstein \dots{}


Wanda longed for the statw and the respect associated with the intellectual world. Maintaining an intellectual image for herself and for herfun. ily was paramount for Wanda.”\footnote{Same, p.:z. paragraph 5,}


It was as if being a successful intellectual and a good student was all that Wanda wanted him to do. She seemed to have only an intellectual invesnnent in TeddyJohn.\footnote{Same, p.;, paragraph 8.} [True after contact with Miss Frye.]


He was under intense pressure to meet Wanda’s expeetations of intellectual achievement and was able to offer resistance to this pressure only to a very limited extent. Teddy John was also afraid to tell Wanda about emotional problems or difficulties he encountered with his peer group because that would have caused a rent in the picture she had of her son.\footnote{Same, p.;, paragraph 10.} (Again, this was true only after Miss Frye encouraged my mother to have a grandiose conception of my abilities.) \dots{}


“At times, Wanda lost control and verbally abused him.”\footnote{Same, P.3, paragraph 9.}


The fact that my mother had intellectual ambitions maylead the reader to assume that she was the studious, thoughtful, self-disciplined type of person that we associate with intellectualism. In reality. while she was always very careful to maintain a facade of respectability toward the outside world, within the family her behavior during this period was coarse, unrestrained. and slatternly. She disgusted me. As I wrote in my 1979 autobiography:


[M]y parents allowed themselves to get considerably overweight. My mother’s behind became really enormous.


My mother let herself go, not only physically. but psychologically. She” lost herdignity.”\footnote{(Ac) Autobiogof1JK1979, p.;8.}


AT AGE 16, in the fall of 1958, I went to Harvard. I had had no particular enthusiasm for going there, but once I got there it was a tremendous thing for me. I got something that I had been needing all along without knowing it, namdy. hard work requiring self-discipline and strenuous exercise of my abilities. I threw myself into this with great enthusiasm\dots{} I thrived on it\dots{} Fedingthe strength of my own will, Ibecame enthusiastic about will-power\dots{}\footnote{(Ac) AutobiogofTJK 1979, p.6o.}


The foregoing is from my 1979 autobiography. Acrually. I think my favorable reaction to Harvard was due at least as much to the fact that it represented a liberation from the sordid environment of my home as to the intdlectual challenge that it provided. As long as I was living with my family I found it cxtremdy difficult to exercise any will-power, but when I escaped from that stultifying atmosphere I suddenly discovered, to my delight, that I had plenty of will-power. It is a remarkable fact that over the years-even twenty years later-whenever I returned to live for a time with my family. I felt that my will-power and self-discipline quickly drainedaway. and t did not recover them until I again removed myselffrom that environment.


ln view of my parents’ theory that I had an abnormal fear ofbeingseparated from them, it is worth noting that I adjusted to being away from home more easily than many college freshmen do: I suffered from homesickness for about the first two weeks, and then I recovered from it completdy and permanently.\footnote{(Ah) Autobiog ofljK1959, p.5; (Ac) Autobiogof1JK1979, p.6o.}


Thus Harvard was very good for me in cain ways; but in relation to my poor social adjustment it was one of the worst schools that could have been chosen for me. In a letter of May 16, 1991] to my mother I wrote:


There was a good deal of snobbery at Harvard. Of course there were people there from all walks of life, but apparently the system there was run by people who came from the ‘right’ cultural background. This certainly seemed to be the case at:Eliot House, anyway. The house master.John Finley. apparently was surrounded by an in-group or clique, and the people who got to participate in the Christmas play. for example, always seemed to be of the type who would fit in with the clique. The house master often treated me with insulting condescension. He seemed to have a particular dislike for me. I used to think that this was merely because I made no attempt to wear the ‘right’ clothes or to ape Harvard manners. but now I wonder whether plain old-fashioned class snobbery, in the strict sense of the word, might not have had something to do with it. Not long ago I read


FDR: a remembrance’ [sic] by Joseph Alsop. Alsop had connections with the Harvard set, and he stated in that book that in 1955] John F. Kennedy was not permitted to become a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers because he was an Irish Catholic. Since I entered Harvard 3 years later, in 1958, it seems probable that a good deal of class snobbery must still have existed at Harvard at that time.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4,48, lctter from me to my mother. May 11S, 1991, pp. J, 4-But in fairness to Finley, note dm from (Ac) Autobiog of1JK1979, p.6r. i never became closely acquainted with Finley. and it is possible that my antipal:hy rowud rum may have distorted my view. Therefure I camiot be cera.in that my desaiption of his personalityand motives has been ac.c:urate. .. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Joseph Alsop, PD.R. 1\&1z•tHJ: A Cmtn4ry ‘I1ic Viking Press, New York, 198:z. p.12! 1A]s late as 19.55John F. Kennedy was rejected the first time he was nominated fur the Boardofbecause the majority of the voting alumni of Harvard weie then not ready co see as er dm Irish Catholic\dots{}.. Doubtless many of the •voting alummwezc of an older generation-but so was Finley.}


(For whatever it may be worth, several classmates of mine who have been interviewed by my investigators have confirmed the prevalence of snobbery at Harvard.)\footnote{For cumplc, (Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#J4 (Gerald Bums, p.r), \#46 (Larry He., pp. 2-4), \#79 (PatrickMc:Imosh. pp. 3). Butwm.t the informana say about others inthese rcpom (Qb) is so wildly unreliabJe that the reader need not give chem much weigbL ‘I1ic statements ofBums and Mdmosh are particularly irresponsible.} My mother answered me as follows:


I was angry, so angry. when I read your account ofhow those ignorant bastards at Harvard snubbed you\dots{} You must have been a very strong character indeed to put up with those characters, to be angry at your bungling parents, and stillbe able to do so well academically.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#I.so, letter ft:om my mother to me, May 20, 1991.}


In a later letter (July5, 1991) I wrote my mother:


Harvard of course was very good academically. very stimulating intellectually. and it would have been alright for a kid of working-class origin who had good social skills and social self-confidence to start out with. The actual snobs were only a minority. The majority of students were uppermiddle-class types and they formed a social environment that was not congenial to a kid of working-class origin, but they were not necessarily snobs, and a kid of working-class origin who had good social skills could have found friends both among the upper-middle-class types and among the minority who were not upper-middle-class. But I had experiencedso much rejection both at home and in school that I had very little social sclf-confidence. As a result, when my first attempts to make friends met with a cool reception, I just gave up and became solitary.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, lcttcr from me to my mother.July:;, 1991, p.13.}


My social difficulties were compounded by the fact that my parents had repeatedly told me that I was “sick.” Of course, I rejected this assessment, but at some level I at least partly believed it, the more so since I was frustrated and often unhappy. In our society unhappiness tends to be equated with sickness, and this \_was even more true in the 1950s than itis today. During my later teens and for several years afterward I used to worry that people would think I was abnormal;\footnote{(Ac) Alltobiog of ljK 1979, p.64; “When l first got to Harvard I felt obliged to make friends. .•. If1was too soli\%ary l feared people would conclude that there was somethingwrong with me.•} in fact, I often tended to assume that they did sec me that way.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of1JK1979, p.64; 1A]t least some of [the fellows in my freshman dormitory] regarded me as some kind of a wi.erdo [sicJ: Today l’mnotsure that this was actually the case, in view of the relatively fim>rable impressions of my pmonality that I find recorded. lt may be that I imagined people saw me this way only because my parents had bniawasbcd me inUl thinking that there was somethingwrong with me. But see Note 3I below} It is therefore interesting that, in reviewing the records of my teens and twenties, I find very rew indications that anyone saw me as having psychological problems; though such indications are not entirely absent.


Let’s review all of the records I’ve found that indicate how people outside the family sawmy personality. First, the medical records. We’ve already seen (in Chapter 3) the commenrs in my University of Chicago medical records that were based on information provided by my mother. Here are the doctors’ impressions of me based on their personal observation, beginning in February 1949] ( all relevant earlier ones were quoted in Chapter1):\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of1JK, U Chi., February 18, ISl49, p..p; May 18, 1950, p.,i: May 8 t9SI, pp. 51-52: April 24. 1952, pp. 53-54: Apnl 17, I953, P.5r. April 27, I9S4t p.58; Apnl 14, 1955, p.59; Apnl 20, 1956, p.67:June 1951, p.73; April 2.1, 1958, p.7,4; September 10, 1959, p.78: September 15, 1959, p.88.}


February 18, 1949 \dots{} Average size andweight for his age.


May 18, 1950 \dots{} Average measurements for his age. Well built, lithe, (illegible] muscle.


May 8, 1951 \dots{} Husky. alert, youngboy-friendly and cooperative \dots{}


April 24, 1952 \dots{} Slightly gangly. wiryboywhose height and weight are close to average for his age. He is quiet, intelligent, controlled and very cooperative\dots{} Hearing. acute \dots{} Eyes normal orbetter. •pril r,, 1953] \dots{} Average size, slender, cooperative boy who seems quite well.”““


April 27, 1954 .•Average size [illegible] boy. \dots{} Good general health.


April 14, 1955] . . . slender, intelligent boy, quite cooperative . . . Good health generally. “April 20, 1956] . . . Pleasant, rather serious, intelligent boy well into puberty. \dots{} Vision 20\Slash{}20-2] in each eye\dots{} Good health.” “June [?] 1957] \dots{} Average measurements, slender, muscular, (illegible] boy. \dots{} Vision 20’20] in each eye.” ‘“-pril 21, 1958] \dots{} Average size, muscular[?] [illegible] boy. \dots{} Vision 20\Slash{}20.” “September 10, 1959] [when I was hospitalized with mononucleosis] \dots{} alert but somewhat slow to respond, oriented, cooperative.”


September15, 1959] \dots{} patientis a well-developed, young male \dots{}


I’ve made a point of noting my 20\Slash{} 20] vision because it was reported by the New York Tima that one of my high-school classmates, Jerry Pcligrano, described me as “bespectacled. “\footnote{(Ha) NY Times, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.2.2. column 5. I kept my :z.o\Slash{}20 vision at least until the age of 41, when my eyes were tested at 20\Slash{}:z.o by Or. Bruce Coen of Helena, Monuna. Sec (Eb) Med Records of TJK. Dr. Coen. I got my first pair of glasses at the age of 49, and even today. at 55, l haw good distmcc vision and can read ordinary-size printwithout glasses.} Kids with 20\Slash{}20] vision don’t wear spectacles. It’s clear that Pcligrano has me mixed up with someone else. We shall sec later that many of the other stories told about me have similarly been based on mistaken identity.


On entering college thad a physical examination at the Harvard University Health Services. The doctor reported that I had good posture, “strong masculine component” (whatever that means), 2.0\Slash{}20] vision in the right eye, and 20I 15-2. in the left.\footnote{(Fe) School records of T]K. Harvard. p.45.} He also filled out a multiple-choice form indicating his assessment of my personality. His opinion must have been based on an interview with me, though I do not remember this. The form consistedof a list of nine different areas in which the doctor was to rate the student from A to E, A being best and E worst. Here are the ratings he gave me:


I. Appearance and Manner


B. Good impression created. Attractive, mature for age, relaxed.


2. Speech


B. Talks easily. fluently and pleasantly.


3. Social Relations


C. Likes people and gets on well with them. May have many acquaintances but makes his friends carefully. Prefers to be by himself part of the time at least. May be slightly shy.


4, Athletic interests and Participation


D. Little ability in organized athletics. May prefer individual or noncontact sports or have inferior physical coordination. At best, he is a spectator.


5. Practical Motivations and Life Attitudes


B. Essentially a practical and realistic planner and an efficient worker.


Affairs usually run smoothly.


6. Aesthetic and Cultural Motivations and Life Attitudes


C. Cultural or aesthetic activity present, but definitely of a hobby nature rather than a primary urge in life.


7. Basic Personality Integration


A. Exceedingly stable, well integrated and feels secure within himself.


Usually very adaptable. May have many achievements and satisfactions.


8. War Service Adjustment (Left Blank)


9. College Adjustment


B. Good prospects for doing successfully in college but may have some minor difficulty either in studies or otherwise.


On the opposite side of the sheet. in a space provided for “Impression of the student as a person,” the doctor wrote:


Pleasant young man who is below usual college entrance age. Apparently a good mathematician but seems to be gifted in this direction only. Plans not crystalized yet but this is to be expected at his age. Is slightly shy and retiring but not to any abnormal extent. Should be steady worker.\footnote{Same, pp. 46, 46A.}


Now let’s turn to my academic records. Report cards for the three years I ,pent at Evergreen Park Central School have been preserved. The cards list several behavioral traits. to wit: “Maintains a frienclly. courteous, cooperative attitude,” ‘J\textbackslash{}.ccepts praise and criticism to improve,” “Is neat and orderly.” “Treats others and their ideas with respect and courtesy.” “Respects law and order,” “Recognizes and carries out his share of responsibility.” ‘Works without annoying others,” “Respects property,” “Shows growth in self-discipline,” ‘i\textbackslash{}rrives at class promptly with necessary materials,” “Begins work promptly.” “Plans and completes work to best of bis ability.” “Concentrates on the job at hand,” “Expects only a fair amount of attention,” “ls attentive to directions,” “Uses time to good advantage.” A checkmark in a box next to any one of these items denoted a deficiency in the trait indicated. I got one and only one checlanark in my three years at Evergreen Park Central. It was in the third grading period of fifth grade, and it appeared next to “Concentrates on the job at hand.” This probably referred to a tendency on my part to daydream in class.\footnote{(Fa) School Records of T]K. E. P. Elementary.}


If my high-school report cards have survived, I don’t have them. I do have a transcript of my high-school record, and it includes a list of behavioral traits, with boxes marked “high,” “medium,” and ‘1ow” next to each item. The boxes have been left blank except for my senior year. For my senior year the evaluations are:\footnote{(Fb) School Records ofT]K. E. P. High School}

\bigskip
\noindent
 \begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{|X|X|X|X|}
\hline
\relax  Scholarship  &  High 4  &  Medium 1  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Leadership  &  High 0  &  Medium 2  &  Low 3   \\
\relax  Cooperation  &  High 1  &  Medium 4  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Dependability  &  High 2  &  Medium 3  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Effort  &  High 1  &  Medium 4  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Initiative  &  High 2  &  Medium 3  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Punctuality  &  High 3  &  Medium 2  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Loyalty  &  High 2  &  Medium 3  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Courtesy  &  High 2  &  Medium 3  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Honesty  &  High 4  &  Medium 1  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Health  &  High 2  &  Medium 3  &  Low 0   \\
\relax  Personal Appearance  &  High 1  &  Medium 1  &  Low 3   \\
\relax  Emotional Adjustment  &  High 0  &  Medium 3  &  Low 2   \\
\hline
\end{tabularx}
\end{minipage}
\bigskip


I take it that the numerals refer to the number of teachers, out of five, who gave me each rating. For example, three teachers out of five rated me as medium on emotional adjustment and two rated me as low. It’s surprising that the ratings for emotional adjustment weren’t worse, considering how unhappy and frustrated I was at the time.


In support of my application for admission to Harvard, my high-school counselor, Miss Skillen, filled out a form\footnote{(Fe) School Records of T]K. Harvard. pp. IO•U.} in which, among other things, she was asked to rate me with respectto seven traits on a scale ofI to 9, best being 9 and worst 1. Here is how she rated me:


In terms of his ability to do satisfactory academic work at Harvard, how would you rate the candidate?


8 (exceptionally able) Considering only the student’s interests, work habits and life goals, what arc the chances that he will be motivated to take full advantage of the educational opportunities available to him at Harvard?


9 (practically certain) In comparison with his classmates, how would you rate the candidate in terms of energy, vigor, enthusiasm or drive?


9 (outstanding) What arc the chances that this student will have personal or social problems which will hinder him from doing college work in line with his capabilities?


8 (very unlikely) In comparison with his classmates, how would you rate the candidate in terms of warmth and attractiveness of personality?


8 ( outstanding) In comparison with his classmates, how would you rate the candidate in terms ofhis sense of responsibility and concern for others?


8 ( outstanding) In comparison with his classmates, what is the quality of the candidate’s workin English composition?


9 (outstanding).”


The form also included the question, “Is there any evidence chat the applicant is emotionally unstable? Yes--No--.” Miss Skillen checked


The form listed a number of “special circumstances” to be considered in evaluating a candidate, with a box to be checked next to each item. One of the items was, “He has experienced more than normal emotional difficulty in growing up.” Miss Skillen did not check the box next co this item. Thus she indicated her opinion that I did not have such difficulties.


The form provided a space for comments, and here is what Miss Skillen wrote: “Ted Kaczynski is beginning his third year of high-school. We plan to graduate him in the spring of 1958 even though he has only been enrolled here for a period of three years. We have accelerated his schedule, and have encouraged enrollment in summer school so that he would be able to enter college earlier than he had planned. Since elementary school, Ted has been marked by superior ability, extreme versatility. and an intellectual vigor and soundness. His teachers have found him keenly curious, deeply devoted to one vocational goal, but still able to excel in all subjects. We have found him to be first and foremost a scientist in his thinking and in his goals. However, we have also found him to c an accomplished musician, interested in composition and theory of music. He comes from a very modest home, where he is allowed to buy books before anything else, and these factors have been tremendously encouraging to his intellectual development. Of all the youngsters I have worked with at the college level, I believe Ted has one of the greatest contributions to make to society. He is reflective, sensitive, and deeply conscious of his responsibilities to society. He is willing to think originally. And is willing to express his convictions. His only drawback is a tendency to be rather quiet in his original meetings with people, but most adults on our staff, and many people in the community who are mature find him easy to talk to, and very challenging intellectually. He has a number of friends among high-school students, and seems to influence them to think more seriously. He has long been interested in Astronomy and is accomplished in this particular phase of science.\footnote{Actually my interest in and knawlcdge of asaonomy were minimal, as Miss Skillen ought to haw known, and probably did know.} One of his problems in college will be the large one of channeling his energies and his versatile interests into one major field of interest. He is supported completely by his family as he enters college, and I believe is a person we can recommend most highly and with great enthusiasm for any school which he might wish to enter. He shouldprofit most from the school which can provide him with many subject areas so that he may explore and enjoy the intellectual challenge evident in such a curriculum.


October 16-1957, Lois Skillen, Director of Counseling.\footnote{(Fe) School Records of T]K. Harvard. pp. IO•U.}


I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that anyone should take the foregoing seriously as a truthful representation of my personality. I think Miss Skillen was rather unscrupulous about the methods that she used to get me into Harvard. But her comments do demonstrate that she didn’t see me as the kind of disturbed sicko that my brother and mother have recently portrayed in the media. If she had seen me that way she wouldn’t have been so enthusiastically bent onsending me to Harvard. (See Appendix7] for further evaluations by my high-school teachers.)


In connection with my application for admission to Harvard. I was interviewed by a certain Rudy Ruggles on May I, 1958. His report included only one sentence that saidanythingabout my personality:


This boy is obviously young. but heis verywell poised, expressed himself well and gave the impression of being a fine boy.\footnote{JO, (Fe) School Records of1JK, Harvard. p.16.}


The interview form also included a rating on “personal qualities.” On a scale of xto 6] (I best, 6] worst), Ruggles rated me 3, “Good above-average boy.”\footnote{JO, (Fe) School Records of1JK, Harvard. p.16.}


When I first got to Harvard I felt myself under an obligation to try to make friends, because my parents had often criticized me for not being more social. But I soon found that I didn’t fit in with the prep-school types by whom t was surrounded, so I gave it up as a bad job and went my own way. a way thatwas fairly eccentric.by Harvardstandards. During my fresh. man year I used to come to my room after supper and, while taking offthe coat and tie that were required in the dininghall, I would mutter a string of curses about the mountain ofwork I had to do. Then I would force myself to stay up studying until at least 2.:00] AM. Fresh linen was delivered to my door each week, but often I neglected to put the sheets on the bed and slept on the bare mattress. My mother had provided me with a suit, tic, sport coat, dress pants, and the like, but she’d given me only two pairs of washable pants, one of which was baggy and the other dose-fitting. I didn’t like the fancy stuff and (except in the dining hall) wore only casual clothes. I wore the close-fitting pants six days a week and the baggy pants on the other day, when I washed the close-fitting pants.\footnote{pants. and the curses about the amount of work I had to do, are spoken of onpp. 64, 65 of (Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, which continues: ..A couple of times I owrbcard the guys in the nm: room making fun ofthese pec:uliariries.Jl..} I didn’t buy another pair of pants because I was sixteen years old, had never bought clothes for myself (my mother took care of that), and didn’t quite know how to go about it. Eventually, towani the end of my freshman year. the dose-fitting pants wore out and I was forced to embark on the adventure ofbuying my own pants for the first time in mylife.


During that first year I was in a small dormitory (8 Prescott Street) that was reserved for brighter students, and I was not the only eccentric there. One kid seemingly never washed his hands, since they were always visibly filthy, yet he invariably wore a suit and tic. Another kid habitually told lies, and yet another kid hadvarious problems that we needn’t describe here.


At any rate, my parents wrote me that someone had sent them a brochure from the Harvard mental-health services describing counseling available to students.\footnote{) Autobiog of TJKI979, p.65.} They took this as a hint that I needed counseling and they seemed a little concerned. I wrote them back telling them that I was doing fine, and they did not refer to the matter again. I used to think that the dorm proctor, Francis £.X. Murphy. had sent them the brochure,\footnote{) Autobiog of TJKI979, p.65.} but this seems doubtful in view of the relatively favorable evaluation of me that he wrote, to which I have recently gained access. Possibly the brochure was sent to all parents of Harvard freshmen as a matter of routine. However that may be, Murphy wrote the following “Resident Freshman Advisor Report” on March 17, 1959:


A very quiet and retiring young man, Ted works almost constantly on his science courses. He seems to have no interests other than his work and although not unsocial, or unpleasant, isolates himself completely from all his classmates. He is an excellent trombonist, but is reluctant to join any Harvard musical groups. He is very immature and perhaps because of his age (he is only sixteen) he may feel himself apart. He docs not seem to mind being alone, and is very independent and well organized. I do not imagine that the prospect of room-mates is pleasing to him. but people who are friendly and reasonably quiet should be good for him. His lack of interest in anything other than science is reflected in the relatively poor grades he received in Humanities and Social Sciences.\footnote{) School Records ofTJK, Harvard. p.39.}


That’s the entire rcporc.\footnote{object at this point in the bookis to review all of the doc:umcnwy evidence about my personality that data from before myanatand die OIS’lditg But so that no one can accuse me of cryingto covu aaytbingup. I inform the reader that the tone of this Resident Freshman Advisor Report does not well concord with Murphy’s recent remades to themedia and to investigalon. 1’hcsclaststrike me as almost bizarre, and they must be heavily influenced by the phenomenon ofmedia planting; I discuss them atlength in Appendiz}


The statement that I isolated myself from my classmates is not quite correct. It would be more accurate to say that my classmates isolated me. They never invited me to go anywhere with them or do anything with them, they never invited me to their rooms, they showed little or no interest in having conversations with me. As already noted, I did at first try to make friends with them, but they appeared unresponsive; which was not surprising. since their cultural world seemed very different from the one I had come from. This was rrue even of those who have recently told investigators thatthey camefrom a “working<lass” or”middle<lass” background. At the time, I assumed most of them were “preppies,.. Because theirspeech, manners, and dress were so much more “cultured” than mine. There are, of course, people of working-class origin who ape the manners of the upper classes as soon as they get the chance.


As for my being “reluctant to join any Harvard musical groups,” on arriving at Harvard I did try out for the band, and was accepted. But before playing even a single note with them I was required to attend a drill session in which we practiced marching in formation for football games (something l had never had to do in the high-school band). I hated it. Since I was also concerned about whether the band would demand too much of the time I needed for studying. I resigned from it. The onlyother musical group l knew of that l could have joined was the orchestra, and orchestral trombone parts generally are very uninteresting. My teacher, Cimera, had always said that playing in a symphony orchestra would ruin a good trombonist.


So much for my freshman year. During my three subsequent years at Harvard I lived at Eliot House. In connection with my applications r renewal of my scholarship, John Finley. Master of the house, wrote two brief evaluations, one at the end of my sophomore year and the other at the end of myjunioryear:


Beyond achieving his fairly good record of an A, two B’s and a C at midyears (the first and last respectively in Math. 2.0] and Physics I2C), Kaczynski’s chief activity is to have grown a wispish beard and to practice the trumpet. [Sic; it was a trombone, not a trumpet.] Heis fairly good at it, and the mournful strains float down from the rooms above our house where he lives. He is pretty lonely. I fear, despite efforts of roommates, to whom I have spoken of him. (I was not aware of anyefforts” on thepart of my roommates.] One may sechim occasionally in the comer of the Dining Hall sitting with his back to the room. He is a year younger than many of his classmates [sic; actually two years] and may yet show the talent that might justify such isolation. Meanwhile, he remains pretty sad. Perhaps his life is brighter to him tlian it seems to others-I devoudy hope so.


June 7, 1960] J. H. Finley.\footnote{(Fe) School Records of T]K. Harwrd. pp. 40, 41.}


His midyear performance of three Ks and a B (the Ks in Mathematics and Quine’s Logic) begin to justify the curious act of imagination that got him here. For some reason one no longer hears this year the strains of his trumphet[sic] from ourtop floor, and the wispish beardhas vanished. He is still pretty lonely butless friendless than he was a year ago. He turned nineteen only at the end of May and has had to overcome both youth and simple upbringing. His excellent and mounting marks argue high inner strength; he should begin to find himself fully in Graduate School. All very gallant, touching. and memorable.


June 6, 1961] J. H. Finley.”“\footnote{(Fe) School Records of T]K. Harwrd. pp. 40, 41.}


During my junior year at Harvard my faculty advisor was Professor Andrew Gleason of the mathematics department. Unlike many other faculty advisors he did not merely rubber-stamp my course selections, and I had two or three extended conversations with him about my program. When I applied for admission to graduate school during my senior year I asked him for a recommendation, and he wrote:


My acquaintance with Kaczynski has been ratherslight: I have been his advisor but have never had him in class••.He has always struck me favorably at the personal level.\footnote{(Fd) School Records of TJK. U Mich., p.9.}


The rest of Gleason’s note discussed only my mathematical abilities and made no further mention of my personal qualities, so there is no need to reproduce it here. I had recommendations also from two other professors,\footnote{e, pp. 8, 10.} but they dealt exclusively with my mathematical abilities.


During my sophomore year I was talked into becoming a participant (against my better judgment) in a psychological study directed by the late Professor Henry A. Murray. Along with a couple of dozen other Harvard students, over a period of almost three years I went through a series of interviews and filled out many questionnaires.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TjK1979, pp. 70-72,.} My brief1959] autobiography was written for Murray’s group. The assessment arrived at by the psychologists would be very useful in determining how people saw my personality. but up to the present (March 14, 1998) the Murray Center at Radcliffe College has refused to release any of the psychologists’ conclusions to my attorneys; and most of the individual psychologists involved have declined to cooperate with the investigators, who to my knowledge have obtained no information concerning any conclusions that were drawn about me. One wonders whether the Murray Center has something to hide. Anyway. all l know at the moment about the psychologisrs’ conclusions is that I was included in an “ideologically alienated” group that was discussed by Kenneth Keniston in his book Uncommitted.


A note of caution to people who might think they can get information about me by reading Kcniston’s book: Statcmcnrs made by Keniston about his alienated group were evidently intended to describe the tendencies of the group as a whole, and werenotmeant to apply to each individual member of the group. Many of his statements arc not true when applied to me personally. I am speaking of factual statements, not of interpretations or of theories about unconscious motivations. For example, according to Kcniston, members of his alienated group reported a “strong sense of cosmic outcastncss \dots{} (and] self-estrangcment.”\footnote{Kennetlt Keniston. The Uncommitted. Hucourt, Brace, and World, 1965, p.475. For other enmplcs see (Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. ‘75•71•} I have never had or reported any such feelings.


I wrote my motherin 1991:


One of the psychologists who participated in [the Murray] study. and who interviewed me a few times, was a youngish insa-uctor who lived at Eliot House. He was a member of the house master’s inner clique. Two or three times when I met him at Eliot Houser said ‘hello’. In each case this psychologist answered my greeting in a low tone. looking off in another direction and hurrying away as ifhe didn’t want to stop and talkto me. rve thought this over. and the only half:way plausible I explanation I can think of for this behavior] is that this man didn’t want to be seen socializing with someone who wasn’t dressed properly and wasn’t acceptable co the clique of which he was a member.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4,48, letter from me to my mother, May 16, 1991, pp. 4, 5. Words in brackets were “cue off” on my copy of p.4 of this letter, and I haw filled them in \&om memory.}


The psychologist referred to in this passage was Keniston. I told the same story in my 1979 autobiography.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, p.74} but there my speculative aplanation for Kcniston’s behaviorwas that he disliked me.


The remaining concrete evidence that I have of the way my personality was viewed in those days comes from my University of Michigan records. I will quote those of my professors’ comments that refer to my personality and omit those that dcsaibe only my marbemati.cal ability. However. I will include those comments about my mathematical ability that have also a bearing on mypersonality; for cnmplc. the term ..o:rigmal” was applied to my mathematical work. but originality is in addition a personality trait.


1962-63, report on my performance in Math 602., by Professor Duren: “Showed intcresc. independence, and originality. He is very much an abstract pruist [sic; “purist” is mcant-1] think it is a form of mathematical immaturity. He also seems a little too sure ofhimself.”\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


1962-63, report on my performance as a paper-grader for Math 336, by Professor Halpern: ‘Very cooperative and efficient. “\footnote{Same. p.59.} 1963-64, report on my performance in Math 603, by Professor Piranian: “Has imagination. “\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


1963-64, report on my performance in Math 604, by Professor Piranian:


\dots{} lacks fire.”\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


December 23, 1963, recommendationin support of application for renewal of teaching fellowship, by Professor Piranian: He can work intensively, and he has a fertile imagination. .•. Personally, he is modest and pleasant. “\footnote{ame, p.14,}


January 13, 1964, retommendation in support of application for renewal of teaching fellowship, by Professor Ouren: \dots{}. he \dots{} seemed to think about things in a mature way and to try to understand broad rdationships\dots{} He seems to have some originality. too \dots{} My main criticism is chat Mr. Kaczynski seems to have too high an opinion of himself. too much confidence in his own abilities. For a stUdent at his level. it is unnacural. Otherwise he is a pleasant fellow, easy to get along with.\footnote{Same. p.13.}


1964-65, report on my performance in Math 7ox. by Professor Shields: “ \dots{} original work \dots{}”\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


1964-65. report on my performance in Math 702. by Professor Shields: “Meticulous work. often quite original.”\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


1965-66, report on my performance in Math 635, by ProfessorTitus: “ \dots{} thorough. confident, talented. “\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


1965-66, report on my performance in Math 999] (research for doctoral thesis), by Professor Shields: “ \dots{} ver’f original man.”\footnote{(Fd) School Records ofT]K. U Mich.. p.IQ4.}


February 3, 1966, recommendation in support of application for financial support, by Professor Shields: “Very independent in research find his own problems. Mr. Kaczynski is a ver’fpleasant person \dots{}”\footnote{Same. P.I7•}


Concerning Professor Durcn’s characterization of me as overconfident: The year before I took Math 6ox and 602. from him. I’d taken Math 2J2a and b from Professor L.H. Loomis at Harvard, the best mathcmati.a course I ever took. I got only a Bin 2J2a because at the time I was snuggling to keep my head above water in Math 2.50, but the next semester I took no other mathematics course than m.b. I caught up OD what I’d mi.ssed in 212a, and learned the subject matter of :ml, so thoroughly that. apart from the reading-period assignment, I was able to clcvclop all of the material of the course OD my own, without reference to any books or notes and without hesitation.\footnote{Part of the inrormation in this paragraph is confirmed by (Ac) Autobiog of1JK 1979, pp. 62. 63, and (Fe\} School Records of T\}K. Harvard. p.37. Most of the rest of the information is confirmed by two other documents. (Ca) FL \#3t, letter from me to my parents, early June 1962: “Comment on my Math 2I2h postcard: (mce enm: third highest in cl.ass) L.H.L. ( LH. Loomis] So, without having that stupid math 25’0 on my backthis term, I wuable to do a dcccmjob on Math 2I2h.” Confidential Rcpon on Applicant for rmancial Support of Graduate Study, written by LH. Loomis on February 9, 19n, (Fd) School Records of TJK. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf U. Mich., p.8: ‘1 havejustgiven Kaczymk.i a B in the first halfofour real variables course (Math :u:ia)•.•He did reasonably for an undergraduate in a course which is dominated by a strong group of graduate students.n}


When I got to the University of Michigan, I received a document that told me I was to take Math 601] and 602. Since most of the material of these two courses had been covered in 2.I2a and b at Harvard. I asked some professor whether I could omit them. He referred me to Professor Halmes. Halmos was a very distinguished mathematician, author of the definitive text on measure theoiy. a subject which constituted a large part of the material of Math 601] and 602.. When I told him I’d taken Math 212] at Harvard he asked me, “Who taught it?” I said. “Professor Loomis\dots{} “What grade did you get?” ..I got an A.’. Then he asked, “Arc you an expert?” What beginning graduate scudent, in the presence of the great P.R. Halmos, would have had the temerity to dcsaibe himself as an expert on measure theory? So of course I said “No.” “Then,” answered Halmos, “You•d better take 6oI and 602. “\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK. 1979, p.133: ‘1 took \dots{} real analysis (Math 6o1] under Duren the first semester\dots{} I didn’t want to take the real analysis. sinceI’d learned most of that stuff’ at Harvard. but they told me I’d bettertake it anyway \dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf By the wai when I quote conversations that took place decades ago butwere not recorded in writing at the time. I of course do net claim to be reproducing them with word-for-word accuracy. But I do notinvent dialogue unless I am confident that it accurately rcfleas the subsance ofwhatwas said.}


Duren had gotten his Ph.D. only two years earlier and was just starting at the University of Michigan, and he was teaching 601] and 6o2] for the first time. Since l very likely knew the material better than he did, it’s not to be wondered at that he thought me CM!I’COnfident. In general. l probably tended to underestimate my own mathematical abilities, if anything. When I recently gained access to the confidential parts of my University of Michigan records, ( was distinctly surprised at how laudatory some of the commcncs were. ( hadn’t thought I was thatgood.


On leaving the University of Michigan. I took a position as Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. After teaching there for two years, I resigned in orderto go live in the woods.


A personal letter from John W. Addison ( chairman of the mathematics department at Berkeley) to my former dissertation advisor. Allen Shields, has somehow found ics way into my University of Michigan records, •. though itwas written two and a halfafter I left Michigan.


Kaczynski did indeed resign cffi:am:June30, 1969\dots{} He said he was goingto give up mathematics. \dots{} He was very calm and rel.ucdaboutiton the outside\dots{}


Kaczynski seemed almost pathologically shy and as far as I know he made no close friends in the Department. Efforts to bring him more into theswing of things had failed.”\footnote{(Fd) School Records of TJK, U Mich., p.:m.}


It’s not clear why Addison de.!aibed me as ..almostpathologically shy.” I was shy. but not that shy. Perhaps he overestimated my shyness because of my failure to mixwith othermembers ofthe department. Howevu, I failed to mixnot only due to poor social adjumncnt, but also because by that time I had decided that I didn’t want to be a mathematician. I was teaching at Berkeley only to get money to finance my project of going to live in the woods.\footnote{(Ac\} Autobiog ofTJK. 1979, p.I7J.} I considered mathematicians to be very uninteresting people, and I felt I had nothing in common with them. To them. mathematics was Important, with a capital I. whereas to me it was only a game-a game with which I had become bored.


It is worth noting that none of the comments on my personality in my University of Michi records desaibe me as shy. Yet one professor at Michigan apparendy did notice that I was socially withdrawn. Piranian once told me that I ought to attend mathematical conferences because it would be “good for [me] psychologically and socially.” To Piranian the remark may have been merely a casual one, bur. though I said nothing, I was mortally offended by it. Ever,since my teens I’d been acutely sensitive to any comment that seemed to reflect negatively on my personality. my psychology, or my social adjustment. It was many years before I forgave Piranian for that remark.\footnote{Same, p.147.}



\bigskip


One last comment concerning my academic career. Newsweek wrote: ‘:.\textbackslash{}t the University of Michigan, [Kaczynski] won a prize for his doctoral thesis. But flouting the customs of academic collegiality. he made no acknowledgments-not to teachers orfellow srudcnts.”\footnote{(Hf) NJe, April :u. 1996, p.30.}


I did not flout any eustoms of academic collegiality. Piranian had called my attention co the problem that got me started on my thesis topic and had encouraged me co work on it. I acknowledged this in a footnote to the paper in which I published my solution to the problem: “I would like to thank Professor G. Piranian for his encouragemcnt.”\footnote{T.J. Kaczynski. -Boundary Functiom fer Fw:iaiom Defined in a Dislc,•]11KrNJl of M4dlonMia and Mtdwsic.s, VoL 14. No. 4 (1965), p.5’89.} Piranian gave me no help beyond encouragement; he didadvise me co take a certain approach in attacking the problem, but I did not follow his advice; if I had followed it I would never have solved the problem.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#80, letter from me to my parena. Spring 1964, p.x: ,t’s a good thing I didn’t follow Pirmian’s suggestions about how to attack the problem. or I never wouldhave solwd it!” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Piraman wged me to prove (a) that every continuous function in the disk admitJ a \&mi1y ofdisjoint arcs. and to deduce from this (b) that every boundary function for a continuous function can be made into a function of the first Baire class by changing its values on at most a coumable set. (‘The terminology is plained in F. Bagmuhl and G. Piranian, .Boundary Functions for Functions Defined in a Disk,” MidupJcntrn4’. 8(1961), pp. 201-UJ1.) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I maintained that it would be much easierto prove (b) by examittiog inverseimage sets, and I even suggested that (b) might then be used to prove (a). And that’s how it turned out. I did prove (b) within duee months or so by using inverse-image sets. The proof of (a) was vastly more difficult. I didn’t succeed in proving (a) until two decades later, and I had to use (b) in order to do it. The proof of (a) has notpublished.}


I did not make any acknowledgments in my. doctoral thesis. There was no need for me to do so, since no one had helped me with the work. In his evaluation of the thesis, my thesis director, A.L Shields, wrote: ..Kaczynski has worked entirely on his own, with only a minimum of guidance from mc.”\footnote{(Fd) School Records of TJK, U Mich., p.114} Actually. I don’t recall getting any guidance at all from him.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 6. How people saw me after my arrest; false reports about me}


WE SAW in the last chapter chat, while some people recognized chat I was socially withdrawn, the evidence shows that prior to my anm people did not sec me as the strange sicko that the media have portrayed. As for what has been reported since my am.st, people’s memories and perceptions often are heavily influenced by what they sec and hear in the media. and there are many persons who will tell the media what they think is expected of them. The media report inaccurately much of the material they receive, and they probably select stories that support the image that they want to project.


During June 1996, investigators working on my case conducted a door-to-door survey of public opinion about me in Lincoln. Montana. One of their interviewees reported that “a lot of Lincoln people and maybe even some of the FBI were pulling the media leg[sic] by making up information and telling them lies to sec if they would be printed (which they were).”\footnote{(Kb) Lincoln Interviews, p.75.} According to another interviewee, ..a lot of \dots{} people in Lincoln, pretend that they knew Ted when really they did not. ‘You can no longer pick out the truths from the untruths.’\footnote{Same, p.2.3.} Needless to say. these fabrications were not confined to the Lincoln area.


When people who have been nothings all their lives, who may have started out with high ambitions but ended. up essentially as failures in that they achieved little of what they had expected. suddenly find that they arc a focus of attention rhrough rhe accident of their association with someone who is in the news, they may let their imaginations run wild in orderto stay in the spotlight and feel important for a change. Often, no doubt, they believe sincerely in the truth of their own fantasies.


I once read a story titled “Pie in the Sky”-I think it may have been by William Styron, but rm not sure. Anyway, the story was about a bored employee of a majornews service who sent out aphotograph of a pie with a bite taken out of it. accompanied by a report that a gap had suddenly appeared in the moon and then disappeared a few moments later. As soon as the report hit the news, thowands of people all aver America began calling newspapers and radio stations to saythey, too, had seen the gap in the moon.


The story was fiction, but it was intended to illustrate a truth: When the media report anything that is highly unusual. there are many weak-minded people who will insist, “I saw it too1•Thus. after the first reportS of “flying saucers” appeared back in the 195os, all sons of incompetents came crawling out of the woodwork with tales of flying saucers that they had seen themselves, complete with interesting details such as rows of lighted windows or weird-looking aliens. So it is not surprising that after my arrest there were many people who swore they’d seen me in places where I’d never been.


One particularly grotesque cnmple was the story told by Professor Donald Saari of Northwestern Universicy. as reported by the New Yorie Times. According to the nme.s, “Investigators have expressed some doubts about Professor Saari’ s account,\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, P.2.4. c:olu.mn 2.} as well they might. since I’ve never seen Professor Saari in my life. Joel Shapiro, a professor ofmathematia at Michigan tate Universicy. told one of my investigators that he thought that Professor Saari’s colleagues at the Northwestern math department were embarrassed about the tale he told the media.\footnote{(Qc) Written Reports by Investigator\# 2., p.r.1oelSchapiro (sic; correct spelling iiShapiro] thought that Prof. Saari’s colleagues at Nortbwestem University wae embarrassed about the smryhe gave to the media.•}


It would be impractical for me to try to refute, or even mention, all of the innumerable false reporcs that have been published about me, so I will have to confine myself o a few enmples.


Some egregious ones have been provided by Pat Mcintosh, a former suitemate of mine in Eliot N-43, where I lived during my sophomore. junior, and senior years at Harvard. The New Yori! Times quoted Mcintosh as saying that “in three years, ‘I don’t recall more than to words being spoken by [Kaczynski]’ \dots{} ‘I never met anybody like him who was as extreme in avoiding socialization.’\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.13, column r.} Time wrote: ‘Ted had a special talent for avoiding relationships by moving quickly past groups of people and slammingthe door behind him.’ says Patrick Mcintosh.\footnote{(Hg) Timi:, April 15, 1996, p.45.}


All a matter of face, I had a fair number of conversations with Mcintosh and the clique within the suite to which he belonged. I even played basketball with them, and I still have a bump on the side of my tongue co prove it. As Cwrote co my parents at the time:


I have decided to quit playing basketball because I keep hurting myself. First I bruised my hand very badly. next I got bad blisccrs on my feet. Now just the other day I collided with somebody just as he was bringing his arm up to shoot and I got knocked pretty hard under the chin-and the edge of my tongue got caught between my teeth so that I practically bit a piece off the side of it (a small piece) so eating is pretty uncomfurtable.\footnote{(Ca) FL \# 8, letter from me to my parents, January 1961, p.J. The incident is also described in (Ac) AutobiogofTJK1979, p.IOI; but Mcintosh is not named.}


The “somebody” with whom I collided was none other than Patrick Mcintosh.


I not only recall having a number of conversations with Mcintosh. I . remember the content of some those conversations. On one occasion the subject of flying saucers came up. l expressed disbelief in these alien spaceships, but Mcintosh was able to state definitely that they existed, because he had seen one. He and some friend or relative of his had once been out at night and had seen a row of lights some distance away. Since apparendy Mcintosh could think of no other explanation, he concluded that the lights were the windows of a flying saucer. He seemed dead certain sure ofit. On another occasion psychic phenomena were discussed, and I again expressed disbelief. Mcintosh countered by mcrting that his mother had telepathic powus-she always knew. without having been notified, when relatives were coming to visit. When he tookAntbropology Io, Human Evolution, he developed the ingenious theory that ..the Nigra .. (he was from Southern lllinois, and that was how he pronounced the word “Negro”) was”an intermediate stage in evolution between the ape and man\dots{}


Some allowance has to be made for the limitations of Mcintosh’s intelligence. He is a rather dim bulb. He once complained co me that his advisor at Harvard’s astronomy dcpamncnt had told him, in rcfcrcnce to his C in advanced calculus. “If you want to be an astronomer, those Ks should just come naturally to you.”


He doesn’t understand, added Mcintosh, “that noc everyone is as smart as he is.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\# 79, PatrickMdmosh. p.n.}


By this time, perhaps, the reader will have concluded that the faa that I didn’t care to socialize with Pat Mcintosh was not necessarily a symptom of abnormality. Mcintosh’s buddies in N-43] were brighter than he was, but, like him, they were unimaginative, conventional, suit•and•tie•wcaring cypcs,\footnote{hen I wu tcachmg at Michigan and later at BcrlceJey. I always wore a suit and tie myself on days when I had to teach. butneverat ocher times. I wu beingpaid to teach. and I felt it was part of what I was being paid for to wear clothes that would encourage an appropriate aonosphe:re in the classroom. Besides, I was so ycung•looking that I was afraid the studena aught not take me seriously as a teacherifI didn”t dress the part.} and I found them uninteresting. not to say dull. There wm a couple of other fellows in the suite, Fred Ha. and B.Cr., whom I found more congenial and with whom I spent more time.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of T]K 1979, p.69: “During my junior year r made a couple of other \dots{} rwon’t say friends, but close ac:quaincauces. But they both left Harvard before the nezt academic year.” (The three dots are in the origmal.) The “‘close acquaintances” were Fred Ha. and B.Cr. I often are widi them in the dining hall, andI regularlywmtto conditionmgdasswith B.Cr. (fmnotsure I remember B. Cr.’s last name co) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ac) Autabiog of1JK 1979, p.Io.t: “In myjunior year. one Fred Ha., a roommate of mine. made a disparaging comment about my size-which was inappropriate coming \&om rum, since I had earlier pl’Uftd myself to be quite his equal both in wrestling and arm-wrestling. even though he weighed t6S while I WU I.40. (Of course, IO pounds or SO of his weightWU probably just excess \&c.r} Butitis still crue that I was generally pretty solitary at Harvard and made no close friends there. Newswulc wrote:


(Kaczynski’s] bedroom, a single, ‘was the messiest room I’d ever seen.’ Mcintosh says. ‘It was a foot or two deep in trash. And it smelled, because there was spoiled milk and sandwiches underneath all that stuff.’\footnote{(Hf) N. April 15, t996, P,J.4.}


Time quoted Mcintosh to this effect:


Kaczynski’s room was a swamp; the others finally called in the housemastcr. the legendary Master of Eliot House john Finley. who was aghast. ‘I swear it was one or two feet deep in trash.’ Mcintosh says. ‘It had an odor to it. Underneath it all were what smelled like unused cartons of milk.


In Chapter 5, I quoted in full the evaluations of me that John Finley wrote at the end of my sophomore and my junior year, respectively. It is interesting that he made no reference to the alleged condition of my room, despite the fact that, according to Mcintosh, he was “aghast” at it. Of course, one can hypothesize th.at my suitcmatcs did not call F’mley in until my senior year (no evaluation of me was written at the end of that year). but then one has to ask why they waited for more than two years to take action.


As a matter of fact, my room was fairly messy. but not beyond what is commonplace for bachelor housekeeping. My bed was often unmade, clothes were thrown over furniture rather than hung up, the desk was covered with disordered books and papers. A3] a mathematician I consumed a great deal of scratch paper. I discamcd it by crumpling it into a ball and tossing it into the waste-basket. When the waste-basket overflowed I kept tossing the paper until one comer of the room was full of it. At muimum size the pile of paper might have covered ten percent of the floor space of the small room. The rest of the floor was dear of trash and other obstrUctions, except furniture and my foot-locker. There were no milk cartons, sandwiches, or other food remains under the paper. All my life I have been careful to dispose of food garbage properly, and have been careless only about the kind of rubbish that docs not breed bacteria or attract vermin. There were rooms at Harvard that were as filthy as Mcintosh dcsaibcs-I saw some-but mine was not one of them. If Master Finley was ever called to look at my room. he didn’t do so when I was present and I never heard anything about it. (See Appendix 3.)


McIntosh’s memory has shown itself wrong in a number of other cases. For instance, he told my investigators that “Harvardstudents were required to wear a coat and tic to class. If you wore a sweater rather than a coat, or forgot to wear a tic, you were sent back to your room.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\#79, Patrick Mdntosb. p.4} False. Students were required to wear a coat and tic in the dining halls. but there was no drcs.s code of any kind for classes. (ought to know, because I almost never wore a coat or tie anywhere except at meals. I do not at the moment have documentaryproof chat coats and tieswere not requiredin Harvard classes during 1958 but anyone who doubts my statement should be able to check it out.


The New York Timu refers to my “annoyingtrombone blasts in the dead of night”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.23, column,.} without acing any source. On the next page it dtes Pat Mcintosh’s reference to my “trombone blasts.”\footnote{Samc. IU3, calumn r.} The book Unabomber states, apparently on Mcintosh’s authority. that I was “lmown to play (my] ttombone late into the night.”\footnote{(Jb) Unabombcr, p.86.} In reality I was always careful to avoid playing my trombone at hours when it would be likely co annoy others. Once and only once I was asked co quiet down while playing the trombone. It was in . the afternoon; one ofmysuitemates, a German named Rudi something-orothcr, explained that he was studying for a final CDD1; I apologized and stoppedplaying immediately. The readerwill please refer to the evaluations by Master Finley that Iquotedin Chapter5] and note that while he writes of my trombone-playing, he makes no mention of any “blasts” or of playing at inappropriate hours.


In Appendix 3, I show that Mcintosh erroneously portrayed me as playingthe trombone duringmy senioryear.


According to Newsweek:


McIntosh remembers an incident when Kaczynski. angry about something, used soap to scrawl a pig and a rude tcmark on the bathroom mirror. \dots{} ‘He was one ofthe strangestpeople I met atHarvard.’ Mcintosh says. ‘He was so intent on not being in contact with people even then.’l l


Pat Mcintosh has me mixed up with someone ehc, and I can prove it by means of an old letterthat has survived. On March n, x962, I wrote my parents:


[R]emembcr that loony fascist character I told you about in the Suite? Looks like he’s rcally cracking up-dtis morning he left a pictUre of a pig’s head drawn in Soap on the bathroom mirror-and by it he left a note saying: ‘Toe warlike little-pig is watching the fierce oncs’--the ‘warlike little pig’ obviously referring to himself. He loolcs like a little pig.\footnote{(Ca) FL.letter\&om me to my parents, Matchn.}


I now apologize to this gentleman for dcsaibing him as a 1oony fascist”. His political views were pretty far to the right. but it would not be accurate to dcsaibe them as fascistic; and I of all people should have avoided careless imputations of mental illness. My investigators have tracked this man down. He’s had a successful career as a university professorand he apparently is highlyproficient in his specialty. Verybrightpeople often arc oddballs.


Pat Mcintosh took a photograph of the pig’s-head and later stuck it on the oddball’s doorin orderto taunthim. I spotted the photo before the oddball did. so I removed it and left it on a shelf in the cloakroom. I was surprised at what seemed to me to be Mcintosh’ s childishness; but the point here is chat Mcintosh knew at that time that it was the oddball who had drawn the pigon the mirror.


While Iwas cool towardMcintosh andhis clique and held conversations with them only occasionally. the oddball did go to an cm-emc in avoiding social contact with the others in the suite.\footnote{(Qa) Oral Report from Investigator. Oaober 6, 1997, ‘TThe oddball]: Said he didn’t know anyone in N-43 and didn’t recognize anyone’s name. Uncooperative, seemed odd.} So it’s clear that Mcintosh’s fuddled memory has got me mi\%cd up with the oddball ( and maybe one or two others) until he doesn’t knowwhere one begins and the other ends.


It’s evident that many other stories that have been told about me also are based on mistaken identity. To givejustthree enmplcs: The New Yorlc nmu quotes Richard Adams. who was in Eliot Howe whenI lived there, as follows:


He was sallow, humorless, introvutcd, a guy who couldn’t make conversation. Kaczynski wore non-modish clothes: a kind of unpleasant plaid spores jacket and a tic that didn’t go with it. He didn’tlookhappy.\footnote{Samc. IU3, calumn r.}


No one has ever dcsaibcdmy complexion as “sallow\dots{} Moreover, I have never owned a plaid spores jacket. I wouldn’t be likely to forget it if I had, since I’ve never owned but four spores jackets and three suits in mylife. It’s apparentthat Mr. Adams has me confused with someone else.


Newsweek wrote:


Gerald Bums \dots{} remembers Kaczynski from bull sessions at an allnight cafeteria with a group of math and philosophy majors. He had \dots{} cockatoo hair.’ Bums says\dots{} The late-night sessions, Burns says, often involved Immanuel Kant\dots{}


Bums says he got a call last year •.from a mutual friend who remembered Kaczynski’s fondness for Kant.\footnote{(Hf) N. April 15, t996, P,J.4.}


I’ve never participated in bull sessions at a cafeteria. I’ve never had “cockatoo hair.” I’ve neyer had the slightest interest in Immanuel Kant, and this can be documented:\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of1JK1979, p.6o: , had no respect for courses inthe Bullshitsubjects (Humanities and Social Scieoces). . . .Recall \&om Chapter 5 that F.E.X. Murphy wrote in his evaluation of me: “His ladr. of ima’at in anything other than science is reflected in the relatively poor gn.des he n:ceiwd in Humanities andSocial Sciences. (Fe) School Records of TJK. Harvard. p.39. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In a letterthat I wrote my parents while I was at Harnrd, I taped to the page a clipping from the Hamurl Crimson (the school newspaper) which read. in part: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf •. .. ‘I have been painfully forced to the belie£’ [Bertand Russell] once remarked, ‘thatDine tenths of whatis commonlyregarded as philosophy is humbug. The only part that is at all definite is logic:, and since it is logic. it is not philosopby.’. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Belowthe clipping I wrote: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf , noted with triumph the abo\textbackslash{}ie quotation of 8ermDd Russell in the Crimson. I have longmaintained that philosophy is humbug andnowI find that mm a philosopher admits it.(Ca) FL \#5, letter from me to my parents, between t958 andts,62. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf This should suffice co convince anyone that (was notinterestedin Immanuel Kant.} I’ve read nothing of Kant’s workbeyond what I was required to read for the Humanities scourse at Harvard, and I regarded everythingI read in that course asjusta lot ofcrap. It’s obvious that Gerald Burns, too, has confused me withsomeone c1sc.


The New Yorlc nm.es refers to my ..odd metronomic habit of rocking back and forth on a chair”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.23, column,.} as I scudicd. This apparently is another case of mistaken identity. When stUdying in my room (not in the library) I had a habit oftilting my chairback andbalancingin thatposition, controlling the angle of tiltwith light pressure of my feet on the legs of my desk. In a few cases r pushed my luck coo far and fell over backwards. Because I was balancing, rswayed back and forth. My former suitemates have described this as “rocking,” but the term is not apt, because “rocking” implies a rhythmic movement and my swaying was an irregular, non-rhythmic, balancing motion thatwas anythingbut metronomic. (See Appendix3)


The reference to my alleged”odd metronomic habit” is almost certainly based on confusion between me and another student of mathematics who did not tilt his chair but rocked his body back and forth rhythmically as he studied. The motion was so rigidly timed. mechanical, and persistentthatit could indeed have been described as “metronomic,” and it made this student conspicuousin the library.


Though I remembered only the first name ofthis man, we succeededin identifyinghim. Heis now a professorat one ofthe four orfive mostdistinguished universities in the United States, and hehas confirmed to my investigators that he did have the habit I’ve desaibcd.\footnote{19-(Qc) Written Reports by Investigator\# 1, pp. i. 4u,.}



\bigskip


Another source of tall tales about me has been Pat Morris, a high school classmate of mine with whom I was never more than slightly acquainted. I won’t waste much time on Mr. Morris; it would be pointless to argue about charges that are either trivial (for enmple. that I tried to smear cake frosting on another kid’s nose)\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.23, column,.}, or hopelessly vague (such as that I was “emotionally deficient,..\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.23, column,.} whatever that means). But it will be worthwhile to discuss my alleged adolescent aploiuwith aplosives.


According to the \emph{New York Times}:


Mr. Morris recalled that Teddy once showed a school wrestler how to make a more powerful mini-bomb. It went off one dayin achemistry class, blowing out two windows and inflicting temporary hearing damage on a girl\dots{} Teddy \dots{} later set off blasts that echoed aaoss the neighborhood and sent garbage cans flying.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.23, column,.}


Newsweek reported;



\begin{quote}


“[A]ll the brains fooled around with homemade explosives\dots{} Motris recalls an incident with a schoolboy bomb that broke a window in chemistry class and left a girl with damaged hearing. ‘Somebody asked [Ted]\footnote{The brackets and the word “TedH are in the original as printed in New.rwttlc. 21,} how to put the chemicals together and he told him.’ Morris says. ‘The dumb kid. he went a.head and did it. Ted did not do this. He wasn’t smart enough to say. This is not good to do\dots{} His personality was not robust. He often gotleft holding the bag.”‘\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of1JK1979, pp. 30-3:i; (Mb) “HaroldSnilly.”}



\end{quote}


This passage is so garbled that it isn’t clear who is being referred to in the last three sentences. Anyhow, to set the record straight and summarize what really happened, as narrated in my 1979 autobiography and in an earlier accountZl that I wrote in the mid-1970s.


Having some time to kill in the chemistry lab one day; I mixed a minute quantity of rwo chemicals, put half of the mixture on the tip of a spatula. and applied it to a bunsen-burncr flame. It made a tiny pop. My lab parmer. Rich Wi., having wimessed this operation, took the rest of the mixture, wrapped it in a scrap of paper, and dropped it into an empty crucible that was sitting over a bunsen-burncr flame on the lab table behind us which was occupied by L.N. and William Dewey\textsuperscript{†}. There was another small pop.


William Dewey became quite excited and asked me what the ingredients of the mixture were. Without stopping to think. I told him. He immediately dumped out his entire supply of the twO chemicals onto a piece of paper and began mixing them. The whole quantity might have amounted to a couple of tablespoonfuls. A few of us who were a bit wiser than William Dewey stood around urging him not to do anything like this in school and not to we such a large quantity of the chemicals. He simply ignored our warnings. I was quite worried by what he was doing. but it would have been a violation of the students’ unwritten code (to be a “snitch” and tell the teacher), so I said, “t wash my hands of.it,” and turned my back. A momentlater. the stuifwent ofE ‘ William Dewey received no significant injury, no windows were broken.\footnote{Reports of decades-old events given ro my investigators are so unreliable thac they have littic value, but for wharcvu it may be worth, at I.cut three students who were present in the chemistry Jab atthe nme of the inddmthave confirmed that no windows were broken. (Qb) Written lnvestigator Reports “\#50, W’illiam Dewey; \#rz,. Mike I., p.1; \#87, Russell Mosny, September 13, 1996, p.3.} and I never heard that anyone’s hearing was -and if any one’s hearing had been damaged I undoubtedly would have heard plenty about it. The upshot was that William Deweywas kicked outofthe chemistry course altogether, while my lab•partner and I were suspended from laboratory work (but not from classroom work) in Chemistry for two weeks.


Any information that Pat Morris has about this incident is hearsay; because he was not in that class. It should be possible to confirm this by referring to bis high-school records. ifbe allows access to them.


As for the statement that I “set off blasts that \dots{} sent garbage cam flying.” it is hyperbole. Once and only once I helped set off an explosive charge in a garbage can. I one day suggested to Dale Eickelman that we should experiment withblackpowdc:.


He became quite excited. We made up a small charge of the stuifabout equivalent to a large firecracker-and, at Dale’s insistence, we set it off in his parents’ garbage can. The lid was thrown a few feet into the air. but the can itself didn’t budge an inch.



\bigskip


I sit here contemplating the sorry catalog of nonsense that the media have printed about me and I am overcome with discouragement. I itch to refute all of it point by point. but there is just too much of it. and in most cases no documentation is available. So I will conclude this chapter by discussing a couple of episodes that my mother and brother have desaibed with gross inaccuracy.


According to the Washington Post my mother reported:


Ted was so furious about medical treatment that once, when he and his father found an injured rabbit. he begged that they not take it to a nearby animal hospital. Afterfreshman year atHarvard, while he was home : for the summer, he contracted mononucleosis and developed a high fever. Apcd.iaaician urged Wanda to take Ted to the hospital.


Ted was furious at his mother. ‘He was just so argumentative \dots{} , ‘ Wanda said. 1’nd I told him, 1.ook, we have to find out what’s wrong. You have to go to the doctor.•”“ \dots{}”


Ted did not speak to his parents again until the doctor said his health had improved and he could return to Harvard.\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post, June I6, t996, p.A2o.}


On April 12, 1996, my mother told Jnvestigator \# x:


[Ted] spent that summer [after his first year at Harvard] at home, and contracted a severe case of mono. It took him a long time to get overit, and the family doctor was reluctant to allow Ted to return to school the first semester of his sophomore year. Ted begged and pleaded to be allowed to return, and their doctor finally relented.”\footnote{(Ka) fnterview ofWanda by Investigator \#I, p.6.}


I don’t remember the rabbit incident, and I doubt that itever happened. I did have mononucleosis during the summer following my freshman year at Harvard. but rm not aware of any reason co dcsaibe the case as severe.”“ The medical records say that I did ““not appear to be in any acute distress,»\footnote{(Ea) Med Records ofTJK, U Chi, p.78,} and that I appeared ““mildly ill.”“\footnote{Same, p.82.. Legibility is not good, hue nmildly ill.. does appear ro be the correct reading.} The case was not treated by the ““family doctor” bt by a Or. Tanzi\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of1JK, U Chi, pp. 81, SJ, 84. 86, 87, 119, 90. I was also enmioed by a few other docton, but none of them was in any sense our “f.amily doctor\dots{}} who, as far as I know, had never treated any member of our family previously. De. Tanzi never expressed any reluctance to let me go back to college. There was no need for me to ““beg and plead .. -without any prompting from me he told me that I could return to school in time for the beginning of the semester. I was in the hospital for five days,\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of1JK, u. Chi, p.83.} from September 10 to September 15, 1959. On the 15th I was sent home with instructions to see Dr. Tanzi again in a week.\footnote{Same, p.119.} I returned on September 21, but apparently was cumined not by Tanzi but by a Dt Greenberg. who sent me back to Harvard with insauai.ons to take it easy for a while.\footnote{Same, p.83. Also see (Fe) School Records of TJK, Harvard, pp. Sc>-S4.}


But the important points here arc that I was not “furious” about going to the hospital, and I was not “anxious about medical crcaanent.” I don’t remember having raised any objections about going to the hospital, but if I did so it would have been not because I was anxious about medical treatment but because I was afraid of starting my next semester at Harvard late. I am quite certain that I did not get “furious” over goingto the hospital. and chat I went at least semi-willingly. since I knew I was sick. Note that the hospital records describe me as “cooperative.”\footnote{(Ea) Med Records ofTJK, U Chi, p.78,}


I certainly did not refuse to speak co my parents while I was in the hospical. In fact, they visited me, we had amicable conversation, and I even remember two books that they brought me-Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, and another titled The Last Hurrah (I don’t recall the author’s name).


My medical records from this period show clearly that I had no unusual am:iecy about medical treatment. Prior to going to the University of Chicago’s Billings Hospital, I bad already consulted a neighborhood doctor named Brant or Brandt\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of ‘IJK. U Chi., p.75.} about the indisposition that later turned out to be mononucleosis. My Harvard records show that I consulted the doctors at the Health Services several times ( obviously not under pressure from my parents, since they weren’t around) about relatively minor complaints such as athlete’s foot, a wart, and a sprained ankle.\footnote{J2. (Fe) School Records ofTJK, Harvard. pp. s6, 57.} Moreover, I was hospitalized (voluntarily. of course) from May 24] to May 26, 1961, in Harvard’s Stillman Infirmary with some cype of respiratory infection that was not very serious.\footnote{Same, pp. 59-6].} Clearly, therefore, I had no abnormal fear of docton and hospitals, and my mother’s grossly distorted account of the mononucleosis episode is just part of her effort to portray me u having been warped by “that hospital experience.”


At the age of 19] to 20] I had a girlfriend; the only one I ever bad, I regret to say. Her name was Doris B. She was an Evergreen Park resident, not someone I met in college. I went out with her a number of times during the summer following my junior year at Harvard. I saw her once the following summer; that meeting•!lent badly and she broke off the relationship. The breakup had Vertlittle to do with the fact that she was a Catholic. The story is told in my 1979 autobiography.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiogof1JK1979, pp. 119-nr, (Ad) Autobiogof1JK1,SS, pp. 8-10.}


My brother, as USl1al. bas got the facts garbled. “Just’ after [high’school] graduation, David recalled. Teddy dated a girl once or twice, but ended the relationship by expressing cnspcration with her Catholic beliefs\dots{} (New Yorle Times)\footnote{) NY nma, Nat., May :6, 1996, p.n. columns. Also see p.n. column L} There’s no chance that my brother is referring to anothergirl here, since Doris B. was the only girl I ever elated before my mid-thirties.


My aunt Josephine also has it wrong. since she refers to my “high-school girlfriend,” which Doris B. was not.\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post, June I6, t996, p.A2o.}


My mother was even further off when she told Investigator \#I that I “did sec one girl named [Dorothy] several times in junior high-school. “\footnote{(Ka) Interview of Wanda by Investigator \#r, p,4-(n (Ca) FL \#k,8, letter\&om me ro my mother, July 5, 1991, p.8, I mentioned Doris B.’s name, and in an answering leccer written a few days lat.er, (Ca) FL \#46o, letterfrom my mother to me, midJuly 1991, my mother mentioned Doris B.’s name coBut. as we’ve seen. by 1996 she’d gone back to callingher “Dorothy\dots{}}


There is a stteak. of irrational stubbornness in my mother. Sometimes she gets an error or a misconception smck in her head. and no matter how many times she is corrected. she keeps repeating the error. For some reason she took a notion char Doris B.’s name was “Dorothy.” I corrected her over and over again, but every time she mentioned Doris B. she would still call her “Dorothy.” Aswe’vejustseen. she repeated the error to Investigator\#I. She used co do the same thing with the word “cholesterol.” Somehow she got the idea that it was “cholostcril”, and she kept pronouncing it that way for years. though I corrected her innumerable times. Eventually I think she did get her pronunciation straightened out, probably because the word was used so much in the media.


This perverse streak in my mother has expressed itself in another way that is potentially more serious. This is a point mat I want to get cleared up now.


When we were in high-school Dale Eickelrnan once sent rne a joke letter, purportedly from Russia. I found his idea highly amusing. and I subsequently sent ‘1ettcrs from Russia” to him and a few other friends of mine. The letters were intended to ridicule the Communist system. Dale also sent me some other joke letters. In one of them he enclosed some Christmas Seals or Easter Seals or the like; there wusome joke connected with them;. I don’t remember now what it wu. In response I sent him a letter inwhich I enclosed some home-made “seals.. of my own that I produced by carving a crude representation of a skull on a bit of linoleum. which I used together with an inkpad to print skulls in a rectangular pattern on a piece of paper. I made perforations between the rows and columns ofskulls bypressing the cutting edge of a saw against the paper; thus the “stamps .. could be readily tom from the sheet. I even coated the back of the sheet with a water-based glue, so that the “stamps” could be licked and stUck on things.


These stamps made a big hit with Dale Eickelman and one or two of my other friends. so I made up some sickle-and-hammer stamps, which I used in conjunction with my ‘1ettcrs from Russia\dots{} Still later I made some swastika stamps. and others that bore the words “Down with Gd\dots{} Miss Gd. wis a geometry teacher who wu hated by many students, including me. Needless to say. neither the sickle-and-hammer stamps nor the swastika ones were expressions of political opinion or of sympathy with Communism or Nazi\$m. They were simply adolescent rnischic£


One day in gcomeay class I stuck a sickle-and-hammer stamp on the back of the kid sitting in front of me. Afew minutes later Miss Gd., walking down the aisle, noticed the stamp, peeled it off. and gave me a sour look.


I was never reprimanded for this incident, nor did I ever hear anything about it from my parents or teachers until a few years later my mother, in the course of some conversation, accused me of having “stuck a swastika on aJewish boy’s back” in high-school I corrected her, telling her it was a sickle-and-hammer, not a swastika. (I might add that atthe time of the incident I didn’t know the kid was Jewish. His mother was Jewish. his father was not, and his name was Chalmers, which is not exactly a Jewish-sounding name.) My mother replied. “Miss Gd. said it was a swastika.” I told her that whatever Miss Gd. bad said, it wasn’t a swastika, it was a sickle-andhammer. But my mother, with the stubborn stupidity that I’ve dcsaibed, kept insisting it was a swastika.. Over the years, for some unfathomable reason of her own, she brought up the incident several more times, always insisting that the stamp was a swastika no matter how many times I corrected her. She never gave any reason for adhering co this belief.


Mybrother must have picked this story up from my mother, because he told the FBI: “[In high-school on one] oca.sion, TED drew a swastika on a piece of paper and stuck it on the back of a Jewish student. Much later on in life


TED told DAVE that he resented the fact that everyone overreacted to the swastika incident. “\footnote{(Na) FBI 302 number I, p.:z..} This is absurd. Not only did no one overreact to the incident, they didn’t react at all. What irritated me was my mother’s irrational insistence that the stamp was a swastika when in faa it was a sickle-and•hammer.


I want to nip in the bud any notion that I am, or ever have been, antisemitic. My opinions arc not necessarily politically correct. It seems obvious to me that there are statistical differences between the behavior of the members of different ethnic groups. Whether these differences are purely cultural or have also a genetic component is very much an open question, and I don’t pretend to know the answer to it. But every rational person knows that any type of personality or behavior and any level of ability can occur in any ethnic group or race. and therefore I judge people as individuals and not according to the ethnic group or race to which they belong.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 7. My relations with my parents in adulthood}


By the time I was about 22 years old, verbal abuse from my \&thcr bad ceased, though now and then he made a remark that was. at the least. tactless. My mother no longer was insulting me with imputations of mental illness or gross immaturity. and of course my parents could no longer intimidate me by threatening to “throw me out of the house\dots{} because I was earning enough as a teaching fellow at the University of Michigan so that I didn’t need any help from thcm.\footnote{(Pd) School Records of TJK, U Mich., pp. 13-4; (Ac) Autobiog of 1JK1979, p.141.} In any case I spent only the summers, and sometimes Christmas vacations, at my parents’ home.


But my mother was still abnormally irritable; much less so coward my \&thcr and brother. When I came home to spend a summer with the family my mother would at fi:rsc be all sweetness coward me, but as the summer wore on she would have increasingly frequent and severe outbursts of irrication again.st me. until by the end of the summer her behavior was simply intolerable and I was glad to get away from her. As far as I can remember, the main reason why I spent the summers with my parents was so that I could use their car to visit nature areas.\footnote{From (Ac) Aucobiog of ‘lJK.1979: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf 150, “[A]round the time I left Harvard \dots{} I gee hold of. .. a book onedible wild plants. \dots{} [T]hereafter, in the summers, I used to go very frequently to the Cook County Forest pre.,ervp.s, \dots{}. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf 162, “During the summer following my 41:h year at Micbigm. u usual. at the beginning of the summer I began going out to the foRSt pieserves almost daily.”} Of course, staying with them also enabled me to save money.


By the time I got my Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1967, I had definitely decided that I did not wane to spend my life as a mathematician and that I was going co go live in the woods. I accepted a position at the


University of California at Berkeley only in order to earn some money for chis purpose.\footnote{(Ac) Autabiog of ‘IJK.1979, p.17,1.} I didn’t cell my parents what I intended to do until two or three months before I left Berkeley. When I did tell them, my mother didn’t raise a stink about it (for a while, anyway) because by chat time she knew thac she couldn’t bully me any more. Besides, as I discovered later, she imagincd or had convinced herself that I would only live in the woods for a couple of years and then rerum co my mathematical career.


I left Berkeley inJune 1969 and spent the summer travelling by car with my brother in Canada, looking for a place co settle.\footnote{Same, p.191.} Finally I applied for permission co lease a small plot of government land about a mile from the nearest road in northern British Columbia.\footnote{Same, pp. 191, 192} Then my brother and I drove co Lombard. lllinois, where our parents now lived. The summer was pretty well exhausted, I didn’t expect to do anything on the land I hoped co lease until the nae summer, and, at my parents’ invitation,\footnote{(Ca) FL \#u6, letter from me to my mother, October 5, 1,no, pp. J, 4} I planned to spend the winter livingwith them. I wasn’t particularlyanxious to scay with them, but I needed co conserve my supply of money. My brother soon went back co Columbia Univcrsicy,\footnote{(Fe) School Records of David Kaczynski. Columbia.} where he was a student, to begin his senior year.


The British Columbia government cook more than a year co act on my application to lease land, and then they denied it.\footnote{(Ac) Aucobiog of TJK 1919, p.193.} Meanwhile, I spent the summer of 1970 again looking for a suitable piece of land in Canada, though I must admit that by this time rwas getting discouraged and wasn’t trying Vert hard.


My brother graduated from Columbia\footnote{(Fe) School Records of David Kaczynski. Columbia.} inJune 1970 and spent the summer touring the West in a car with some of his college friends. Then he returned co Lombard, and after staying a shore time at our parents’ house, he drove out to Montana in the white 1965 Chevelle that they either gave him or sold him at a low price. He set himself up in a cheap apartment in Great Falls, and, following a period of unemployment, got a job at the Anacomia Company smelter in BlackEagle, aaoss the river from Great Falls.


I spent another wine that of 1970-71, at the house in Lombard. The naespring. atmy brother’s invitation, I drove to Montana. and together we bought our little patch ofbnd\footnote{Ga) Deed \#4.} a few miles from Lincoln.


During the cwo winters I spent in Lombard my mother made herself insufferable. She was finally beginning to grasp the fact that my project of going to live in the woods wasn’t co be just a two-or three-year vacation from my mathematical career-I was giving up all that high’status crap for good. She nagged me incessantly, and often in insulting terms. She kept telling me that she was worried, worried, worried about me. but when I asked her why she was worrying she usually would give me no comprehcnsible answer. Occasionally, though. she would let out the real reason why she was worrying: She was afraid I wasn’t going to have the high-prestige career on which she had set her heart. She began to resort again co the device that she and my father had used so often during my teens-she would threaten co “throw me out of the house.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#n6, letter from me to my mother. October 5, 1970, p.6: “All during my teens. and again when I stayed with you during the past year. you would often threaten to put me om: ofthe house when wehad a disagreement.}


At this point the threat was not entirely without weight. I had to conserve my money. It was very difficult for me to find a job. If I were honest about my intentions, no one would hire me as a mathematician, because for that kind of position any company or university wants someone who will keep the job for years, not someone who is just looking for something to tide him over for a few months. I didn’t mind doing unskilled work. but nobody will hire someone with a Ph.D. for that kind of job; they think you’re “overqualified.” I did apply for one or two unskilled jobs, but I soon gave chat up because the employers’ reaction when they found out I had a Ph.D. was just too humiliating. Of course, I could have lied on the application forms, but I was unable to bring myself to do this because, for better or for worse, I had been too well trained in early childhood in the principles of honesty. It wasn’t until three or four years later that, from sheer necessity. I was able to overcome my inhibitions about lying to potential employers.


The New York Times wrote:


Living again at home, Mr. Kaczynski kept mostly to his bedroom. Awaiting word on his land application, he did nothing for more than a year. His parents urged him to get a job, not to make money but to give him something to do, to ease his mind. But the effort failed. . .. His arguments with his parents over his unwillingness to work intensified.\footnote{II. (Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.:i3, columns 4, ;.}


In the first place, I did not “‘keep mostly to” my bedroom. In the second place, there was only one thing I needed to ease my mind. and that would have been for my mother to stop her unending. insulting nagging. In the third place, it was only my mother, not my father. who kept pestering me about a job. and she was concerned not so much that I should have some job as that I should have a higlt’stanu job. This is confirmed by a letter that I wrote my mother on October ;, 1970, under circumstances that would take too long to explain here:


Dear Ma;


I had the impression your feelings were hurt when I didn’t want to talk further in that phone call yesterday. I do feel sorry for my poor old ma, so I want to say that all is forgiven. However, in order to dear the air and reduce the likelyhood [sic] of further disagreements, I would like to state some of my grievances and tell you some of the things that irritate me.”


The reason t didn’t talk to you yesterday was this: I knew you would ask questions like ‘have you got a job.’ ‘what kind of job are you looking for,’what do you plan co do nat.etc. \dots{} I would have to listen co your ‘suggestionsco the effeet that I should get some kind of a high-prcstigcjob. I don’t like to be told I am wasting my mind. You have a way of asking, ‘what kind of a job are you going to look for, dear?’ that makes me squirm, because I know perfeetly well what is going on in your mind. even if you don’t mean to express it. It was legitimate for you to suggest once or twice that I should get a high-class job, but over the past year you have raised the subjea repeatedly, even though I made it plain that I found it irritating\dots{}


If you follow the following suggestions it will help improve our relations: \dots{} ““Don’t make suggestions as to how I should run my life. If you must \_” make such a suggestion, make it once and thend.n,p the subject-and I mean drop it \emph{permanently}. \dots{}”\footnote{Il, (Ca) FL ¢tn6, letter from me to my mother, October 5, 1990, pp. 1-3.}


Needless to say, this letter led to no abatement of my mother’s nagging. Eventually I did get a job with a temporary agency called “Abbott Temps.”\footnote{IJ. (Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1919, p.198; (Gb) Social Sccunty Records of TJK; (Ca) FL} It wasn’t very remunerative, but at least it brought in some money. Yet my mother’s nagging continued without let-up. I quote from a letter that I wrote to my brother in 1986:


In your letter\footnote{\#In. letter from me to my parem:s. March:u,1972, p.L 14-The letter referred to is (Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski’ to me, . late March or early April 1986, p.18. I quoted from this letter in Chapter 5, pp. 74. 75. I5-(Ca) FL \#331, letter from me to David Kaczynslci. April 16, 1986, p.6. The \&a tbac my mother bad called me an “ungrateful momtd’ wu also mentioned in (Ca) FL \#198, letter from me to my parmts, February 7, 1m, pi} you mentioned in [our parents’] favor that they took very quiedy our respective decisions not to follow respectable careers as they wanted. Ha! You weren’t there most of the ti.me during the first couple of years after I quit my assistant professorship. You wouldn’t believe how much shit I had to take from the old bitch. To take just one example: One evening I had to sit there and listen to a long and cxcrcmcly insulting tirade from her in which she accused me of causing her high blood pressure and ended by calling me ‘a monster! A monster! An ungraceful monster!’ I cook all that quietly and when she was done I went to Dad who was in the bathroom shaving or something and I asked him ‘What do you think of that?’ All he said was, ‘Well. I think maybe you are contributing to her high blood prcssure.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#n7, letterfrom me to my parents, October17, 1972,.}


After I set myself up in my cabin in Montana my relations with my mother improved somewhat, probably because they were carried on mostly by letter. Yet there was continuing friction between us. One reason was that my mother, who is amiety-prone, kept pestering me to write her frcqucndy. because shesaidshegotworried jfa few weeks passed without a letter from me. This problem came to a head in the winter of 1973-74 when. as was explained in Chapter 4 (p. 55), my mother threatened to contact the authorities and have them check up on me jf I didn’t write her prompdy. Thac led to a break in our relations that lasted for about a year, during which I didn’t wrice my parents at all. Afterward she was less persistent in nagging me to write home.


Another reason for the friction between us was my mother’s habit of sending me unwanted packages. Trouble on this score started between us dunng my time at Berkeley. My mother began sending me frequent packages filled with candy and swcea. I didn’t like to receive that stuff because it exposed me to a temptation that was injurious to the health, so I asked her politely to stop sending me such package!. She promised to do so, but she continued sending the packages anyway. Asecond time I asked her politely to stop sending me such stuff and again she promised. but the packages kept coming. The third time I asked her to stop sending the pack.ages. I used harsh language. She wrote back that she would stop sending packages. but she added. “Why don’t you just ask me nicely instead of being mean about it?”‘ I had asked her nicely. twice. but it hadn’t done any good. After I spoke to her harshly, though. she did stop sending me packagcs-mr a while.


The problem arose again when I began living in Montana. and it was compounded by the face that the packages often were too big to fit in my roadside mailbox. so that either I had to walk four miles to Lincoln to pick them up, or else the mailman hung chem on the outside of the bm. with risk that they wouldbe stolen or damaged by rain. since it was inconvenient for me to visit the box more often than once a week or so. Of course, I could simply have ignored the packages and let them be lost. but the waste of perfectly good food or other items made me uncomfortable.


My conflicts with my parents, especially my mother. over the packages are recorded in many of my letters chat have survivedfrom this period. October r,, I



\begin{quote}


\dots{} DON’T SEND ME ANY MORB MAGAZINES. I mean it \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#133, letter from me to my mother, Spring 1973.}



\end{quote}


Spring. 1973:


Ma: Do not send me anything addrwed ra ‘Dr.’ TJ. Kaaynski. [I wanted to avoid advertising my level of education.] Ifyou do, I will be very angry and Iwill call you very insulting names. I hate to have to threaten, but you know that in the past I have asked you time and again not to do ccmin things. and you still persist. so I hayc no choice but to be mean about it. For example, I have several times asked you not to send me those throw-awaysfrom Harvard, but you still do it. So chat’s another thing; don’t send me any more Harvard throw-aways-if you do Iwill insult you. I mean it\dots{} Also, don’t send me any magazines. And don’t send me any packages larger than 6] x 6” x a”, because they won’t fit in the box. Your permanent attention to these remarks will be appreciated. Thankyou.”\footnote{My mother didstop sendmg me the throwaways from Harvard. butunfortunately she sent Harvard my new address. so dw: they smted sending me their junk mail directly. I put a rmp to tbac by sending them an imaginary address: 788 Bam:hat Pesh, Khadar Khel, Afghanistan. (Hf) New,wm, April 15, 1996, p. 35 desaibcd Khadar Khel as “a remote village near the Khyber Pus,but if such a place mm it is a surprise to me. I just ilm:nred the mme. Anyway. I received no more mail from Harvard after that. Sec (Fe) School Records of1JK, Harvard. p.}


Marchtm:


You sent me a-Reader’s Digest. Look. scupid. how many times must I tell you not to send me magazines? l have told you over and over not to send them, and you promise not to send them. and then you go and send them anyway! Many times in the past you have made promises about things like that. You keep chose promises for maybe 3] weeks and then forget chem. Obviously you arc incapable of the slightest self-control, even co the extent of simply refraining from sending me magazines. One is compelled to think seriously of pathology. The magazines are a minor point in themselves, but your insane. mindless persistence in sending them is cnremely irritating.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#154, letter from me to myparents, late March1975, p.r.}


My mother used to tell me that if I didn’t want the magazines I could just burn them in my stove, but itwasn’t so simple. In the first place, magazines burned very poorly in my stove; they tended to dog it with half. burned paper. In the second place, burning that kind of paper produces tone fumes.


April 9, 1975:


I told you not to send me any packages, but you sent me onelast winter anyway at X-mas. Look. I only go down to my mailbox maybe once a wcckr sometimes not for a much longer time. If a package like that is sent, it sits out on the road by the mailbox in the rain and\Slash{}or snow for god knows how long. assuming nobody steals it in the mean time. \& it happened, my neighbor [G. Wi.] found that package and brought it up to me. But I don’t care to encourage unnecessary visits \&om him anyway. Apparently, however, you have an irtesistable [sic] compon to send me things. So-You can send me packages iif you make chem strictly within the dimensions 4” x 4] “ x n”. They will then fit in my mailbox. \dots{} If you want to know what to put in the packages that (unlike magazines) will be appreciated. you can send dried fruit \dots{} or UNSALTED nuts \dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#t’J7, lctterfrom me to my parents. April9, 1975.}


The mailbox was six inches wide. but I reduced the permissible width of packages to four and a half inches for a margin of safety. because I knew thatmy parents would not adhere saictly to the stated dimensions.


November 29, 1975


[P]lease don’t send me so many packages, and please don’t send smoked oysters.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#169, lettcr from me to my parents. NO¥aDl>er :i9, 1975, p.+} December 8, 1975: ““Look, stupid-what in the name of god is wrong with you? I told” you I didn’t want you sending me packages-I only made an aception for dried fruit and unsalted nuts in a package not 1arger than 4” x 4” x 12.”. And I said such a package would be alright aNow you are deluging me with this garbage. You sent me oysters and cheese. I don’t like smokedoysters-I threw them out. The sunflower seeds you sent me were salted. \dots{} Now you send me shoes and socks in a package that certainly exceeded 4” x 4” x u.\footnote{II. (Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.:i3, columns 4, ;.} That package could barely fitin the mailbox. \dots{}


And it left no room for anything else in the box. Furthermore, in this tiny cabin I have no place to put all this aap. \dots{} You srupid bitch. I’ve told you and told you I don’t want you sending me crap like this. And as for publishers catalogs, all I asked was-where canI write to get a publisher’s catalog of paperbacks? I didn’t ask you to send me anything. Now you are sending me package after package of catalogues that I only throw in the scove.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#t7o, letter from me to my parents, December8, 1,n;.}


December 24. 1975


As for my ‘hair-trigger temper’\dots{} The reason I get mad at you so much. ma, is mainly because you keep doing over and over again things that I keep asking you not to do. You promise not to do them, then a few weeks lateryou go right back to your old habits. It gets exasperating. “\footnote{(Ca) FL \#171, letter from me to my parents. December i.i. 1975, p.:i.}


November 26, 1976:


Package for Thanksgiving is OK, so is Xmas package. But DO NOT send my further packages without consulting me first. (Except one package of books as listed below) \dots{} B1’t do not send me a package of books more than 4Yz inches thick (else it might not fit in’the box)\dots{} Do not send a second package of books without consulting me first. Thanks.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#193, letter from me to my parents, Nowmber 2.6, 1976, pp. 4, S’,}


December I8, 1976:


Christmas package received. Thank you. But look, you are starting to slip back into the habit of doing certain things that I’ve told you over and over again are annoying to me. You put some cookies in that package. Remember I said any food packages are supposed to contain only dried fruit and unsalted nuts, unless you get my permission to send something clse\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#195, letter mme to my parents. December 18, 1976.}


November u, Il7:


[I]f you want to send me a package you had better keep it down to the 4Yz”“ width. \dots{} Permissible items for package: Dried fruit, nuts, cheese. Anything else-ask me first.”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#:io,, lctter from me to my parents, Navmsber rm.}


December r,, I”l7:


Thanks for telling me a package is on the way-rll no doubt enjoy the goodies. Hawer: Nopadu1.ges withma a.slcing mypmnwumfirst\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#246, letterfrom me to my parents, December 17, 1m.}


December30, 197r.


Remember, no more packages without asking permission \dots{}..\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2a7,lettcr from me to my parents. December30, 1m.}


The reader who has had an adequate mother may think I was unduly intolerant of my mother’s habit of sending me unwanted packages. Ccrtainly. tolerance of an eccentricity that is irritating but docs no serious harm is a return that one should make for the care ofa good moth But in my case, irritation over the packages was piled on top of an accumulation of rcsennnents from the past: the constant psychological abuse throughout my adolescence, the nagging and insults during my adult life, my mother’s essential sclfuhncss that led her to r:ry to use me as a tool for the satisfaction of her own needs.


The package issue was ,he proximate cause of the break in relations between me and my parents that lasted from 1982 until my father’s death in 1990. Though I’d told them at the end of 1977 that they should send me no more packages without asking me first, they slipped back into the habit of sending me dried fruit and nuts at Thanksgiving and Christmas. and I tolerated this as long as there were only those two packages a year. In the spring of 1982. I reminded them that they should send me no packages without asking first. yet later that year I accepted. by implication. their habit of sending me things at Thanksgiving and Christmas without specific . permission:


[Y]ou am:d whether co send me the Spanish booklet called ‘Talacain [sic; should be Zalacain] el Aventurero EOFF and Ramirez-Araujo.’ °’If you were planning to send me a Thanksgiving package as you usually do, you can include the booklet in that.”\footnote{-(Ca) FL \#,:fo, lc:tter from me to my parents, August 27, 198:i:i9,}


After Thanksgiving: I enjoy the nuts, dried fruit, and cheese that you sent for Thanksgiving\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.73, letter from me to my parents, around Christmas time t9h}”


The reader will recall from Chapter 4 (p. ;6) that in the autumn of 1982. I sent my parcncs an angry letter about the abuse they’d inflicted on me during my teens; my mother sent me an apology that, though cold and perfunctory. softened my feelings somewhat; and I was on reasonably good terms with my parents until the spring of 1983. Then on May 23 I received from them a package of nuts and dried fruit. I wrote them an irritated leccer3° about it, and in return they sent me a lettcr\footnote{JO. This letter has not been preserved.} in which they claimed that they didn’t remember my ever telling them not to send packages without asking me first. The self.righteousness of their lcttcr\footnote{JO. This letter has not been preserved.} angered me; it seemed inconsistent with any sense of remorse concerning the way they had treated me during my teens, and this tended co confirm what I had expected anyway-that my mother’s apology of the preceding autumn had been given only in ord co mollify me so that she could get from me the affection that she crave


By this time I was so sick and tired of my parents that I broke ofF relations with them. My mother, obsessed as usual with respectability. was so amious to conceal the truth about our fiunily life that after I broke off with her and my father she lied to her sister, telling her that the reason why she and my father no longer went co visit me was that I found it too painful to part from them when the visit was over\footnote{Jt. Aslightez:agpation.}\footnote{This mite bu been deletedintheprc:semc:diticndue to ongoing legalproa:cdiap.}\footnote{Same.}\footnote{Rb) Written !nformanon Confirmed by Dr. K.. item \#1: “On 5\Slash{} 8\Slash{} 97, Freda [Dombek Tuominen] told Dr. K\_\_ that after I broke off rclanons with my mother and father in the early 198os, my mother told Freda chat the reason why my mother and father no longer went to visit me was that I found it too pamful co part from them when the visit wu mier,”}\footnote{(Hb) Wa.slungrortPo.st,Junc 16, 1996, p.A2.1.}


Since my policy as to what I would let them send me without permission had varied to some extent aver the years, it was not so very unreasonable for my parents co get confused and think that it was alright to send me dried fruit and nuts ac any time without permission. But my resentment was founded not only on the unwanted packages buc on the whole history of my relations with my parenrs. The packages and the self-righteous letterwere a trtggcr that released the anger against them that I had accumulated over the years.


I realize that the foregoing material will not show me in a creditable light. and I apologize to the reader for the coarse language of some of the letters rvc quoted. I felt I had to include these passages in order to provide a full and balanced piccure of my relations with my family. For whatever it’s worth. I recall chat in one of my meetings with members of my defense team in the line-up room at the Sacramento Jail. I mentioned an incident in my mid-rwenties in which my mother drove me to such a pitch of irritation that I called her a bitch. One of the investigators at the meeting remarked. “If that’s the first time you ever called your mother a bitch. I’d say you were doing pretty well.”


Before we leave the subject of packages, I should note that the Washington Post’s report that I once “castigated [my] aunt for sending a package that would noc fie in [my] mailboxN3.S is false. Anyone who thinks it is true is invited to ask any of my aunts about it. Freda Tuominen is the only one of my aunts who ever sent me a package in Montana. She once sent me a pocket knife as a birthday present. I thanked her for it and expressed my appreciation of it; then I courteously requested that in the fucure she should ask me before sending any package, and I explained why.


l N a BF B asNC B To the year 1978-79, which I spent living with my parents, the New York Times wrote: “[fed] went back to Lombard. back to his parents’ home. This time, he did not resist their blandishments about work.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.24. column:i.}


I suggest chat Rob\_ert D. McFadden, who wrote this article, should check rus dictionary for the correct meaning of the word “blandishment.” But it’s clear that what McFadden meant was that I took a job at this time only under pressure from my parents. Accually I took the job on my own initiative, and the letters prove it. rd been playing with the idea of an exploring trip to northern Canada as preparation for a possible sojourn in the wilderness there. Prior to my return to Lombard I wrote my father on February r,, x978:


Do you thinkitlikely I could get a job in the spring at that foam-cutting place [where you work]? Then maybe I could save up some money and be in better position for northern trip.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#m. letter from me to myfather, February r,, 1978, p.3.} And on March 8: ““When I asked about getting a job, I had in mind something of a longer” term. as an alternative to a trip [to Ontario] this summer, so I could get money for a better trip in a more promising region. However, ifyou can get me a job (at Foam Cutting Engineers] for 1. months, that is also something to consider.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#212. lctter from me to my whcr, March 8, 1978, p.:i.}


I did take a job at Foam Cutting Enginecrs.\footnote{(Gb) Social Security Records of TJK. Also see Chaprer 10.} I worked there for a couple of months and then left because of certain relations between me and the foreperson, Ellen Tarmichael, of which rwill speak later. Within a few days after leaving Foam Cutting Engineers I got a job with a firm that manufacrurcd restaurant equipment. Prince Castle, Inc.,\footnote{(Gb) Social Security Records of TJK. Also see Chaprer 10.} and I worked there until the spring of 1979, after which I returned to Montana with, I think, something like three thousand dollars that I’d saved. The Canadian wilderness trip never came off:


At about chis time my parents gave mybrother and me eachseveral gifts of money totalling (if I remember correctly) some three thousand dollars apiece.\footnote{(Na) FBI 3m number 1, p.13: ‘To 1979, TED and OAVE’s parents formalized an agreement with both THO and DAVE to provide monetuy gifa in orderto mmimize inheritance rues. [.Actually there wu no formal agreement.] TED was gm:n a lump swn of S3,ooo [actually itwas notgi,m all atonce, bw:inpartsover a relatively short period of time] and S6oo chereafte:r on his birthday and at Christmas. [Aaually itwas S,oo atfirst: see Note 41.r \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf My brother received S3,ooo also, and the same birthday and Christmas gifts that I did: “The parents gave me anotherS1000.” (Ca) FL \#nI letter from David Kaczynski ta me, September 6 (?), 1979, “Beginningin 1979, [Wanda] and her husband sent money to both TED and DAVE on their birthdays and at Christmas time.” (Na) FBI 3m number to, p.4, \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ca) FL \#letter from my parenu to me, August 1981, mentions sc:veral savings certificates that were in my parents’ names jointly with my name, my brother’s name, or both. The letter states that one certificate for S24,ooo is c:wntually to be dividedbetween my brother and me. and seems to imply that another certificate for S\dots{}500 is considered my pro In reality I never received any of this money. My mother liked to put my name and my brother’s on her and my mhcr’s savings certificates so that it they died suddenly my brother and I could get the money without going through probate court.} Thereafter they gave each of us a yearly stipend ofa thousand dollars, which theygradually increased until by 1989 it was fifteen hundred dolIars.\footnote{(Pd) Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant. p.86, paragraph 175. This documents the gifts only from 1985 to 1990, and the increase only from Saoo to Sl500,} My mother always took saupulous care that every moneygift to me should be precisely equalled by a similar giftto my broth and vice versa. Her financial records should prove this, ifshe allows access to them.


It certainly was generous of my parents to gm: my brother and me these gifts, which saved me the annoyance of having to look for work at intervals, but, lest the reader conceive an exaggerated impression of my parents’ generosity. I point out that they were not inconveniencing themselves. Every member of my immediate family is instinctively parsimonious; we spend money cautiously; we don’t like to spend it. Conscqucndy my parents had accumulated considerable sums distributed among several accounts in savings and\_loan associations, from which they received a substantial income in int. I don’t know how much they had. but I’d guess that by the time of my father’s death their assets would have amounted to at least three hundred thousand dollars. My broth who was much more familiar with our parents’ financial situation than I was, wrote me: ‘lT]he parents \dots{} have more than they can spcnd”\footnote{(Ca) FL 5. lea;er from David Kaczynski to me, late January or early February 1986, p.3.} (early 1986); and: “When our inheritance comes due we’ll boc\& be fairly rich anyway. so a few thousand dollars now wouldn’t make much diffcrcncc \dots{}..\footnote{(Ca) FL \#32,0, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late December 19’5, or early January 1986, pp. I , 2..}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#461, letter m>m me to David Kaczynski.July 2.0, 1991, pp. 8, 9: “Mother must not send me any checks, money. or communication of any kind. except that one registered letter containing either the check for S]op..8t or the letter withdrawingall offers of money. Other than that one registered letter, any communications that I receive from you, Ma, or anyone else connected with our family. will be thrown in the StoVe unopened. ,epnllas of wnaher they comain dsa:lcs, or anyrlnnf d.se important. . •As for myof the inheritance. I dmt’twant 41f1 ofit. Not because I can’t use the mon but because inorderto collect the money l would have to have contaa with the family. and l can’t endure that.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Pd) Appl.iationandAJ\&davirforSearc:h Warrant. p.86, paragraph 175, shows no c:beck from my mother to meaft.er the one for 81onJuly 26, 1991.}\footnote{He) 6o Minuta, September 15’, 1996, Part Two, p.13: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf MIKE WALLACE: The Kaczynski family is not arguing that Ted’s mental condition-whatever the psychiatnm call it-means chat he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.’ But if he is found guilty they want him locked away, and treated-not executed. My mother and brother were present and did aot contradict. question. or qualify this scatement of Mike Wallace.”} (late 1985 orearly 1986). So the fact that my parents were pretty free-handed with their money during the 198os docs not prevent me from feeling that they both were essentially selfish people.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 8. My brother’s character}


When my brother David was a little baby. was a little baby. less than a year old. my mother commented on a-difference between his personality and mine: Whereas I had been a relatively squally, cantankerous baby. David’s behavior was marked by pladdity.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of ‘IJK 1979, “When my brother was a baby. my mother remarked that he was a much more placid baby than I had been. She said I had been a comparanwly squally. cantankerous in\&nt. Thia di\&rmce between me and my brotherhas remained all our lives, and is quite marked.M} This is a difference that has set us apart all our lives. I have tended to show energy, initiative, and persistence, while my brother has been unusually passive. I have tended to confront conflicts. difficulties. or obstacles and sttuggle with them. while my brother has tended to retreat from them. I have always liked to assume responsibilities while my brother has preferred co avoid them.


In Chapter :z. (pp. 39-41) rvc described the strong affection that I had for my brother during his cy. Butwithin a few years our relations began to grow more ambiguous and confliaed. In a letter that l sent my brother in t98:1., I wrote:


Throughout your childhood and even well up into your 2.0S you had a severe case of big-brother worship.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#248, letter from me to David Kaczynski. latesummer or fall of 1981, p.t1.}


The cruth of this is confirmed by various statements of my brother’s. The New Yorle nmu, on the basis of an interview with him, dcsaibcd him as an “admiring kid brother”\footnote{(Ha) NY Tima, Nae., May 2.6, 1996, P.,.5, column3.} who ‘“idolizcd..\footnote{Same. p.,.3, column4} me. and quoted him as saying. ‘“I was very strongly influenced by my brother. “\footnote{Same. p.,.3, column4}


In the summer of 1982. Dave wrote me:


I don’t remember finding it difficult as a youngster to admire you, and I don’t think my will was consciously frustrated by coming under the influence of your way of thinking, since I thought I came willingly; drawn by ics inainsic persuasion. I hope you will appreciate, in light of this, what a signifi.cant being you must have represented to me\dots{} On a personal lcvcl. however, I felt a problem arose insofar as it appeared to me I could appear in your world \dots{} [only] by assuming a shape appropriate co this world, but not wholly expressive of my own experience and consciousness. In other words, what I thought of as the openness on my part which made your thought-process accessible to me, was so little reciprocated that I could abide there only by forsaking a certain freedom of spirit.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#364. letter from David Kaczynski to me. SummerI9h, pp. 2,3.}


In brief. my brother was saying that he admired me but felt overawed and dominated by me. In 1986] he wrote:


[Our parents] always encouraged me to look up to you, especially with regard to your intellect. \dots{} One unhealthy side of this, as we’ve discussed before, is that I may have learned to look up to you too much. to cake your aitic:i.sms too much to heart, and to feel a little over-shadowed intellectually. I think one reason I became ego-involved in our philosophical discussions a few years ago was because I was still crying to establish myself on a plane of intellectual equality with you.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me, late March or early April 1986, p.22.}


Rccendy my brother told Dr. K. that as a child he looked up to me, strove to emulate me, and as it were de.fined himself through his relationship to me.\footnote{My note on (Ra) Oral Report from Ik K., March 13, I9fD reads: i>.M told [Dr. K.] ..that he looked up to me, strove to emulate me. and as itwere de6nedhimself tbtougb. bis re1adcmsmp to me. His self.image wu the image of himself that he saw ‘mimm:dback’ from me. Bur. he said. die image of him dw:I ‘mirrored back’ was ‘impoverished’ (his word).M But (Ra) Oral Rq)ort from Ik K., febru. ary a. 1998, describes me same statement of my brother’s a liale diffaendy: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Dave on 2.\Slash{}1.7\Slash{} 97said he idealized me and looked up to me for many years. Said there was a lot of emulation for many years. He wantedto have a relaticnship in which I would be bis mentor. . •[T]he relationship was a way of coming to knowoneself. and to have a reflection ofonesel£ and itwasas ifthe only sense of self or of reflection was a sense of impovcrishmem. which was very paiD£uL.. (Rb) Written Information Confirmed by D\& K.. item \#J, gives the same information in almost identical language, and Dr. K. confirmed this item by initialing ic.}


My brother’s admiration for me was complicated by a marked strain of resentment, which seems to have had its origin in several factors, including his sense of inferiority to me, the fact that I often treated him badly when we were kids, and jealousy over the fact that 01,[1r parents valued me more highly than they did mm. The conflict between his love and admiration, on the one hand, and his resentment. on the other, was shown in the inconsistency of his behavior toward me.



\begin{quote}


Once my brother was past his infancy; conflicts developed in my own feelings toward him. iJutially I think my resentment probably grew out of the way our parents handled our relationship. Whenevu any squabble arose between my brother and me, whenever anything went wrong when we were togcth I was automatically blamed for it. From my 1979 autobiography:



\end{quote}


When my brother was 4 years old and I was u (if I remember carreedy),\footnote{The incident certainly took place in summer, since the water-squirting implies warm weatb In (Gb) Medical form filled out for me Anaconda Company by David Kaczynski. my brother swes tlw the iaddmt took place in 1953, Ifs uncertain whether this date is correct, but ifit is correct, then the incident took place in the swnmu of 1953, when I was eleven years old aad my brother wu a little short of four. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the incident actually took place in 1954} my father gave each of us a glass bottle with a squirting attachment so that we could ‘fight’ by squirting each other. This was fine until my brother climbed up on a chair and then fell with the bottle in his hand. cutting himself very badly [when the bottle broke]. (It is still painful to me to remember chis incident.) Blood came gushing from my brother’s hand at an amazing race. I screamed and howled for my parents, who came running. They took my brother in the house, but quickly decided that he was bleeding so badly that they would have to rush him to the hospital. \dots{} Because I had a strong affection for my brother, I was very upset about his injury. At one point, the doctors feared that two of his fingers might be permanently aippled.”“‘ ([Footnote]: ““‘ But fortunately it nuncd out all right.), and at that time I offered to give my brother my coin collection, which was my most prized possession. ““\dots{} Since my brother climbed up on the chair on his own initiative, and since l was 10 feet away from him when he fell. there was no reason why I should be blamed for the incident. Nevertheless, the doctors told my parcnts that my brother kept mumbling. ‘Don’t blame Teddy! Don’t blame Teddy!’“


The reason is that he knew that whenever anything bad happened when he and I were together, I always got blamed for it. The same thing was true all through my earlier teens: Whenever I got into a screaming match with my brother. or any other conflict. my parents immediately blamed me. [fI tried to explain my side of the dispute, my parents would usually cut me shore by saying. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. You’re older. You should be more mature.’* ([Footnote]:* Just as I often got into screaming matches with my brother, my parents often got into screaming matches with me. Apparently it never occurred to them that they should be more mature.’) This was not the result of favoritism on their partaccually; I was always the favorite son. It was the result of simple laziness. To listen to both sides of a dispute between me and my brother, and attempt to make a fairjudgement, would have taken an effort. It was easier . to automatically blame the older child and throw on him the burden of keeping the peace.”\footnote{Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1m. pp. J9, 40. (Ca) PL \#458, letter from me to my mother,July 5, 1991, pp. J, 4 tells the same story in briefer form but with the additional information that ‘1 was just about to tell (Dave) d:w he’d beaer get down [from me chair\} because he might\&ll-whenhe fell”} (The footnotes marked by an asterisk are in the original) \_


My brother’s effort to save me from blame shows the generous aspect of his feelings toward me. The resentful aspect is illustrated by the following incident. When I was thirteen years old and my brother was five, it was discthat I had a cyst in my upper jaw thac would have to be removed surgically. and in preparation for that operation an oral swgeon extracted one of my upper indsors.\footnote{(Ea) Med Records of 1JK, U Chi., July,.,., Iffl, p.6r; October r, 1955 aad October 19, 1956, p.63,} AJ I reminded my mother in x991, “when I came home with my tooth pulled out, Davejeered at me for it.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother,July S, 1991, p.+}



\begin{quote}


He also showed his resentment by teasing me frequently. For example, he would tell me some lie or tall tale, and then when he had me believing it he would laugh at me for having been taken in.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiogof 1JK1979, p.99: “[DaveJwas snotty and a chronic tease.” (Ca) FL \#248. letter from me to David Kaczynski. late summer or fall of 1981, pp. I7•18: “[W]hen you were a kid you would tell me little lies and then after you took me in you would laugh aboutit. \dots{} You felt donunated by big brother. but by taking him in with a tall tale you could be ‘one upon him for a change.” (A couple of words that are illegible on (the photocopy ot] the mailed copy of this letter have been filled in with the help of (the photocopy of) the copy keptin the cabin.) (Ca) a \#459, letter from my mother to me, July 12, 1991, p.1: ‘1 remember yelling in anger at Daw because he had the bad habit of ceasing you.”} His teasing aroused my own resentment, which led me to harass him verbally, and that in rum increased his resennnent. in a vicious circle. In addition. he had certain personality ttaits that irritated me.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#32.9, lettcrfrom me to David Kaczynslci. March 15, 1986, pp. 4-6: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf [I]n thinking about (my resentment of our parents) during the last few years, I’ve become man: aware ofthe fact that theshitI hadto take from ourparems I tended to pass on to you. so that you haw somewhat the same reason to resent me as I have to resent our puma. I mm: aheady apologized to you for this. and I now repeat the apology. I very muc.b. regmhavingbullied and insulted you the way I often did. I wouldn’t blame you ii you hated my guts for it. It’s an indication of the generosity of your character that you’ve shown very little resentment coward me. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf i would note. though. that my position with respect to our parents was worse than your position withrespect to me. Ourparcms Weie the lastauthority in the case, so that in confliccs with them I always lost. I generally ended by getting sent up to the attic where I could do nothingbutsit andbe gnawed by frus. traced anger. You, on the other band, inyour conflicts with me could often tum to our pa:n:na for support and by that means were sometimes able to carry your point. I had oowbc:n: near as much power over you as the pa:n:ncs had over me. I wantto emphasize th.at I say this not to czcusc or minimize the way I sometimes abused you. but to help make it clear to you why I mm: such a deep rcscmment against our puems\dots{}” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ca) FL \#458, lettcrfrom me to my mo•July 5’, 1991 (copy kept in cabin), pp. 4, 5’: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf It’s certainly auc that Dave bad l’C2SOD to resent me-I sometimes dominated him physically and often harnsscd (sic] him In part this was. because I was the defenseless victim of insulls both from my parents and from the kids in school. so that I had a lot of frustrated anger that I tended to take out on Dave. especially since he had a type of personality that I probably would have found irritating in any case.N \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ac\}Autobiog of1JK1979, pp. 98, 99: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf tl’]bcre wu a period of several years during my teem when I had a great many squabbles with my brother . .. I used my Npcrior size and saengtb. to dominate him with very little regardfor bis feelings.•” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I don’t think I ewr did anything to int1ict physicalpain on Dave, as by hitting him or twisting a limb. I me.rely dominated him by holding him down or overpowmng him in some other way.} He was an other-directed kid: He ran with a group of boys among whom he seemed to lose his own identity completely, imitating all their ways without holding back anything of himself. Again. he sucked his thumb until he was eight years old. I used to get disgusted watching himat it, and I would rag him about it unmercifully. My mother would occasionally reprimand me for my harassment of my brother or him for his teasing of me. but neither of my parents ever made any serious or consistent effort to bring our constant quarrelling under concroL



\end{quote}


The worse of it was that at this time I was suffering psychological abuse from my parents and from my schoolmates. and. being unable to retaliate against them. I probably took out much of my anger on my brother, who was a convenient object for that purpose. Of course, mybrotherwas not so defenseless against me as I was against our parents, since he could tum to them for support and protec:tion.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#32.9, lettcrfrom me to David Kaczynslci. March 15, 1986, pp. 4-6: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf [I]n thinking about (my resentment of our parents) during the last few years, I’ve become man: aware ofthe fact that theshitI hadto take from ourparems I tended to pass on to you. so that you haw somewhat the same reason to resent me as I have to resent our puma. I mm: aheady apologized to you for this. and I now repeat the apology. I very muc.b. regmhavingbullied and insulted you the way I often did. I wouldn’t blame you ii you hated my guts for it. It’s an indication of the generosity of your character that you’ve shown very little resentment coward me. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf i would note. though. that my position with respect to our parents was worse than your position withrespect to me. Ourparcms Weie the lastauthority in the case, so that in confliccs with them I always lost. I generally ended by getting sent up to the attic where I could do nothingbutsit andbe gnawed by frus. traced anger. You, on the other band, inyour conflicts with me could often tum to our pa:n:na for support and by that means were sometimes able to carry your point. I had oowbc:n: near as much power over you as the pa:n:ncs had over me. I wantto emphasize th.at I say this not to czcusc or minimize the way I sometimes abused you. but to help make it clear to you why I mm: such a deep rcscmment against our puems\dots{}” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ca) FL \#458, lettcrfrom me to my mo•July 5’, 1991 (copy kept in cabin), pp. 4, 5’: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf It’s certainly auc that Dave bad l’C2SOD to resent me-I sometimes dominated him physically and often harnsscd (sic] him In part this was. because I was the defenseless victim of insulls both from my parents and from the kids in school. so that I had a lot of frustrated anger that I tended to take out on Dave. especially since he had a type of personality that I probably would have found irritating in any case.N \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ac\}Autobiog of1JK1979, pp. 98, 99: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf tl’]bcre wu a period of several years during my teem when I had a great many squabbles with my brother . .. I used my Npcrior size and saengtb. to dominate him with very little regardfor bis feelings.•” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I don’t think I ewr did anything to int1ict physicalpain on Dave, as by hitting him or twisting a limb. I me.rely dominated him by holding him down or overpowmng him in some other way.} In fact. my brother and my parents often tended to form a common front against me.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me, !are March or early April 1986, \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf p.26: i hate to think that at times ourfamily may hzve organizeditself according to the pattern ofJ agaimt I \dots{}}


Considering our conflias and the family situation in general. it’s surprisingthat Dave and I retained as much affection for one another as we did. At the age of seventeen I wrote:


My brother and I quarrel a lot, but when we’re not quarrelling we’re prettyfriendly and considerate of each other.\footnote{(Ab) Autobiogof1JK1959, p.7.}


And in 1986 I wrote my brother:


(W]e had conflicts that resulted in resentment, but [on my side] that resentment was rclativcly superficial rather than deep and lasting.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#331, letter from me to David Kaczymki, April 16, 1986, p.J.}


These passages only hint atthe strength and tenacity of my affection for Dave and the way it survived the sometimes bitter anger I felt toward him. But I trulybelieve that my resentment over our childhood conflicts had dissipated by the time I reached adulthood. and that it left little or no lasting residue in me. (With certain resentments that arose during our adult years it was a different matter.)


On my brother’s side I think the resentment ran much deeper, but it did not interfere with the excessive adulation that led him to adopt me as a rolemodel and as a source of values and aspirations. A couple of times during my later teens my mother asked me in an voice, “Whatis this power you have over Dave?”‘ Iwasn’t able to give her an answei; because itwasn’t a power that I exercised consciously or intcntionally.\footnote{Spcmms mentioned my brother’s adulation of me, and their agreement on this point perhaps is not due to media planting since, as far as I know. the media made only slight mention of Dave’s big-brother worship. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#2.,. run Be., po..: “Dave was very proud of Ted and aspired to be like him. He wanted to purclwc land in the wddcmcss. in part, because that was what Ted had done. Dave felt inferior to Ted. Dave recendy told Tun’s son. Jay. that he cried when he had to bring his parents his grades as a youngster because they compared him to Ted and routinely found him lacking..(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#12. Dirk West. “Almost immediately upon meeting Dirk. Dave bcgm wking about Ted and Ted’s ideas. Dave was in awe of Ted. Dave thought Ted wu brilliant. \dots{} ohas never stopped tallting about Ted in the years Dirk has known him. Dave put Ted on a pedestal and left him there.” (Qb) Written Investigator R.cport\#n, BillWadham and SallyBaker, p.6: “Dave deeply admired Ted. \dots{}. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#In,Joel Schwanz, June 10, rw,, pp. 6, r. . “David \dots{} idolizedTed. ..David was very proudof Ted and often told Joel that Ted was a genius.Joel found David”s wonbip of Tedstrange and inappropriate. ..} When my brother was maybe eleven or twelve years old. he used to show off by jumping up and touching the light on the kitchen ceiling. ( used to kid him by saying. “No, you can’t do it! You won’t make it!» And whenever he jumped after I bad said that. he would fail to touch the light. He used to attribute this to his own “suggestibility”, and be seemed to take a masochistic satisfaction in it. Eventually. though, be did assert his will and show that he could touch the light even when I told him he couldn’t.


This psychological subordination of my brother to me must have contributed in a very important way to his resentment, the more so since l was quite conscious of my own superiority in that respect, and, in those days, I probably did not do a very good job of concealingit. As I wrote in 1959:


I feel superior to my brother in intelleccual capacity, and very much in strength of will. even considering the age difference.”\footnote{(Ab) Autobiogof1JK1959, p.7.}


Another source of my brother’s resentment against me was the fact that my parents valued me far more than they did him. In a psychological sense I was the most important member of the family. as is indicated, for enmplc. by the fact that my parents saved more than two hundred of my letters but only two of my brother’s; my brother saved a hundred or more of my letters to him, but no letters from our parents. (Sec Notes on Documents.) My brother and my mother both leaned on me heavily for the satisfaction of their psychological needs. and to some extent my father did so too: When I worked at Foam Cutting Engineers one of my co.workers, a woman named Dotty. said to me: ‘Your father talks about you all the time. I thinkyou’re the fim>ritc son. H”


As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. my brother tends to retreat from confliccs and problems rather than confronting them. I don’t think he ever faced up to the contradiction between his affection for me and his resentment of me. Instead of resolving this conflict to his own satisfaction. he pushed the two upects of his relationship with me into two different and mutually inaccessible compartments of his mind, creating a division that deepened as the years went by.


At about the time I reached adulthood there was a great improvement in my relations with mr:brothcr. I wrote in my 1979 autobiography:


I think it might have been when I was around 20 that we began to get along better. Instead of competing. each of us would freely acknowledge the other’s areas of superiority. Since then I have always gotten along Vcr’f well with my brother.\footnote{(Ac) AlltobiogofTjKrm, p.99.}


The always in the last sentence is not strictly accurate. since we still did have quarrels at times, but these were rather rare. and I fi:lt from 1962, at least until 1979 that I had basically a very good relationship with my brother. I had learned to cxcrc:i.se seltrcstraint toward him. and he toward me. I think it was from about 1962, to t96S that rfelt best about my relationship with Dave, but even at that time I think I remember feeling a little” regretful that he didn’t seem to reciprocate the warm good-fellowship that I sometimes tried to show him.


In the later sinics a new element of resentment began to creep into my feelings toward my brother: I was disappointed in the way he was turning out. He seemed to me to be weak-lacking in initiative. energy. and persistence. This was not a good justification for resentinghim. but [felt a certain degree of low-keyed resentment all the same. This occasionally resulted in behavior on my part that must have been painful to my brother to a degree of which I had no conception at the time. Once in the late sinies we watched on television a movie titled Lhe Strange One.,. It was about a sadistic and Machiavellian student (called “Night Boy”) in a military academy who caused serious harm to various people through his cunning intrigues. Another character in the film was a repellent individual nicknamed “Cockroach.” an aspiring writer who chronicled N”ight Boy’s exploits and gloated over chem. When the movie was over, my brother began to speak gloatingly of N”ight Boy. I was somewhat repelled. so I teased him by calling him “Coclcroach” and comparing him to that character. He got very upset and stormed out of the room. Ijust laughed at him. pleased that rd stung him, since I thought he deserved it. Only i:eccndy have I come to realize bow deeply I must have cut him with that remark.



\bigskip


The reader will recall from Chapter 7 that during the fall of 1970 my brother set himself up in an apartment in Great Falls. Montana. He knew that I was still looking for land. and thatwinter he mentionedin a letter to our parents that he wouldbe interested in goingfifty-fifty with me on a piece of property if I cared to locate in his partof the coun My mother passed this information on to me. and, aboutJune 197I, I drove out to Great Falls and dropped in at my brother’s apartment. He confirmed that he was interested in splitting th me the cost of a piece of land, and with charactcristic passivity he lcfbt up to me to find a suitable place. Within a few days a i:ealtor named RayJensen showed me a very attractive bit of land a few miles from Lincoln. It was not nearly as isolated as I would have liked. but by this time rd decided that I was going to have to settle for something that was less than ideal. I took my brother out to see the place, he liked it, and we each put in \$1050 to buy it.\footnote{(Ga)Deed\#,f.} Dave expressed great satisfaction at having become a “landowner,” as he put it.


I promptly began building a cabin on our land. but I made frequent trips back to Great Falls, during which I would spend one or more nights at my brother’s apartment. On August I. 1971. I was so clumsy as to scald my foot with a pot of boiling soup. badly enough so that I was forced to become inactive for five weeks or more, and I spent that period at my brother’s aparrmenr.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#139, letter from me to David Kaczynslci, September 1973: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Dave: On the ocasion of your leaving dw apartment, I would like to ezprcss my gratitude for the f.ac:r rhat you let me my there during the summer and f.i..11 of 1971-wben I burned my foot and 1aa:rwhen I was trying to get the cabin built before winter-a very difficulc period fur me. One of the few things I remember with pleasure from chat period was those evening drives we used to me. Also. I remember those meals we occasionally prepared at a later period.’} Thus I became familiar with his way of life. I muse add that my brother was very considerate of me and very generous with his hospitality.


The mosc striking thing about my brother’s life in Great Falls was the condition of his apartment. It was almost (though not quite) as bad as what Pac Mcintosh incorrectly dcsaibed in reference to my room atEliot House. The kitchen table and the greater part of the floor area were usually piled with crash. including food garbage. My brother would eat-for examplepotato salad out of a can, and then, instead of getting up to throw the empty can into the trash receptacle, he would set it on the floor netto his chair. And there it would remain for weeks or months, along with other empty food containers that accumulated. From a March 1972, letter to my parents:


\dots{} came back to Great Falls\dots{} David got my mail out of a drawer for me, and said he ‘thought’ that that was all there was for me, but later he found three otherpieces ofmymail in various places amongst the litter (or, to be more accurate, garbage) in his apartment. r have been cleaning out some ofhis trash for him, butso far no more of my mail has turned up. At any rare, two important pieces of mail seem to be missing. \dots{} One is my W-2 form from Abbot Temps.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#tu. letterfrom me to my parems. March u, 1972, p.L}


A couple of days later:


Dave and I have been cleaning out his apartment and he found, somewhere, my income-tustuff. \dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#D.3, letter from me to my pamits. March 23, I97lo}


In June 1973 I wrote my parents:


I solicited Dave’s assistance and we shovelled about a ton of trash out of his dump-but the sink and toilet still arc cesspools, and he doesn’t dare open the refrigerator because when it went on the blink he neglected to take the food out, so that the thing is now filled with an unspeakable stench\dots{}


“Suggestion-tell Dave that unless he keeps his place clean. you will ask his landlord to make him clean the place up. I will give you a report, and if he is delinquent, [you] complain to his landlord.\emph{’ ([Footnote]:}’ If the landlord evicts him, it will be a lesson which will probably neaten him up for a longtime.)


It might help if Dad writes him a lecrwing letter on this scuff. \dots{}.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#tu, letter from me to my parena, June I9’1J.}


July 9, 1973:


Dave’s apartment is still terrible. He doesn’t seem to have done anymore cleaning up since I was here a couple of weeks ago. He must have been throwing out most of his fresh crash since then. but I notice that he has gotten careless and the trash is starting to accumulate again around bis chair. The toilet and sink arc still vile pits of corruption (and rm noc being facetious), and the refrigerator, as I told you, has been ruined by the stuff left to rot in ic. The place is pervaded by an odor of garbage-worse than before, I think.


In all seriousness, I think you should try that plan I mentioned to you about threatening to ask his land.lord to make him dean it up. I know it is a harsh thing co do, but I really chink he needs it. I am pretty certain that nothing less will get him to take any initiative at all in the matter.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#tJ6, letter from me to my parena.Jwy 9, J9’1J.}


My father did write Dave a lecturing letter, and I expostulated with him myself about the condition of his apartment. He answered, “Ted. I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t seem to help it \dots{} Bue apparcndy my father and I did have some eff”ea onhim. for. as I wrote to my parents onJuly rs:


I have some good news: Dave actually started cleaning up his apartment on his own initiative. I helped, but the project was his own suggestion. Maybe I was wrong in assuming that nagging would do no good. \dots{} [HJe says he cleaned out his refrigerator on his own initiative. but I haven’t had the nerve co open it to see what kind of a job he did. He washed the sinks, toilet bowl, and table, and stove. but a good deal remains to be done: the counter and the floor, mainly. Whether he will do it or not I don’t know, but anywaythere has been a big improvement already. He seems co have brightened up some\dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#tg, letter from me to my parents. July 18, 197.3. Two or three informma agree about Dave’s houselceeping habits, and “media planting” probably is not involved here, since. as far as I know, the media haw said nothing about my brother’s filthiness. So it may be worthwhile co quote the rclevmtpassaga. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#2, Tun Be., p.3: ‘“Dave’s apartment (about t!mi] was a mess. Clothes and books were StreWD all over. Old food containers and papers were all over the floor \dots{} (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#32, Dirk West, pp. 4, s: “(Bady or mid197os, Daw] I.Md on [Dirk’s] couch during the week and went home to (bis parena’] howe in Lambard on the weekends. Dave was a complete slob. The living room floor and all of the furniture were c:ampletely covveied [sic] with clothes, old food conainen, paper and garbage. It looked as ifDave came ilUo the room and dropped whatever he was holding. It was a rat’s nest. Dave did not care. He newr clemed up eftZl though be knew that [Dirk] occasionally emered. the room to look for books. Dave didnotcare wbat[Dirk] thought. Dave newr didhis own vnsb. Wanda did bis wash for him when he came home on weekends. Dave ne¥er showered eitb.4 [Dirk] told Dave that wbm [sic] he was welcome to use the shower whenever he wished, but Dave dec.l.ined. Instead. on the weekends he took a cwo-hour bath at (his parents1 house.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#33, Bill Wadham and Sally Baker, pp. 5, 6: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf [Bill Wadham] recalls that Dave once bad a rottmg fish in his refrigerator for a period that lasted over a month and possibly two months. Intending to cook and eat the fish. Dave kept it in the remger.i.tor, but he never got around to cooking it. At some point it became dear that the fish was rotting. so Dave completely stopped using the refrigerator. [Bill] was not aware of this untilone day when he was at Dave’s apartment and he was about to open the refrigerator, and Dave, in a frightened voice, told him not to open the door because there was a rotting fish inside. \dots{} It was as if a monster lived in the refrigerator, and Dave was afraid to open it. This went on for a few wcek.s until [Bill\} finally announced that they would meet the next day and rem the fish together: When they finally did. the smell was horrible and the fish was being eaten by maggo11 Cn a strange way. it was as if Dave liked having the fish there because there wu sornetbing poetic about it. Living with a rotting fish seemed to take on a symbolic, literary significmc:e to Daw.N \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Based on my own aperiena: and observation. the accouna by Dirk West and Bill Wadham present a substantially ac:curare picture of my brother’s house• keeping habia. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Bue (Qb) Written Inw:stigator Report \#In, Joel Schwanz, May u, 1w,, p.6: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Dave i.s neater thanJoel, butJoel is not a ncatpmon atall”““}


Despite the condition of his apartment. Dave seemed to be doing well in some ways. By the time of my arriv3l inJune I!m he’d made at least one good friend (Leon Ne. t). And over the next couple of years he made several ochers. The rugged physical work he was doing ac the smelter seemed to agree with him. I complimented him on the fact that he looked wiry and well-conditioned, and he said that he felt he was gaining something positive in a psychological sense from doing that kind of work. The smeltermen had a certain quota of work to do eac:h day, and once they had finished it they could stop working but had to stay at the smelter fur a full eight hours. They generally hurried and finished their quota within about four hours and spent the other fuur hours at various recreations, especially c:hess. My brother read some books on c:hess strategy. and through constant practice at the smcltci:.he became a fairly good player. certainly muc:h better than I was. Whereas formerly I’d usually been able to beat him at chess. now the tables were turned and he could usually beat me. This seemed to be important to him.


In some other my brother was not doing so well. For some reason he seemed rather morose during this period. and he had become addicted to cigarettes. Both the smoking habit and the filthy condition of his apartment were expressions of a lack of will-power and an incapacity for effort that have affected my brotherall his life. but seemed co be particularly acute during this period. According to my letter of March :z.r, 1972,, co my parents:


Before I left for my cabin the last time, [Dave] very willingly promised to pay my [automobile insurance bill and to get in couch with me if it didn’t arrive, etc. But it seems that when it did arrive he ‘didn’t notice’ that it was from the insurance company until a couple of weeks after it was due. Actually, I don’t resent this on his part-he is very obliging. helpful. and well-intentioned; he just seems to be incapable of doing anything that requires any effort at all, especially anything that requires attentiveness. \dots{}


P. S. Don’t say anything to Dave about my having mentioned his inability to make my effort. He is aware of his fililings. but it would hurt his feelings to know I had talked about them\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#tn. letter from me to my parents, March. 1972, pp. 1, :i.}


My brother had majored in English at Columbia and had ambitions to teach English at the high-school level. but he couldn’t get a teaching job because, with his usual foresight, he had neglected to take the necessary education courses. So in the fall of I’:171] he enrolled at the College of Great Falls. Because the zinc operation at the smelter closed down, he was laid off\footnote{(Ca) FL \#D.5, letter from me ro my parents. May IJ, 1972, p.r.} about June of 1972.. but by the spring of 1973] he had completed the courses that he needed to get his certification as a teacher.\footnote{(Fe) School Records of David Kaczynski. Collegl: ofGreatFalls.}


In July 1973 I wrote my parents:


[l]t isn’t just the filthy aparanent. re’sa general incapacity for cftort. For example, he hasn’t done anything further about getting a teachingjob. He invents rationalizations about not beingsure he wants to make the commitment. etc. But on discussion he agrees that he ought to take the risk and make the effort. In principle, he says this. but in practice he docs nothing about it. And that is the general pattern of his cmtence. He is a kind ofvegetable. Shingought to be done to try to shake him out of it. ..\footnote{(Ca) FL \#tJ6, letter from me to my parena.Jwy 9, J9’1J.}


My mother generally defended my father and Dave whenever I aiticizcd either of them, but in a 1976 letter she did make some ackncwledgmcnt of my brother’s failings: “Dave tends to be careless and forgetful. .. ,”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#187, lctter from my parems ro me. Ocmber a, 197’5,}.


An important caveat has to be attached to these statements about my brother’s incapacity for effort and self-discipline. What he lacked was perhaps not so much a capacity for effort as a will ofhis own. For example, he was a good student,\footnote{(Fe) School Records of David Kac:zynski.} and I believe that (except as a teacher) he always did a goodjob for his employers. which of course implies effort. But in those situations he was exerting himself not on his own initiative but at the behest of someone (teacher or employer) whose authority he accepted and whO-:so to speak-supplied-the will-power that he lacked.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#11\%, letter from me ta David Kaczynski. September 198’J.; “(IJnregard to the implication in my last letter that I see you as weak, I’d like ro qualify that \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf [Y]ou appear to be deficient in the ability ro emtise enezgy or stand up to uncomfortable things 011 yov OW11 utUicUiw. But •.I think you have an inner toughness that would enable you to perform well ifdman.st4ncafor J01’ to exertyourself’under difficult conditions..}


My brother has always needed to lean on someone stronger-willed than himself in order to find some direction in life. That is why he has been inclined to hero-worship and has tended to slip into dependence in his personal relationships. Dave’s worship of big brother. and his psychological dependence on him, have already been discussed. During his teens he fell for a time under the influence of Neil Ou., JZ a jazz musician from whom he took crumpet lessons. He fell much more deeply under the influence of Dirk West,\footnote{(Ca) FL \#266, letter from me to David Kaczynski. Summer 1982, pp. 6, 7.} a high-school English teacher of his, who was probably responsible for Dave’s interest in literature and his aspiration to become a writer.


My brother also was very prone to idolize one public figure or another. As a kid he was constantly identifying himself with various baseball stars. . In 1971] when I joined him in Great Falls his hero was Joseph Conrad. He went so far as to assert that the only good stories ever written were chose ofConrad. A little later he read the superb shore story ..OfTms time, of That Place,” by Lionel Trilling. and, forgetting Conrad for the moment. he maintained that that was the only good story ever written. He saw the protagonist, Ferdinand Tertan, as a hero. About that time also he idolized a country music singer name Johnny Bush. A few years later, in the late seventies, his hero was Willie Nelson,\footnote{JJ. See Note 35.} and after that the philosopher Martin Heidegger.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#266, letter from me to David Kaczynski. Summer 1982, pp. 6, 7.}


In light of the direction that his life has taken since 1990] under the influence of his wife, it is extremely interesting that Dave was unusually concerned with the concept of “selling out”: rf an artist, or a hero orpotential hero came co terms with the system, Dave saw him as having betrayed his ideals. Thus he felt that Ferdinand Tertan was a hero because he badn’t sold out to the “banal .. (At that time “banal” was the word with which my brother labelled practically everything: that pertained to conventional middle-class culture.) He theorized that “Of This Tune, of That Place.. was an expression ofguilt on Lionel Trilling’s part for having sold out by following a comfortable career as a professor. In 1985] he expressed a similar hypothesis about Somerset Maugham. Referring co a storyby Horacio Quiroga. ‘El Potro Salvaje’ (‘The W’tld Colt’),\footnote{his story is found inHoracio Quiroga. CUffltas, an anthology of Quiroga’s writ•} which cakes the position that financial success tends to spoil an artist, he wrote:


[T]he parable rings true co me, and I would be inclined co take Quiroga’s side of the argument against Maugham. In fact. I have a sense about Maugham \dots{} that he secured the very polished expression of things he knew well by relinquishing the more genuine artistic aspiration to explore undiscovered territories. . . . [O]n a couple of occasions I have witnessed parables very similar to Quiroga’s unfolding\dots{} In my judgement, Willie Nelson, for instance, was once an artist of striking origmality and subtlety \dots{} Now he does ducrs with Perry Como. Almost everything he is now seems to have no other meaning than to deny whac he was once\dots{}\footnote{ings published by Editores Mexicanos Unidos, Mezico City. English tnnslation is in (Ma) Tramlations byTJK. See Appmdi:I: 4JS. (Ca) FL \#315, letter from David to me. October or November 1985, pp. l, 2.}



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My brother did eventually get moving and find a teaching job. After doing his student teaching in Montana he secured employment as a high-school English teacher at Lisbon, lowa. where we had lived for a short time with our parents. Knowing my brother as well as I did, I was able to guess what kind of teacher he would make. I quote one of the invcstigacor reports at length because its desaiption of Dave as a teacher agrees so closely with what I had imagined based on my knowledge of my brother’s charaacr.


Tim Be. was a student of Dave’s at LisbonHighSchool in the mid-1970s, and according to what he told my investigators:


Dave was a crusting and naive teacher who behaved erratically. On one hand, Dave was a lax teacher who gave his students freedom believing that they would not take advantage ofhis trust, which they did. He did not convey authority and therefore he was incapable of controlling his class. On the other band, Dave occasionally disciplined students harshly for a minor infraction. For instance. Dave once sent Tim to the principal’s office for putting his feet up on the chairin front of him. Being sent to the prindpal’s office was a punishment reserved for serious offenses, such as beating up a fellow Student. It was not the appropriate punishment for what Tun did. \dots{}


Tun saw how Dave struggled as a tcachee When the principal came into the class to evaluate Dave’s teaching. Dave became nervous and his students did not cooperate. They talked over each other and over Dave. Dave seemed frustrated and overwhelmed. Dave also did not like the administrative bureaucracy. \dots{} He did not like having to modify his curriculum and his teaching style so that it complied with the school’s rigid guidelines. \dots{}


Dave tried to be an innovative teacher. He tried to motivate his students to read literature and talk about ideas, but very few kids responded.”“\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#2, run Be., pp. r, :i. On p.6: ‘Tun . .. couna \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Om as one ofbis very good friends.}


After teaching for two years my brother left his position and went to stay with our parents again in Lombard, where, for a while, he devoted himself exclusively to creative writing. Needless to say. nothing he wrote during this period was published. Then he got a job at my father’s place of employment, Foam Cutting Engineers, and was working there when I arrived in Lombard in 1978. A couple of months later. as a result of the trouble over Ellen Tarmichael (which will be discussed in Chapter 10) he left Foam Cutting Bnginecrs and took himself a long vacation aip (I think to the Big Bend area of Texas, though rm noc sure of it), after which he returned co Lombard and found a job driving a commuter bus. He kept this job full time.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#ua, letter from David Kaczynski to me. fall of t980 or1981, P+} until 1981 or 1982.. About 1980 or 1981 he bought a piece of property in desert country in Tczas,\footnote{Same.p.1.} From 1981 or 1982 he spcnc the winters on his Texas property and the summers at his bus-drivingjob, until in 1987] he quit thejob in order to live full-time in the desert.\footnote{3 Same. p\dots{}: and (Ca) FL \#358, lctterfrom DavidKaczynski to me. between March and May 1987.} Then in1989] he abruptly left Texas to shack up with Llnda Patrik in Schenectady, New York.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4J)o, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me. Se:ptember19\&9: “I’m returning to Schenectady on Oc:t. 8 to undertake the experiment of living with Linda.”} He has been with Ms. Paaik ever since, working as a counselor of “croubledH youths.


It will be observed that my brother has had no stable direction in life, but has merely drifted. From now on, though. I expect that his life will be much more stable. since Ms. Paaik is dearly dominant aver him and will provide the direction and consistencythat he lacks.


Lest the reader form an enggcrated conception of my brother’s weakness of character, I must report that he did eventually improve his housekeeping habits, and he didpermanently stop smoking.\footnote{Duringhis college days my brother used to smoke an occasioml cigarette. When I found out about it l told him. “You’re going co get hooked!” “No,” he confidcntly assen:ed, ‘1’m not going to get hooked.” Bw: of course he did. When he wu living in Great Falls, he quit smoking. but then he wmr back to it again. ((Ca) FL \#135, letter from me to my parents. June 1973: “[DaveJ Imgone back to smoking. by the way.”) Later, however, he did stop smokmg for good}



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\chapter{Chapter 9. My brother’s ambivalent feelings toward me}


My brother was gifted with excellent athletic coordination that enabled him to excel effortlessly at sports that depended primarily on skill rather than strength.\footnote{Not, however, in sports that depend on strength. It is an i.11.ustration of the irresponsibility of the media thatthe New Yorie Ttnta described my brotheras “powerfully built.” (Ha\} NY Tima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.2.,5, column 3. He Im a tendency to overweight. but, minus the surplus fat. his weigbt is about 150 pounds. hls heightsilt feet. In 19n I arm-wrestled him and beat him, and no one would describe me as powerfully built. He told me in 1978 that he had once tried weight-lifting with some friends of his, and the amount he could bench-press was “a little aver ahundred pounds.”} For instance. he became ping-pong champion of the eighth grade ar Evergreen Parle Central School. even though he had never played ping-pong before he encered the tournamcnt!\footnote{I had this information from my\&thcr.} So it is not surprising that he feels at home and confident of himself on the playing-field or the tennis court. But in other contexts my brother tends to be distinctly lacking in self-confidence.


This was shown. for example, by his diffidence about building a cabin on his property in Tens. He was not interested in a strucrure chat would impress anyone by its fine workmanship; all he wanted was something that would protect him from the weather and provide a place co store his belongings. Anyone with normal physical and mental abilities can put together such a structure. yet my brother seemed to find it difficult to believe that he could carry out the project. In a letter to me in 1983, he referred to “the off chance I should be successful” in building a cabin.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#278, letter from David Kaczynski to me. October1983, p.s.}


In an answering letter I wrote: “t don’t have the slightest doubt you could build a good cabm-if you once started the project. That’s the only problem. You would be apt to be so pessimistic about the results beforehand. that you would never undertake the project. “\footnote{(Ca) FL \#279, letter from me to David Kaczymki. December 10, 1983, p.3.} My brother wrote in reply: “I accept that your assessment of my defcatcst [sic] attitude is correctto an e\%tcnt. especially when it comes to projeas involving some patient application of craftsmanship. I explain this combination of laziness and self. mistrust (which qualities seem to feed upon one another) in two ways to myself. (I) A lack of natural aptitude for building and handwork . . .\footnote{These mrce dca arc in the original.} althougb I realize it doesn’t take a whole lot of aptitude to throw up a rougbly serviceable cabin; and (2.) .•.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.So, letter from David Kaczynski to me, Dcccmbcr t983, orJanuary 1984 p.r.} (There follows an elaborate rationalization of the type chac is characteristic of my brother.)


When he finally didbuild a cabin three years later, he wrote:


I just built a cabin for myself with help from the 1lJY who likes hcalthfood. \dots{} I guess the main thing was that I felt terribly uncertain undertaking a project like that on my own\dots{} [l]t may be hard for you to appreciate the sense of intimidation experienced by someone like me in the face of a proJea of that type \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#357, letter from David Kaczynslci to me. between January and April 1987, P-3•}


But it wasn’t only in building or handwork that my brother lacked energy and persistence. Referring to projects of any kind I wrote him in 198;.


I find it rather tiresome that you make promising noises [about prc,. jca:s] and then do nothing. I’m aware of your little problem about procrastination and so forth. but I must say I would find it more agreeable if you would refrain from speaking in promising terms unless, by some chance. you actually had a serious intention of carrying something through. “\footnote{(Ca) FL \#299, letter from me co David Kaaymki. early 1985, p.u.}


I believe that my brother was quite right in saying that his “laziness” and his “self.mistrust” fed upon one another. To put it more clcarlJ I suspect that an inbom lack of energy tended to prevent my brother from achieving good results in things that he undertook. the poor results weakened his sclfconfidcncc, and the lack of self-confidence further lowered his energy and persistence, in a vicious circle. In my 1985] lettcr I continued:


Please forgive mi.for offering unasked-for advise [sic], but it docs seem to me that your tendency to drop projects \dots{} may be simply the result of a negative attitude about the possibility of success. Carrying one or two things through successfully might result in a more encouraged attitude on your part thereafter. But I apologize for putting my nose into what is none of my busincss.\footnote{Same. For expression of a similar opinion. sec (Ca) FL lh.48, leaer from me to David Kaczynski. late summer or fall of 1981 (copy kept in the cabin), pp. 1.4. i,. The passage in question was not includect in the copy of FL lh.48 tbac was mailed.}


Also contributing to my brother’s difficulties with his self-esteem was the fact that. as I wrote to him in 1982., “You have very high aspirations. For you it is not enough to just be as good as others. You have to be someone sped.aL”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.48, lettcr from me to David Kaczynski. lace summer orfall of1981, p.a.}


I myself had always tended to have similarly high aspirations, and this might plausibly be attributed to the faa that our mother, with her excessive craving for status, had inculcated us with a feeling that we had to be outstanding; to be average represented failure. To one who has the necessary energy and persistence, such aspirations lead to achievement; but to one who lacks those qualities they lead to a sense of defeat.


Dave’s self-esteem must have been damaged further by the inevitable comparison with his older brother: I had the energy and persistence that he lacked. Moreover, when we were kids, the mere faa that I was older enabled me to do many things that he could not do; our parents, especially our mother, made matters worse by exaggerating my abilities and holding me up as an example to my brother; and I made matters worse still through my verbal harassment of him. which generally took the form of denigration.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#)Jo, letter from David Kaczynski to me. lam March orearly April 1986, p.9: “You tended to downgrade me in some respects. \dots{}(Ca) FL \#339, letter from me to David Kaczynski. May 1986, p.1: “Yes. I did tend co downgrade you when you were a kid. That’s one of the main chmgs l was apologizing for.”}


Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that D;m: had an ego problem with respect to big brothcr.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#41,6, lettcr from me to my mo Novmibcr n, 1990, p.s: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Daw . . . Im a little ego problem vis-a-vis big brother. . . . For a similar remark see (Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother.July I5, 1991, pp. 2, 3.} This was shown, for example, by the fact that in discussions with me he would never admit he was wrong, or concede a single point, even when in order to avoid making a concession he had to adopt a position that was dearly ridiculous.\footnote{Ca) FL \#4or, 1cttcr from me to David Kaczynm. September or early October 1989 ( carbon copy kept in the cabin), p.6: .. [W]herevuyour ego is imolved. you are absolutely impervious to reason and willresort to the most fiu..fi:tcbed rationalization to avoid having to make any conc:mion.” (Ca) FL \#]]o, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late March or early April 1986, p.:ii: ‘1 thinkone reason I became ego-imolved in our philosophical disamions a few years ago was because I was sd1l cryingto emblish myself on a plain (sic] of inr.elleca1al equality with you.” Also see (Ca) FL \#4l6, letter from me to my mother, November ll, 1990. p.2..} It wasn’t that he didn’t find my arguments persuasive. On the contrary. he found them all too persuasive. Ashe wrote in 1982:


You h.M:, I think you must know; an interpretation of the world which persuades by its very power and conviction \dots{} I don’t think my will was consciously frustrated by coming under the influence of your way of thinking, since I thought I came willingly. drawn by its inainsic persuasion \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#264, letter from OaVld Kaczynski to me. Summer 1982. pp. 2.,3.}


And according to chc FBl’s reports:


DAVE \dots{} noted that a particular characteristic of TED’s debating style was chat he placed special emphasis on making his arguments compclling.”\footnote{(Na) FBI 302 number J, p.6. Also, according to (Na) FBI Jm number 8, p.2., while commenting on some Unabom letters and aprcssing his suspicion that I migb.t have written them, my brother told the FBI: “This pickmg apart of the contradictiom in the FBl’s imestiganon. this is how TED makes an argument. He argues point by point. \dots{}”This whole letter remmds me of TBD’s letter\dots{} it’s beautifully. tightly argued.”}


Which means, in effect, that my brother found them compelling. This is not an indication of the.rational force of my arguments; my brotherhas litde appreciation of rationality. He found my arguments compelling simply because he was overawed by big brother.


His sense of inferiority and helplessness vis-a-vis big brother led rum to consistently place himself in a position of subordination to me, even though he resented that position. Thus, when we wen: both learning Spanish during the 1980s, he repeatedly applied to me for help and-on the surface-was grateful for it. He wrote me:


Thanks for correcting my crron [m Spanish]\dots{} Spanish has more cases of the subjunctive than Eoglish docs, isn’t that so? Generally. I don’t understand chem. . . . Please write to me again in Spanish, so that I will learn the language bettcr,\footnote{(Ca) FL \#237,. letter from David Kaczynski to me. March 1981. The Spanish origina1 is: “Gracias para la correca6n de mis errores. \dots{} Tiene el cspanol mas subjuntivos casos que del ingies. Nerd.ad? No los comprmdo, por lo comun. \dots{} Por favor, me esaibes otra vez, en el espanol. de modo que aprendere mejor la lengua.”} (Translated from bad Spanish) [W]ould you like co spend part of our time speaking Spanish during your visit? I think. it would be a help co me.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#315, letter from David Kaczynski to me, October or Nawmbcr 1985, p.3.}


[T]hanks for correcting my Spanish \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#367, letter \&om David Kaczymki to me, Novmiber1987, p.1. 19.}


Some questions about the Spanish language: Isn’t lo used sometimes as a complement meaning him or even y1ll . . . [etc.]”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#;78, letter from David Kac:zynski to me, June orJuly 1988, p.1. The Spanish original is: ..Unas prcguntu rcspecto a la idioma cspanola. ,A wees, no se usa lo como un complcmento significando him o aun you? \dots{}} (Translated from Spanish)


Yet, under the surface, my brother apparently resented my help, even though he asked for it. One evening during bis visit to my cabin in 1986] at his request he spent some time reading co me out of a Spanish-language \_ book while I corrected bis pronunciation. But according to the New Yorle Ti:


Ted ‘spent some time tutoring me in Spanish.’ David said. ‘He would have me read from some of the Spanish books. I had a sense that he really enjoyed doing that.’ David said he did not relish the role, but went along with it because it seemed to please his brother.\footnote{(Ha) NYTimu, Nat., May l.6, 1996, p.24, column+}


Accually, it did not please me. I found it tiresome. But the important point here is that Dave never apressed to me bis negative feelings about the help I gave him with Spanish. and I did not realize that he hadsuch feelings.


In other situations also my brother concealed his resentment over his ego conflict with me. In 1988] l sent him an affectionate letter in which I reminisced about his childhood and told him what an atcractivc little kid he’d becn.\footnote{Here is a wge part of the tezr of (Ca) FL \#382, letter from me to David Kaczynski. September 15, 1988: “ Dear Dave: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf ‘some three yean ago, more orless. I bad a dream about you that rm about to report. We were at our old house in BPark. and I saw you u you wet”e when you were about4 years old. \dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf When you were little you often seemed so full of energy andjoy. I a vivid mental image ofyou atthe age ofabout 4, rwmingwith your face all litup with joy and enthusiasm. \dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf M.After you came home from college you seemed to haw become morose: you didn’t seem to have any joy in life. Comcquendy my memories of you as a joyous and enthuswtickid were poignant and nostalgic. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf MAnyway. in the dream I called to you and suggatcd that we should play catch. You came running with your face all lit up with joy and enthusiasm in the way I’ve described. \dots{} [Later] we headed out across the prairie to enjoy the beauty of nature--ezcept that ‘beauty of nature’ doesn’t quite capture what I mean. Nature tsnot only bc2uty. but peace and happiness and a lot of othersmft” of that sort. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf M ••[A]t that point I woke up. I filled with poigmnt. acute, nostalgic feelings. a kind ofgriefover the lost joy ofyourchildhaod. But then I thought of the fact that you were now enjoying the \&cedom and beauty of the desert, and this greatly comforted me. \dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf •5o you see what kind of feelings I haw about you, and how much I value you\dots{}M}


My brother answered:


Thank you for your affectionate letter. It meant aloe [sic] co me and I’ll keep it always. as I have a few of your others.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#385, letter\&om David K.aczymki to me. September 1988, p.I.}


But in his interview with the New Yorle TI. Dave described the letter and then said. i had the sense that he wanted me to be the little brothcr.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26. 1996, p.22. column 2..} Of course, he was only projecting his own feeling of inferiority. According to the FBI:


He noted that TED seemed to think of him (DAVE) as an ‘acolyte’, and TED took for granted that DAVE would agree with and look up to him in all things.”\footnote{(Na) FBl3m.number3, p.,..}


Again my brother was projecting his own sense of inferiority. It was he who placed himself in a position ofpsytb.ological subordination to me. I by no means wanted him to occupy such a position. In met, his excessive adulation of me was one of the things thac disgusted me about him. But what matters here is the fact that my brother never expressed these complaints to me or in my presence. After I’d apologized for the way rd harassed him when we were kids,\footnote{I apologized se\textbackslash{}’eral times. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ca) FL \#263, letter from me to David Kaczynski, July 30, 198:\&: ‘1 remember that when we were kids l sometimes would take advantage of my greater size and strength to dominate you physu:ally. Also l somenmes harassed you verbally. \dots{} l now regret that l behaved that way. So I now offer you an apology for it; though I suppose this apology very likely is a matter of indifference to you anyway.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In (Ca) FL \#264. lettcr from David Kaczynski to me, SUmmcr 1982. p.1, my brother answered: “No, it’s not a matter of indifference to me, and I thank you for your apology, or rather I should say for your sympathetic understanding of what may have surfaced at times as resentment on my part. But •.. I think you may tend to enggerateyour own failings. \dots{}. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Again. I wrotein(Ca) FL \#]29, letterfrommc to David Kaczynski. March15, 1986, pp. 4, s: “(I]n thiokiog about these duop. during the last few years. I’ve become more of the fact that the shit that I had to take from our parents I tended to pass on to you, so that you have somewhat the same reuon to resent me as I have to resent our parents. I have already apologized to you for this. and I now repeat the apology. I very much regret havingbullied and insulted you the way I often did. l wouldn’t blame you if you bated my gua for it. It’s an indication of the generosity of your charaaerthat you’ve shownwrylitdc resentment toward me\dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf It has since become apparent that my brother bad accumulated against me a great deal more resentment than he admitted, yet he answered as in the ten to which this fcomotc refers. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I wrote in (Ca) FL \#lb. letter from me to David Kaczymki, September 15, \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf 1988, pp. J, ‘1 suppose itwould be supedluous to again express my regret over the way I used to treat you when I wu in my teem. But it’s something I haven’t forgotten. Noram I 1ikdyto bgetit.• \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I’m not aware that my brother evu’ said anytbmg in amwer to this last apology.} he wrote in a 1986 lctter:


 far as your treannent of me as a child went, Ted, rdon’t thinkit was as bad as you seem to remember. You tended to downgrade me in’ some respects, but I imagine that’s par for the course among siblings \dots{} (Note in margin of letter:] (S]ince attaining adulthood, you seemed to have reversed this tendency. and have often been generous with yourpraise.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letterfrom David Kaczynslci to me, lar.e March or early April 1986,}


Yet I now suspect that even as an adult my brother felt bullied by me.\footnote{p.9. 2,7. On March 13, 1997, Or. K. told me orally that Dave badsaid to her onFebruary 27, 1997 that “he felt he was ‘bullied’ by me, even mme in adulthood than when we were kids.” (Ra) Oral Report from De. K.. March 13, 1997. I expressed some sur,prisc that Dave had felt bullied even in aduhhood, butOr. K. as.mrcd me thatthat wa.s what he bad said. I wrote the information down the same day I received it. and I’m sure that I recorded conectly what Dr. K. told me. Yet when I asked her on February n, 1998 to comirm the statement, she said she couldn’t find itin her notes. What she wu able to tell me wu that “Dave said there was a lot ofbullyingback and fonh between us.(Ra) Oral Report from Dr. K., February 12, 1998. ‘sullying back and forth makes no sense, since Dave llt:”t’e1’ bullied me in any way. nor would he have been capable of doing so. In any case, there is other evidence that Dave felt bulliedby me in adulthood. as this chapter shows.} Physically he was bigger than I was. Ido not remember ever having raised my voice to him after I was past my teens. certainly I nCVC” aied to give him an order, I was not conscious of any other behavior that could have been seen as bullying. and I had no overt power over him. Ifhe felt bullied. it can only be explained by his sense of psychological subordination to me-a subordination that I neitherdesired nor knowingly encouraged.


Except that in very rare cases he had outbursts of anger toward me (for which he later expressed. shame), my brother in adulthood seems to have found it very difficult to assert himself against me. A mere suggestion from me felt to him like an order; a mere czpressi.on of disagreement felt like a cutting aiticism. He was so sensitive in this respect that it would have been virtually impossible fur me to avoid wounding him: If I proposed. a course of action I was being bossy; if I disagreed with him I was being overcritical. I had realized for a long time that my brother had some such feelings, but owing to his reticence in expressing them I had no idea of their intensity until after my arrest. To illustrate, the New Torie Tima wrote. on the basis of its interview with mybrother:


in adulthood, David remembered an overbearing brother . . . who could tum a conversation about David’s term paper into a humiliating demolition of his ideas on Freudian analysis. \dots{}”\footnote{(Ha) NY’Tima, Nat., May26, 1996, p., column L}


I remember this conversation. To me it was simply a discussion carried out on an equal basis. in which we agreed on some points and disagreed on others. It did not occur to me at the time chat my brother experienced itas a “humiliating demolition ofhis ideas.”


Other indications ofmy brother’s suppressed angertoward me: According to the FBI. he stated that he felt angry when he read things written by me;\footnote{(Na) FBI lnumber 8, p.3.} and he wrote in 1982, “No one makes me as angry as you do sometimes \dots{} I don’t know why.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#245, letter from David Kaczynski to me, lar.e summer orfall of1981, P.J.} (l’he three dots arc in the original.) Yee. as already noted. he rarely expressed. this anger.\footnote{The psychologists say thata teadmcy to grind one’s teeth is an indication of suppressed anger. Both my brother and I have been told by dentisa that we were wearing our teeth down too fast by grinding them in our sleep. Par yeus my brother iued to wear a mouthpiece when sleeping to protect his teeth from grinding. Perhaps he still does so.}


However, my brother often was excessively sensitive to aitidsm by me of any of his friends.\footnote{In the letter reproduced in Note 35 below, I stated that Dave did not react with irritation to cnndsm of his male friends. I must have written that hastily and without thinking. because he was oftm ac.cssivcly sensitive to aiticism of his male friends. Examples are given in the ten. But it is true that if my brotherwas in a good mood and I took care to ezpress myself diplomatically he would often accept aitidsm of his male friends. whereas he wu always excessive.ly touchy about anything ( said concenung Luisa Mueller.} and it is worth mentioning that he was more ready to c:zpress resentment of such aiticism than he was to express resentment of aiticism of himself. For instance, when I stayed with him at his apartmcnt in Great Falls in 1971, we spent an evening with his new friend Leon Ne., and afterward I commented to Dave, “He seems like a nice fellow, but maybe a little bit of a blow-hard.” My ‘qrochcr flared up, obviously stung, but he cooled down very quicklyn the surface. at least. Lacer in 1971] a college friend of his, Denis Db., stopped at the apartment for an overnight visit. I had met Denis once before, and he muse have taken a strong dislike to me for some reason, because on this visit he made a series of nasty remarks. For instance, referring co my desire to live in the woods, he said, “Since you want to live like an animal \dots{}. Each time he made one of these remarks my brother and l glanced at one another wonderingly. From consideration for my brother I refrained from saying anything unpleasant in reply co-Denis.


My brother never apologized co me for his friend’s behavio though he was certainly aware of it. In fact, he must have mentioned it to ourparents, since they mentioned it to me without my having told them about it. rn about 1979, when I was in Lombard, in conversation with Dave I casually referred to Denis’s offensive behavior toward me, and Dave snapped back in a challenging tone, I don’t remember it!°’ But clearly he did remember it, because if he hadn’t remembered the incident he would have answered me in a wondering or questioning tone rather than a challenging one.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mother, Julys, 1991, ,•w: already mentioned (in an earlier letter) how he refused to acknowledge Denis Db.’s insulting behavior toward me. H I do remember mentioning the i.nadmt to my mother in another letter, but that letter perhaps bas not survived, since f have been unable to find the mention.} Of course, I dropped the subject.


When Dave began attending the College of Great Falls, he quickly made three new friends: Bill Wadham. George Plattt, and Luisa Mucllert. Luisa Mueller had never been married, nor was she in a monogamous relationship, but she had a five-year-old boy and, by a different father. a pair of three-year-old twins. She lived on wel\&rc. A few months or a year or two after my brother made her acquaintance. she got pregnant again. At that time she told Dave that she wasn’t sure whether the father was Bill Wadham or George Platt, but later it was apparently decided that Bill Wadham was the probable father. My brother had been hanging around with her quite a bit, but had no•.scxual relationship with her. In my opinion, women liked my btother because of the easy-going softness of his character. but did not sec him as a potential lover: He was homely. he WU not muscular, and his personality was decidedly lacking in virility and energy.


Before Luisa Mueller’s baby was born. my brother had returned to Lombard temporarily. When thebaby died at orshortly after birth, my parents wrote me\footnote{J4-nus letter has not been preserved.} that Luisa made a tcadul phone call to Dave and that he promptly flew out to Montana to comfort her. I began to worry that he might make an ass ofhimselfbygettinginvolved with and eventually marrying her. I felt sure that she was not aa:raacd to my brother as a male, butr was afraid that she might marry him simply in order to make her position respectable. or because he provided a good shoulder co cry on, and that she would subsequently make him a cuckold many times over. So I wrote my parents a letter in which I pointed cue chat Dave seemed to be getting dangerously close to Luisa Mueller and suggested that they should discourage the relationship.\footnote{Here is the complete tatof(Ca) FL \#147, letter from me to my parents, November 15, 1973: ‘1 would like to point out ta you a certain serious andhigblyundesirablc possibility. David will no doubt assert diat his relationship to (Luisa Mueller’) is purely platonic, and perhaps it is. But when a young man goes running out to Montana to comfort a young woman because she is dcprcssed. anyone would be a fool who was blind to the serious possibility that an erotic rcw:iomhip is in the process of developing. I don’t suppose you would like to seehim manya woman like that. For one thing. she would probably make him a cw:kold a thousand times over:. It is questionable whether she would be c:apab1e of sema1 continmce even if she tried. [Luisa] has a motherin Moncma from whom l think she is noc estranged. rfshe looks to Dave razher than to hermother for support. itsuggests that their intimacy may be pretty for (sic] adwnced. It is also noreworthy that Daw tends to react with i.rriwion to any criticism of[Luisa]. He does not react that way to aitiosm of his male friends. Dave is too soft-hearted and trusting to be a good judge of c:haracter. Moreover, since he bu (so far as I know) no other girlfriends. he is presumably somewhat sa-5W”Yed. which would make him all the more susceptible. And l suspectthat [Luisa] would be alltoo amious to make her position respeca.ble by marriage to 4lt.)’Ollt’. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I am not saying that Dave is getting involved with her-I am only saying that the possibility has to be takm seriously. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I think you should not approach Dave directly about the possibility of his getting involved with [Luisa\}-if you did so it would only make him angry. But you might emphasize’..to him the negative aspects of the character of a profligate woman lilce that-without indicating that you are trying to discourage their relationship.-Ted. •} I have to admit that my motive for writing the letter was less concern for my brother’s wclf.lre than disgust at his weakness of character; thus the motive was in considerable partselfish.\footnote{Concerning this affilir I wrote in (Ca) FL \#339, letter from me to David Kaczynski, May 1986, pp. 2., 3: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf My inein the case of [Luisa Mueller] hadnolhmgto do with sexua1 rcprasion. rf you wanted to go fsome broad I couldn’t care less, though I might wish you would choose someone more worthy than [Luisa Mueller]. What l wu afraid of wu that you would make a fool of yourself and be exploited, and by someone ([Luisa MuellerD whom I found thoroughly contcmptible. What it looked like to me wu that (a) you were sezually attracted to [Luisa Mueller] (your letter seems to confirm this) (b) your amaction wu not jwtphysical lwt-r thought you might be m danger of falling mlove with her(c) I found her thoroughly contemptible ( d) I suspected that she had lime or no sexual intereSt in you but that (e) she nugbt be using you as a shoulder to cry on, and \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (f) I thought there might be a risk that she would ezploit you by getting you co marry her. not because she loved you or anything like that. but because she simply wanted(co make her position respectable].,. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I will admit though that my motive fer interli:ring was partly selfish-[ would have felt [it]* as a kind of personal humiliation for my brother to be ezploitedin that way orto marry someone so contemptible.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Parts of the ten are cut off” on the photocopy that rhave. Material in bradtecs, except for the addition of the fictitious name “Luisa Mueller”, bas been recon.strUcted from memory. conte:zt. and fragments ofletters that remain at the edge of the page.} Anyway. Dave accidentally found ouc about my letter and wrote me an c:mcmcly angry. insulting, and vituperative reply\footnote{J4-nus letter has not been preserved.} full of wild accusations. This was quickly followed by a second letter.\footnote{J4-nus letter has not been preserved.} in which he apologized and expressed a hope chat our relationship would not be permanently spoiled by the things he’d : said.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#248. letterfrom me to David Kaaymki. late summer or\&ll of1981, i>- ‘“You recall that letter in which l suggested to our parena that they should dis-courage you from getting close co [Luisa Mueller]. I wrote to this effect: ‘Dave may claim his interest in [Luisa Mueller] is purely platonic but \dots{} [citing evidence to the comrary).’ You wrote me 2. letters on this. the first very angry; and the second apologetic.The three dots and thewords in brackea are in the original as I wrote it to Dave in 1982.} Since I was somewhat ashamed of the selfish aspect of my motive for writing to our parents about him and Luisa Mueller, I gave him a very mild answer:


I apologize for meddling and I promise to keep my nose out of your business in the future. On my side. at least, there are no hard feelings.”\footnote{JS. (Ca\} FL \#?49, letter from me to David Kaaynski. April 4, 1974, p.L}


In his first. angry letter, my brother denied that he had any sexual interest in Luisa Mueller and. insisted chat his motives with respect to her were purely altruistic. He also said chat what angered him most about what I wrote to our parents was the implication that he was and needed to be guided for his own good. In his second. apologetic lett be said that what mainly angered him was the implication of dishonesty on his part in my suggestion that he was “lying” ( as be put it) about the natme ofhis feelings coward Luisa Mueller.


My brother and l discussed this episode nine years later. in an exchange of letters in 1982. Dave wrote:


The angry letter I wrote you. Yes, I’m ashamed of it. But \dots{} you didn’t only suggest that I be discouraged from seeing the woman. You also said you thought I was lying when I said my relations with her were saictly nonscxuaL\footnote{Ca) FL \#245, letter\&om David Kaczynski to me. late summer or\&ll of1981, p.2.}


I wrote:


In the .first letter you said chat the main reason you were angry was because of the implication that you were weak and needed to be guided for your own good. In the second letter (and also in a recent letter on this subjea) you said that the main reason you were angry was that (as you claimed) I was accu.sing you of dishonesty’ or of 1ying’ when I suggested that you were misrepresenting the nature of your incerest in [Luisa Mueller].


\dots{} I think it was fairly clear in the contmof myletter chat I was acc:using you not oflying but of self-deception\dots{}


[Even if I had accused you of lying], you probably would have sent me a rebuke in an irritated tone, or perhaps even a moderately angry tone, but you would not have sent me the highly emotional, vituperative, and enraged letter that you did send.


Obviously then, my supposed questioning of your honesty was not what got you so terribly upset. The real reason is the one you permitted to slip out in your first letter. My letter did convey an implication of weakness on your part. Somewhere ‘deep down inside’ you.fed weak; consequently that implication touched a raw nerve and you became enraged.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#248, letter \&om me to David Kaczynski. late summer or fiLll of 1981, pp. 4-7. This material is quoted \&om the copyof the letter that was mailed to my brother, except that, in a few places. illegibility of or PBI tampering with (the photocopy of) the mailed copy forced me to refer ta the copy kq,tin the cabin in orderto fill ingaps.}


Dave referred to this episode again four years later, in 1986, and then he practically admitted that rd been right in thinking that he was attracted sex-ually to Luisa Mueller.


When your interference vis-a-vis [Luisa Mueller] touched off an explosion, I believe this is how I experienced everything \dots{} I saw you acting as a sort of a surrogate super-ego in the matter of our parents’ highly (though subtly) repressive attitudes toward scz. I suppose I felt that siblings ought to confederate in the snuggle with their parents co assert sexual independence\dots{} [Note in margin of letter:] I acknowledge that this resembles your original account of the episode more closely than mine.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me. late Muchor early April 1986, p.IO.}


Incidentally. the reason I was so contemptuous of Luisa Mueller was not just the fact that she got pregnant without bmarried. If a woman chooses to have babies out of wedlock. then as \&r as I’m conccmcd that’s her business and I have no desire to censure her. What disgusted me about Luisa Mueller was that she seemed to me such a damned animal; she kept getting pregnant apparently without desiring to doso. Was she too improvident to take precautions? I don’t think she had my religious convictions that would have prevented her from usingcontraceptives.



\bigskip


My brother almost never took my part in any conflict that I had with anyone else. In such conflicts, rcgarcllcss of the faces of the situation, he usually seemed to see me as a tyrannical aggressor. Here is an aamplc.


When we first met him in Great Falls, Dave’s friend Bill Wadham was an admitted thief, though as far as t know his thefts were very trivial.\footnote{Bill Wadham’s stealing is mentioned in (Ca) PL \#109, letter from me to my parents, February 4, 1978, p.2. Bill Wadham in effect admitted theft to me in 197t or 1972, and t and my brother both saw mm steal a piece of candy (a:,,.¢ mint patty) ina restaunnt inGreat Falls in I97I or I97l.,} In the summer of 1978, I, my father, Dave, Bill and his wife were all working at Foam Cutting Engineers in Lombard, Illinois; then Bill and his wife decided to move away. One day shortly before they left I cashed a paycheck. The next morning I bad to go to work and didn’twant to carryso much money with me, so I hastily hid about a hundred dollars somewhere in my room then took off. A few days later I wanted the money; but couldn’t remember exactly where I’d hidden it. I minutely examined every comer and cranny of my room and took everything apart, but could find no money.


My mother told me that a day or two earlier Dave had left Bill and his wife alone in our house for a matter of hours. Under the circum.stanccs one could only suspect that Bill had taken the money; but Dave reacted quite emotionally to the suggestion that he had done so. He vehemently denied that such a thing was possible. Lat though. after he had cooled down. he admitted that Bill might have taken the money; and he volunteered to replace my hundred dollars. I declined his offer. and instead I wrote a note to Bill (who by this time had moved) that said: ‘1f I don’t get my hundred dollars back pretty damn quick. Iwillget the police on your tail\dots{} I reasoned thatifBill had stolen the money he would probably send it back to me. and ifhe had not stolen it he would take my note as a joke.


A3] it turned out, he did take my note as a joke. He was quite amused by it and sent me a letter inwhich be enclosed a sand dollar, saying ‘“Here is the (sand) dollar we owe you.” When Dave learned of Bill’s letter and deduced from it what I’d done. he was very angry. because he feared that Bill’s feelings would be hurt if he guessed that I suspected him ofstealing. Dave was going to confront me about it, but my mother talked him out of doing so.


About a year later I tried co put on a pair of gloves that rd had with me in Lombard but had not worn since then. I found that my thumb wouldn’t go into one of the gloves. Investigating. I discovered x02] dollars rolled up and thrust into the thumb of the glove. I had a goodlaugh at myse1f


At some later time I cold my brother about finding the hundred dollars, and he C\%pteSSed great relief, saying, HI really believed Bill had taken it. .. Thus, when Dave became angry over my letter to Bill, he evidently felt that ifone of his friends stole something from me it was an unjustifiable cruelty on my part to confront that friend about it. Yet it is certain that if Dave had ever suspected that I had stolen something from one of his friends, he would have been dat me.


Dave’s tendency co sec me as a tyrannical aggressor is illustrated also by the way he instinctively turned against me in the Ellen Tarmichacl affair (to be discussed in Chapter 10) without bothering to inquire first about the faas.


There was an occasion in 1979 on which my brotherseemed at first to be taking my part in a conflict. then suddenlyhimself and withdrew his support. What hurt me was not so much the fact that he withdrew his supportas the smug satisfaction with which he did it. It was like kicking me in the face when I was down. rm not going to recount the incident here because it’s too painful. Of all che things my brother did prior to 1995] it’s the only one for which I’ve never forgiven him. It rankles to this day.


My brother sometimes expressed his resentment of me in underhanded ways.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#458, letter from me to my mothe?;July 5, 1991, pp. 1, :i: ,:OawJ certainly bas had generous and loving feelingsfor me, but there has always been an important counter-strain of erN’f and resentment toward me on his part. He has often apressed this inunderhanded ways.N} When Dave and I both lived in Montana we jointly rented a safedeposit boL By 1975] my brother had left Montana. leaving his papers in the box. In that year I wrote my parents:


Last year I had to write Dave about 3 times to gee him to pay his share of the rent on our safe deposit box. This year I wrote him twice and he never did pay the \$2.50\dots{}\footnote{(Ca\} FL \#Im. letter from me co my pU’Clll3.June 7, 1m,p.+}


Was ic just because of my brother’s laziness that he failed to pay me? Probably not: In the last two letters I told him that I was desperately hard up for money. so that literally penny was important. Yet he never answered.


\dots{} so I got tired of it, took my stuff out of the box. arranged to have the box put in his name only. and sent him some papers from the bank that he has to sign and return. He doesn’t answer my letters-maybe he’s mad ac me, though I can’t imagine for what. Anyway. in case he didn’t get the papers from the bank. make sure he knows he has to contact the bank ifhe doesn’t want to lose his stuffin the box.\footnote{(Ca\} FL \#Im. letter from me co my pU’Clll3.June 7, 1m,p.+}


Seven years later Dave wrote me:


The safe-deposit bOL I admit I was wrong. I have never complained to you about sticldng me with it. But you should keep in mind that you were the one who persuaded me to take ic out with you in the first place. And now I am paying for a box I never use. simply because it is inaccessible to me.”\footnote{(Ca\} FL “\#2.45, letter from David Kaaynski to me, later summer or fall of 1981,}


Of course, ifmy brother had answered my letters and asked me co send him his papers from the box. I would have done so, and he wouldn’t have been “stuck.” with it. I had been the one who suggested that we should rent the box. but as far as I can remember my brother accepted the suggestion readily. I didn’t have to do any persuading.


One evening in 1978] when my brother and I were both staying at our parents’ house, Dave spent some hours drinking beer in his room. By and by he got tipsy enough so that be ame dancing out of his room and danced around the living room stark naked. in my mother’s presence. She was embarrassed and said, “Dave! Go put some clothes on!” He danced back. into his room. wrapped a blanket around himself: danced back out and pranced around the living room for half a minute or so, then danced back. co his room and dosed the door: and that was the end of the ind.dent.


Some time later I recalled this episode in the presence of my brother and our parents. and mentioned the fact that Dave had been naked. Dave’s memory of the event, not surprisingly, was a bit fuzzy. and he said, “Didn’t I have a blanket around me or somechingr’ I said, “No, the first time you came out naked; you had the blanket on the second time you came out.” Dave seemed to begin to accept this, but then suddenly and for no apparent reason he hardened. It was as if a door had closed: He asserted positively and in an uncompromising tone that he had not come out naked. Since our parents, too, remembered the incident unclcarly, they weren’t sure whether co believe me ormy brother. The incident was rcfcrrcd to several times over the next few weeks. and my brother continued to deny that he’d been naked. My parents found the situation amusing. I found it so too, but I was also irritated by the fact that my brother persisted in his denial when I knew that he believed I was right. Dave seemed neither amused, nor angry. nor embarrassed about the affair; his tone in stating his denials was hal’d and smug.


Then our parents’ friends the Mcistcrs came to visit. During an evening of conversation with them I mentioned the nakcdcing incident. Dave got careless and responded to my remark in a way that practically amounted to an admission that he had been naked. I was delighted. I jumped out of my chair, slapped the floor. and gleefully exclaimed, rie admitted it! He admitted it!.. Everyone was highly amuscd-accpt Dave. He appcarcd neither amused nor embarrassed. Without aac:king a smile, he said, ‘“Damn! I admitted it. .. He seemed seriously vexed with hbnself •


I discussed mybrother’s motive in a letter I wrote him in1982,:


[Y]ou refused to admit the truth of that anecdote I recounted about the time when you got drunk and came prancing out of your room stark naked. Have you thought about the motive for your denial? Was it embarrassment? That may have been aconaibuting faaor, but I don’t think it’sthe whole explanation. For one thing. the incident wasn’t all that embarrassing. For another thing, when you finally admitted the incident accidentally in front ofthe Mcistcrs, you didn’t seem in the least embarrassed. You justseemed vcir:ed with-\_yoursclf for having inadvertently spoiled your own little game. For a third thing, you could have just asked me not to remind people of the incident and you know I would have complied with any earnest request of that sort. Was your motive humor? That doesn’t stand up either. It maybe humorous at first to pretend thatsuch an incidentnever occurred, but there is no further humor in persisting in the denial for weeks. Moreover, when you finally admitted the incident by accident, that was an occasion for humor, but instead oflaughing about it you were just vexedwith yourself


I suggest that what was happening here was the same thing that was happening when you used to tell me tall tales as a kid. You played that ttick simply because it felt good to be ‘one up’ on big brother for a change and in chis way also you were taking out your resentment over feeling secondbcst\dots{} Of course, I could be wrong in this analysis of your motive.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#248, letter from me co David Kaczynski. late summer or \&ll of 1981; pp. r8, 19-(A few words were filled inwith help of copy keptincabin.)}


I was being over-cautious. I don’t think there need be much doubt that my desaiption of his motive was about right. My brother never mentioned the naked-dancing incident in any subsequent letter of his.



\bigskip


The contrast between my brother’s deep-lying resentment of. me and the marked generosity and affection that he showed me at other times is puzzling. Whereas his expressions of resentment were covert,\footnote{Covert in the seme that when the angu was expressed openly. the real motm: fer it remained hidden.} his expressions of affection and generosity were overt. so that no one is likely to dispute them. Hence I need not exert myself to prove the reality of his affection. I will only give one particularly marked cnmplc of it.


In a 1985 letter that has not been preserved, I told my brother that I was worried about my health. In his answering letter he wrote:


Im sorry \dots{} to hear that you’re having problems with your health. I hope it’s nothing serious. Ifyou need money for medical expenses, I have a number of thousands of dollars saved up which I would be willing to give you if you bad no other recourse for obtaining proper aeaancnt. I know you are estranged from our parents. But I also know they wouldn’t hesitate a second to send you money in case of any genuine necessity. But if you have reasons for preferring not to ask them-and I can certainly understand that, given the state ofyour relations-please tell me what you need and I’ll try to come up with it\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) PL \#324, letter from David Kaczynski to me. late December 1985 or early January 19116, p.r.}


In a following letter:


“[l]t bothered me to think that you might be foregoing medical care because you were too proud to request or accept help\dots{} our family \dots{} is fairly prosperous . : . I hope you realize that help is available for the asking.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#;2.2, letter from David Kaczynski to me. lateJanuary 1986, pp. I, 2.} .


I answered.:


“I think my heart is going bad. Question of mental stress. Used to be that I suffered from hardly any tension at all around here. But the area is so f-kcd up now that my old way oflifeisall shot to hell. \dots{} [T]hose Gehring jerks\footnote{The reference is to my neighbor Clifford (“Butch’) Gehring and his sisters Chris and Sue, all of whom have been involved in tile logging of beaucful groves of old•growth trees.} are planning to log off the woods all around my cabin here.


\dots{}[Y]ou’ll understand that with the way things arc around here now I often suffer from tension, anger, frustration, etc.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#324, letter from me to David Kaczymki. l.arcJanuary 1986, pp. 1-3.} I then explained that I was much troubled with irregular heartbeats. I continued:


I wouldn’t be surprised ifIjust drop dead one of these days.


Actua.lly I’m not really all that concerned about it-We all gotta go some time anyway. so what the helL On the other hand, I’m not amious to die any sooner than I have to \dots{}


P. S. I forgot to mention-I was touched by your extremely generous offer of money. But even ifit would have done any good, I wouldn’t take it, not from you. When I took to the woods I made a decision to forgo (sic) 6nancial security. being fully aware of the consequences to be expected with the onset of old age and illness. It would obviously be unfair for me now to accept money from you, who have paid the price of earning financial security.\footnote{My brotherhad held mostly low-leveljobs, and durmg some periods had held no job at all, but through frugality had accumulated a considerable amount of money (\$40,000?).} It would be different if I leeched off the welfare dept., since the society that provides welfare is the same one that has f-ked up my way of life in the woods-so why not screw them? \dots{} Also it would be diff’crcnt if I took money from our parents. As you know, rhate them. so why not screw them? But from you I wouldn’t take any money\dots{}n”


My brother replied:


I appreciate your sauples vis-a-vis my savings. But to balance money against life seems to me absurd. Also, I remember that when I was out ofa job you offered to saaificc your privacy (which I know is veryprecious to you) in order to help me out.\footnote{In 1981 I hadbought out my brcther”s share ofourMomma property ((Ga) Deed \#s) so that I was now the sole owner. On a couple ofocasions ( told my brother that ifhe were ever hard up andhad nelse to go. he could come and stay with me, and somehow we would contrive ro feed two. But I don”t rec:all doing this in connection with my brother’s being”out of a job. M} I would certainly grieve if you kicked-off prematurely but it would be far, far worse for me if I thought I could have done anything to help prevent it.


In my opinion. you ought to go to a heart specialist and have a thorough cnm. \dots{}


Why don’t you have me request enough money from the parents to pay for an exam? I assume you would hate to do it yourself. I don’t think it would be ‘sacwing’ them anyway. since they have more than they can spend. \dots{}”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#325, letter from David Kaczynski to me, lateJanuary or early February 1986, pp. 2, J,} \_”


I gave no answer to •my brother’s offer, except by remarking that I did not appreciate getting unasked-for advice concerning my health.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#326, letter from me to my brother, February 18, 1986.} This was February IS, 1986.


During March and April t986, Dave and I excbangcd some letters concerning my resentment of our parents. passages from which have been quoted earlier in this book.\footnote{The letters in question are: (Ca) FL \#32,9, letter from me co David Kaczynski. March 15, 1986; FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynslci ta me, late Much or early April 1986; FL \#33t, letter from me to David Kaczynski, April 16, 1986; PL \#332, letterfrom me to David Kaczynski, April 21, 1986.} This correspondence inflamed my resentment, and I was particularly galled by the fact that my brother seemed to think that our parents would willingly and graciously give me money if I needed it badly. I felt that they probably woald give me money if I were in desperate straits, but I was sure that they would give it grudgingly and on terms that would be humiliatingfor me.


To prove my point, I sent them in April 1986] a note that read (in its entirety): “I need about \$6,000 for medical reasons.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#333, lettcr from me to my parena. April1986.} My purpose was to cause my parents pain and reveal their ungenerous nature. ralso had some thought of keeping the money to spend not especially for medical expenses but for whatever necessities might arise, but rabandoned that idea because I feared it might constitute fraud and be alegally prosecutable offense.


My pa.rents’ response was curt. My mother’s portion of the letter consisted of a terse demand for details; an inquiry about the possibility of various forms of public assistance, Medicaid. etc; a question about what savings or insurance I might have and whether a doctor would accept a payment plan. My father:


\dots{} Can you undd our resentment that you totally disassociated yourself from us yet in time of need call for our assistance!!! \dots{} Your rejection \dots{} shows lackof understanding. tolerance or a sense of family.


Right now we can give you an advance on what we have been sending you yearly. In the meantime, please respond to the above questions.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#334. letter from my parents to me, April 1986. My father and mother both wrote on the same sheet, which was signed only by my father. But diff’er. enccs in handwritingandlanguage make iteuy a, distinguish tile part written by my mother.}


Shortly after receiving this I wrote a letter to my brother in which I explained what I’d done. I included a complete copy of the letter from our parents that I’ve justquoted. and added:


The difference between this letter and JOKT very generous response when I merely mentioned that I had a health problem, is quite strikmg. All the more so considering that you have much less money than they do--as you sd yourscl( they have more money than they can spend anyway.


Now. I want to make it clear that I do not consider that they owe it to me to send me money. What they owe me has nothing to do with money. and they couldn’t pay it off with any amount of money. no matter how largc.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#]Js, letter from me to David Kaczynski, April30, 1986, pp. 3, ,4.}


In the same letter I told my brother:


[Y]ou might object to [what I did] and with some justification. Not that I feel you have the riglit to intervene in any disputes between me and the parents. But its possible you might feel you were in some sense a party to this nasty trick I played on them: For one thing. I was of course relying on the assumption that you would tell them that my heart is prone to act funny; for another thing. you had suggested to me that I should ask them for money; and finally. it was your letter that got me stirred up against thcm.\footnote{Same, pp. 1, :i.}


l then told Dave that out of consideration for his feelings I was explaining the affilir to him so that, ifhe liked, he could explain it to our parents. I also told him that ifrhcy did send me money I would send it to him and he could do with it what he pleased. which I assumed would be to give it back to our parents.\footnote{Same, p.:i.} .


My parents did send me a check for six thousand dollars (presumably befure my brother received my letter), and I did send it to him, as promised.\footnote{This is confirmed by (Ca) FL \#336, letter from me to David Kac:zyn.ski, May . 16.} Undoubtedly he then gave it back to our parents.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 10. The Ellen Tarmichael affair}


This chapter originally contained a full account of my relations with Ellen Tarmichael. but my publisher and I have decided to delete most of it due to ongoing legal proceedings.


My behavior toward Ellen Tarmichael was a good deal less than chivalrous. But media accounts of the affair have been inaccurate and have omittcd certain facts that substantially mitigated my behavior. However. my purpose here will be simply to show the difference between what my brother has recently told the media and what he wrote earlier about the Ellen Tarmichacl affair in his letters to me.



\bigskip


In 1978 my father and brother were both working at a company called Foam Cutting “Engineers in Addison, Illinois. According to the Washington Post:


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\dots{}\footnote{(Hb) Wahington Po.st, June 16, 196, p.A.Zl.}


Here is another of those seemingly minor distOrtions that the Washington Post no doubt will claim is accidental; yet the slight misstatement scriously misrepresents what actUally happened. and, as is usual with the ment and played cuds with her and her sister and her [sister’s] boyfriend.’ LaterTed came home. ‘He was obviously in a good mood,’ David said. ‘H told me he had gone to see Ellen. that they had spent the day tomedia’s misstatements, it tends to show me in a negative light. 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 ro 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 ajob at Foam CuttingEngineers. This is provedby the letters that I quoted in Chapter7, pp. III, 112..


Following a badly garbled account of how I came to work at Foam Cutting Engineers, 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, RichardJohnson, c:alled her’a wonderful boss, the best I’ve ever had,’ and added: ‘She’s always kind-hearted and nice to people. I can sec why somebody would get interested in her.’


Ted Kaczynski became interested in late July 1978\dots{} [Actually it was mid-July or earlier.]”


It was Sunday. and he had gone for a walk. ‘He happened to sec her car,’ David recalled. ‘She was filling the gas tank. [This is not quite accurate.] I don’t know enctly what transpired. He actually went to her apartgether \dots{} and that some gestures indicating affection had passed between them. I was very happy about that.’\dots{}


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 parencs’ home and baked a pie. That was when she told him she did not want co 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 auth and by no means the most important part.]


. . . [Ted] 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 accpt my father, brother, and mother.]”


David confronted bis brother. ‘I was very. very angry.’ he said. ‘Put of me was disappointed. He was so close to being integrated in the most primal rice of integration. He had an interest in a member of the opposite se.’t, and to have him go back to this kind of angry, inappropriate behavior-co che family it was embarrassing, adolescent kind of behavior.’


David told him to cease the offensive condua. But Ted put the same limerick up the next day. above David’s desk. [Accually, I put it on the machine he was using.] David told him to go home.”“\footnote{(Hb) Wahington Po.st, June 16, 196, p.A.Zl.} [That is. he fired me. which he could do because he had become a foreman by that time.\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 2.6, 1.p.24, columns 1, J.}


The Washington Post wrote:


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.


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. Probably within two days, and certainly within a week, I went out and got another job.


A few paragraphs further on. the Washington Post refers to a letter that I wrote Ellen Tarmichacl on August 25. 1978 (the letter is dated) and showed to my family by way ofexplanation either on the 25th or the 26th:


Ted came out of his room with several written pages in his hand, his attempt to explain himself. He wrote that Ellen had been intentionally aucl to him. None of them [the family] felt that was even remotely true. 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.\footnote{(Hb) Wahington Po.st, June 16, 196, p.A.Zl.}


This is either another lie or another error on my brother’s part. I saved a carbon copy of the letter, and the insulting limerickis repeated nowhere in it.\footnote{(Cb) FL Supplemenra,ry Item \#It, letter from me to Ellen Tamw:hael, August 25, 1978.} By the way. it has been claimed\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 2.6, 1.p.24, columns 1, J.} that I never mailed this letter. In face. I did mail it, and also a second letter to Ellen Tarmichael. The second letter is reproduced in Appendix 8.


Now compare the foregoing remarks of my brother’s with the following passages that he wrote to me in x981, 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. \dots{} But I realized soon afterwards that rshould have taken into account how badly you were feeling at the timC.u\footnote{(Ca) FL \#245, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, pp.2.,3.}


I think if the manner of your takingrevenge against Ellen had arisen in its own isolation, I probably would have responded very differently though it would be impossible now co know for sure. I hope, at any rate, that I would have responded diffcrcntly.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#247. letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 11.p.1.}


There follows a passage in which my brother argues that, during the months preceding the incident in question, I had been creating our parcntS badly. It is a passage that I am unable to understand, since it seems to me that during that period my relations with our parencs 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 t conceived it) I guess Ijust lost my head and my disaction completely. ..\footnote{The ellipsis is inthe original.} I say again that I was wrong co do what I did, although I suppose I have learned (for whatever good it will do me) how thoroughly t can be undone by my bad temper \dots{}\footnote{The ellipsis is inthe original.} From my point of view, all of this is in the past, though of course I acknowledge the major injury was yours not mine.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#247, leaerfrom David Kaczynski to me, latesummer orfall of 11. P.J.}


These passages show that, while my condua in the Tarmicbael affair was not c:\%actly noble and generous, my brother did realize that there were two sides to the story and that my behavior was at any rate understandable (which docs not imply that it was blameless). Yet, if the New York Tunes and the Wasltingtmt Pose have reported his remarks accurately. he gave them a one-sided version of the affairthat 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 deacasc my risk of suffering the death penalty. If that had been bis motive he would have taken a softer approach. comparable co 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 ora jury.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 11. I hurt my brother’s feelings cruelly}


It was around 1978, I think that Dave’s friend Bill Wadham recommended to him a book by the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Dave read Heidegger at first with a certain amused skepticism that may have been due in part co the fact that (Dave said) Heidegger had been a Nazi sympathizer. But within a few months he became a convert to Heidegger’s philosophy.\footnote{l want to make it clear that this does 1t0t mean that my brother became in any sense a Nazi sympathizer.} I think chat what led him co become a disciple of Heidegger was that it enabled him to feel that he was part of a special elite. In a conversation that I had with him or:i this subject in about 1979, he made it evident that he had come co regud himself as a member of a small minority of people who Hthink” (i.e., who read Heidegger), and on this basis he considered himself “supcrior.”\footnote{After my brother got hold of a letter I’d written to my mother (which is referred to later on) in which I sneered at his pzetemions co superiority. he wrote me: “I feel I am superior to mostpeople. .•.”(Ca) FL \#245, lettcr from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, p.:z..} He sneered at democracy. which he said was. according to Heidegger. a failed or obsolete form of government.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#.45, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, p. 6: ‘j\textbackslash{}bout democracy. surcl.y you don’t believe democracyis still viable-ifonly because ‘democracy’ in a mass culture is no longer democracy as originally conceivcd.u This is quite reasonable so far as it goes; but see further on in the tczt.} He therefore advocated the system of government that was first proposedby Plato and (Dave said) was favored by Heidegger. namely. ruleby a philosopher-king.


I was disgusted. It is one thing to recognize that the majority of people do not think seriously about anything that is not of direct practical importance to them, and it is another thing to aow about it so chat you can feel “superior.” It is one thing to recognize that democracy (as that term is understood in the modem world) has failed to provide what it was supposed to provide \&ccdom and equality-and it is another thing to sneer at democracy so chat you can replace it with an elitist philosophy. My brother, notwithstanding his claim to be a “thinker,” had swallowed Heidegger’s ideas uncritically. He had given no consideration to the question of whether rule by a philosopher-king would be workable as a practical sysccm of government. or to whether dcmoaacy might not be the least of the available evils in the modem world.


Not long after. still in 1979, I had another discussion with my brother, chis time about whether certain kinds of statements in philosophy were meaningful. My position was essentially that the meaning of verbal formulations required study and analysis. A verbal formulation might convey emotion (the word “emotion” being interpreted broadly) without having any other content. One could not assume that a formulation had any other meaning than its emotive content simply because one felt subjectively that it had such meaning. Many philosophers had little interest in analyzing their own verbal formulations in order to understand what, ifany, objective meaning they held, and were content if the formulations satisfied them merely on an emotional level Which would be fine if they were writing novels or poetry that pretended to do no more than satisfy the emotions. But the philosophers certainly believed their verbal formulations to have some meaningful content beyond mere emotional impact; yet, in the case of many of their formulations, they failed to establish what that content was or whether it cmted at all.


My brother found this point of view very threatening. because it called into question the validity of much of philosophy. and of related fields such as literary criticism; and it was on his interest in such fields that he founded his sense of being someone special. But he did not have enough selfconfidence to meet my arguments head on; instead, he resorted to evasive tactics.


In our 1979 discussion of this subject I began by trying to stake out some common growid between us-statements on which we could both agree and on the basis of whi I could argue my point. But Dave was so afraid of being defeated by me that whenever I offered a premise that we might agree on. he would reject it automatically, even if under other circumstances, he would certainly have accepted it. For instance, when I aied to introduce the concept of time, he flatly denied that any such thing as time clrisccd. (The next morning, as it happened, he asked me to glance at the dock and tell him what time it was. When I pointed out that he was being inconsistent, his only answer was an embarrassed little laugh.)


Dave”s evasive tactics drove me up the wall with frustration on this occasion. as on various others on which I aied to carey on rational discussions with him. (I have to confess at this point that I am excessively susceptible to frustration, possibly as a result of having experienced so many frustrations during my teen years and early adulthood.) My irritation was intensified by my brother’s pretensions to superiority. A fool is irritating in any case, but a pretentious fool to me is simply insufferable, and consequently I particularly remembered those two conversations with my brother.


In the summer or autumn of1981, Dave and rrenewed the discussion in several letters that we exchanged. Some of these letters have not been preserved. but enough have survived to show the character of the interchange.


My mother had been getting my brother and me to put our names on various savings certificates jointly with our parents, as a means of avoiding probate.\footnote{(Ca) FL \# letter from my parena to me, August 1981. See Note 40 of Chapter7.} Besides that. my brother still had a fifty percent interest in the land on which my cabin stood. Because recent events had made me aware that my brother’s affection for me was mixed with a substantial element of resentment, I felt distinctly uncomfortable at havingmy affairs so tangled up with his. I remembered how difficult it had been to get him to pay his share of the rent on our safceposit box, and I was afraid his resentment might lead to similar difficulties in more important matters at some later time. So I wrote my mother a letter (now lost) in which I asked her not to put my name together with my brother’s on any more savings certificates, and I mentioned that I wanted to buy out Dave’s share ofour Montana property. I explained the reasons, and, since I didn’t expect Dave to sec the letter, I freely expressed my contemptfor his ideas, describing them as “adolescent.”


However, my brother was staying with our parents at the time, and it was he who opened the letter when it arrived. Did he have a right to open it? The answer isn’t clear. I normally addressed my letters home simply to “Kaczynski,” butif I wanted a letter to be opened only by a certain member of the family. then I addressed it specifically to that person. Since this letter was addressed to ‘Wanda Kaczynski,” my brother ought to have realized that she should have been the one to open it. On the other hand, Dave subsequently wrote to me.that our mother had often said he was free to open her mail, and that this time he had “decided to take her offer literally.” with consequences my mother regretted.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#246. letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981. I don’t remember anything about the letter to which Dave says my letter was a reply. It apparently has not survived.}


This note was in the nature of a postscript (sent in a different envelope) to another letter\footnote{(Ca) FL 5, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 198L} in which he responded to myletter to my mother. His letter\footnote{(Ca) FL 5, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 198L} was one of the very few in which he was fairly open in expressing resentment. Earlier I quoted from itseveral passages in which he referred to some of the incidents between us, such as that of the safccpositbox and that of my letter about Luisa Mueller. But the part of his letter that intercsts us at the moment is the following:


About my adolucent ideas. I suspect you use a mere perjorative (sic] out of your frustration to properly answer them\dots{}”\footnote{Same, p.J.} I had used the term “adolescent” only in the letter to my mother, and had not used it or any other pejoratives in the discussions with my brother. (Though I did use pejoratives in some of my later discussions with him.)


Anyway, the positivist dogma you adhere to has been long ago discarded.”\footnote{a. Same, pp. 3, 4.} What “dogma” was he referring to? The position I’d taken in our discussions was hardly dogmatic. I had pointed out two ways in which a verbal formulation could have meaning: (1) It might imply predictions that could be checked against experience; or (2) it might convey emotion (broadly intrpreted). Then, if there was anotherway in which a verbal formulation could have meaning. I invited my brother to explam what it was. Ifhe had done so I would have considered his argument and perhaps accepted it.\footnote{Formulations that might ar first seem to have another kind of meaning can be interpreted in terms of emotive content and empirically testable affirmations. Thus, for insrmce, an imperative sentence such as “Read philosophy!” mayhaw an emotional impact on the hearer, and apart from that can be undcrsmod as meaning something lilcc, ‘ibe speaker wmcs the person adcbased to tead philosophy and is preparedto insist on it,.. a statementthat can be testedempirically in variow ways. I by no means claim to be an CJl!ert on the theory ofmeaning, and as masI know it may be possible to demonstrate that the meaning of sratemems camiot always be analyzed in terms of emotional impact and cmpirially temble affir.. mations. But my brother did not aacmpt any rational demonstration of this kind. He only evaded the issue as desaibcd in the ten.} But of course he didn’t even try to respond to my incation, because he had never taken the trouble to try to analyze the meanings of sentences, and moreover he did not have enough confidence in himself to argue with me head on. So he evaded the issue by simply labeling my position as “dogma.” When you can’t answer someone’s arguments and can’t bear to admit he’s right, then, to quote my brother’s own words (suitably corrected), “you use a mere pejorative out of your frustration at being unable to properly answer.” It is remarkable how often my brother attributes to me feelings andreactions that arc characteristic ofhimself.


My brother’s letter continued:


From this position, you can’t talk about much of anything unless you bring in the ‘brain’ -and since the positivistic explication of the brain is rudimentary, so the positivistic assumption \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#245, lcttcr from David Kaczynski to me, summer orfall of 1981, p.4, I’ve been informed by someone who bas a degree in philosophy that positivism bas by no means been discarded byphilosophers.}


But what assumption was mybrother talking about? Several times inhis letters he referred to my “positivistic” or “scientific” “assumptions,” without ever explaining what “assumptions” he was referring to, and of course any attempt to pin him own on that subjectwas futile.


\dots{} the positivistic assumption becomes a black box into which you can stick anything too troublesome to think about, and which makes itself voracious toward any thoughts which don’t meet the positivistic criteria is [sic] advance, which in turn it excretes as ‘psychological’ phenomena, unworthy of the name of thought. Can’t you sec, though you mean to include all of experience. you’re really working within a closed systcm?Anyway. positivism has been discardedby pbilosophcrs.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#245, lcttcr from David Kaczynski to me, summer orfall of 1981, p.4, I’ve been informed by someone who bas a degree in philosophy that positivism bas by no means been discarded byphilosophers.}


Hardly any of this is responsive to points I’d made, and all of it consists of vague accusations that completely sidestep the main issues that rd raised: How docs one assign meaning to verbal formulations? In particular, have the philosophers satisfactorily dealt with the problem of assigning meaning to metaphysical statements?


I had only the vaguest idea of what positivism was. so after my brother had called me a positivist several times I asked him to explain just what the word meant.\footnote{The letter has not been preserved\dots{}} He answered that he knew very little about positivism himself,\footnote{The letter has not been preserved\dots{}} and after thathe stopped callingme a positivist. though he continued to accuse me of having unspecified “assumptions.”


Needless to say. my purpose here has not been to prove any points about logic or language, but to give a sample of my brother’s style of argument. so that the reader will understand why I found it so frustrating to try co discuss anything with him.



\bigskip


In spite of the resentful tone of his letter. my brother was quite cooperative about selling me his share of our Montana property. which he did for the amount of money he’doriginallyput into it. \$1050.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#245, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late summer or fall of 1981, p. 6. Also, (Ca) Deed \#5,}


As for our philosophical argument, I soon wrote Dave a letter inwhich I renewed it from a different angle. Instead of attacking the ideas that he had borrowed (possibly in debased form) from Heidegger. orpursuingthc question of meaning, I addressed the issue of my brother’s motivations. Herc arc several extracts from the letter. some of which rvc already quoted in earlier chapters:


The point I want to coverin this letteris: yourhabirualself-deception\dots{} [I gave several examples of his self-deception, including:]


When you took up teaching, you apparently did so under the illusion that you were going to change the lives of many students simply by expoundingyour ideas to them. Of course you soon learned better. You arc certainly intelligent enough to have realized that a teacher can consider himself fortunate if he exerts a decisive influence on the lives of just a few students in the course f his whole teaching career. Yet you gave up after 2 years because your rosy expectations of influencing students quickly and easily were not realized. Those expectations must have been the result of self-deception.”


You recall that letter in which I suggested to our parents that they should discourage you from getting close to [Luisa Mueller]. . . . Obviously \dots{} my supposed questioning of your honesty was not what got you so terribly upset. The real reason is the one you permitted to slip out in your first letter. My letter did convey an implication of weakness on your part. Somewhere ‘deep down inside’ you feel weak; consequently that implication touched a raw nerve and you became enraged. You invented that rationalization about ‘honesty’ because co admitthatyou were highly sensitive about the implication of weakness would be to admit that somewhere ‘deep down inside’ you feel weak; and that is a highly uncomfortable admission. This I thinkis a characteristic example of your type ofself-deception.


I don’t mean to say you arcincapableof entertaining negative opinions about yourself. \dots{}”


When it is no longer possible to believe that one is what one wants to beinsome aspect oflife, the easiest thingis to justgive up on that aspect of life, saying. Tm no good at this. This isn’t an important thing anyway’ \dots{}


You have very high aspirations\dots{}You have to be someone special \dots{} But you are unwilling or unable to go through the struggle that it takes to be or do something special. Every time you encounter real difficulties you retreat, saying, ‘That’s not the important thing anyway.’ By this time you have retreated until you have just one thingleft \dots{}\footnote{The three dors are in the original.} Art, or Philosophy, or whatever you prefer to call it. In this area you can always maintain your illusion ofbeing superior to the common herd, because there arc no objective criteria. Whatever happens, you can always persuade yourself that you are moresensitive, orthoughtful, orinsightful ( orwhatever you want to call it) than the common herd\dots{}”


Well, I apologize for all this. All I can sayis that these arc my opinions, and I’ve been itchingto express them for a long time, and my motive is not to hurt your feelings, even though I realize that that will be the probable result,N\footnote{Ca) FL .letter from me to David Kaczynski. late summer orfall of1981, pp. I, 3,4. 7-9, 20. In a few places where (the photocopy of) the copy of this letterthat wu mailed is illegible or bas been doaored by the PBI, I referred to the copy kept inthe cabin.} Rereading this letter now, after a decade and a half, makes me acutely uncomfortable, because I realize how cruel it was. It probably was fairly accurate, but that only made it the more cruel. What made it worse still was the fact that I was not entirely telling the truth when I wrote, my motive is not to hurt yourfeelings.”“ In reality that was part of my motive, and I knew it at the time. It’s true that I didn’ realize how badly I was hurting my brother. In the first place, I wasn’t awaxe of the full extentof his worship ofme. That was revealed only by statements he made to Or. K. after my arrest.\footnote{See Chapter 8, Note 7.} In the second place, I thought he had by that time largely outgrown his big-brother worship. (Note that I spoke of it in the past tense: ““Throughoutyour childhood and even well up into your 20S you had a severe case of big-brother worship.”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#248, letter from me to David Kaczynski, late summer or fall of 1981,} I now suspectthat he had onlylearned to conceal it better. But it is still true that I knew I was hurting my brother, and I did so on purpose. I don’t think the Ellen Tarmichacl affairwas animportant source of my resentment. Instead I was irritated and disgusted at the silliness and” pretentiousness of some of my brother’s ideas, I was frustrated at his evasive style of argument, I resented the fact that he had not turned out to be the kind of person I would have wanted him to be, and I was still very sore about the incident that I mentioned in Chapter 9 (p. 134-5), but refrained from recounting because I find it too painful.


Dave gave me avery mild answer:


I read your letter, and l think it touches on an element of truth, although, as you might expect, there are some items I want to show in a different light. However, I feel I need some time to collect my thoughts, in orderto accomplish the task properly. Hopefully. within a month or two I’ll have a long letter to send to you. In the meantime, please be assured that


I’m not feeling angry or vengeful\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.50, letter from David Kaczynski to me, early 1982, p.r.} The mildness ofthis reply may have been part of what set me to thinking about the way rd treated my brotherwhen we were kids, and led to my first note ofapology to him:


Dear Dave:”


I remember that when we were kids I sometimes would take advantage of my greater size and strength to dominate you physically. Also I sometimes harassed you verbally. l’vc thought about this sometimes and I now regret that I behaved that way. So I now offer you an apology for it; though I suppose this apology very likely is a matter ofindifference to you anyway. ..\footnote{(Ca) FL \#263, letter from me to David Kaczynski. July 30, 1982.. This letter bears no date. I’ve assigned itto July 30, 1982, because the FBI bu associated it with an cnvclope posanark.cd on that date. But my brother may have had che letter in the wrong ope. and the FBI moJ:C<Mr makes muwces ramer frequendy. so this date is uncemm. FL \#262 seems to sugpt that FL ‘\#263 and FL \#7.64 may have been sent before May2.9, I982. Hforpresentpurposcsmisisnotimpomm.}


Dave answered me with a letter of which the first halfnowstrim me as bcautiful.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#164. lcttcrfrom David Kaczymlci to me, Summer 1982,} In that first half he spoke mainly of his personal relationship with me. In the second half of the letter he resorted again to the kind of argument that irritated me intolerably-vague, unsupported assertions that did not respond to my points. For example, he accused me of”holding to a rigid, objectifying system,”\footnote{Same,p.7.} yet he made no attempt to explain in what way what he called my system”“ was ““rigid.”“ You can sec how frustrating it is to try to discuss something with someone who, whenever you disagree with him, answers only by asserting that you arc ““rigid”“ or ““dogmatic.”“ •”


It seems clear to me now, though, that what Dave was really asking for in this letter was simply acceptance of himself and his way of thinking. Not necessarily agreement, but simply a respectful, accepting attitude. I wasn’t about to accept or respect his crap about philosopher-kings or his attempt to place himself on a superior plane as a member of a “thinking” minority. but I could have given respect and acceptance to his poetic oremotive style of thought. My only quarrel with him there was over the issue of whether certain verbal formulations characteristic of that style of thought had any meaningful content other than emotive content, given the absence of any explanation or analysis of how such formulations acquire meaning. And I would have been quite willing to abandon that quarrel if my brother had simply said. ‘i\textbackslash{}lright, I think this, you think that; let’s just agree to disagree and drop the subject.” Bue instead of doing so he kept irritating me with vaguely-relevant arguments in which he commonly amibuted to me attitudes that rd never held and statements that rd never made.\footnote{It was especially irritating to me that my brother read my letters so carelessly that be didn’t know what I’d said. Eadicrin this chapter I quoted from my letter \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Ca) FL \#248, in which I used the phrase “deep down inside.” Referring to this letter. my brotherwrote in (Ca) FL \#264. p.6: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I wanted to point out what appc:ar to me as misrepresentations of my thought-process in your letter. You said I propose to know thing, by ‘feeling them deep down inside’.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf But, as I wrote latcrin(Ca) FL\#2.6s, p.2.: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf You (Daw] wror.c: ‘You [Ted] said I propose to know ming, by feeling them deep down inside.”‘ I am rather irritated by this, because if you will take the trouble to re-re2d my letter you willsee thatI said no such ming. On the contrary. I said twice that you feel ‘deep down inside’ certain thing, that you rrfiued. to admit to consciavsly.” (The reader can confirm this by refaring to the partof FL \#248 thatwas quoted earlier.) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Another example ofmy brother’s tmdau:yto absod, ingarbled form dungs tbac I wrote him was provided in the leaer that he wrote me in answer to FL \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf \#26,. That letter of his is now loJt. but I dto it in my leacr to him, FL \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf \#2,66, pp. I, 2: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf l find it very irritating that you often chaDge around the dung, I have written in order to suit your own purposes. You wrote. ‘insofar as you see me as being unwilling to entertain negative ideas about myself: \dots{} ‘ Ifyou will check back you will find that I aplic:itly said I did not mean that you were incapable of entertaining negative opinions aboutyourself\dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf R.cfercncc to the part of FL \#248 that was quoted earlier will confirm that I wurigbt.}


Yet bis letter was basically conciliatory; and reading it today I see it as a gentle and beautiful plea for acceptance. And in it he intimated that he had been wounded by my earlier letter, for he wrote: “[SJome of the things you said were painful to listen to and partially disrupted my complacency.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#164. lctter from David Kaa:ymki to me, Summer 1982. p.l.} And: “Your letter had a strong effect on me, in the emotional sense \dots{}”\footnote{Same,p.7.}


In view of this, I am ashamed of the callousness of my reply. Herc arc some excerpts from it (FL \#265):


I note \dots{} that you have not denied any of the statements about your motivations that I made. Rather typically. you have sidestepped the issues and resorted to vague generalities which do not directly confront the points I made. But I suppose you will claim that it would be too ‘rigid’ and ‘scientific’ to expect you to confront the issues directly.


. . . I am not much interested in discussing further with you these philosophical questions, because by this time I am fairly confident thatyour psychological need for your self-deceptions is so strong that no amount of reasoning will ever get you away from them. Wh4kYa kind of reasonings might be presented to you attacking your position,\footnote{n referring to my brother’s ttposition” I was speakjng very loosely. since, in his letters to me, he didn’t develop anything coherent enough to be called a position. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf The theme of bis letters was simply a gmeralizcd rejection of all my aiticisms on the vague grounds that they “rigid•, ttdogmatic”, “positivistic.., etc.} probably you will dismiss them as ‘rigid’ or ‘scientific’ or by applying some other empty label to them, and you will claim they arc based on misunderstanding of your ‘way of thinking.’ the validity of which apparently has to be accepted on faith\dots{}”


\dots{} You said my letter had a ‘strong effect on (you], in the emotional sense,’ and that it ‘partially disrupted [your] complacency.’ This illustrates the fact thatyou arc notin the habit of re-examining your thinking critically; looking for flaws and oversights, and attempting to root out your selfdeceptions. If you had been in that habit my letter would not have shaken you; you would have been accustomed to the idea that you might have self. deception in yourthinking. and the points I madewould have been far from entirely new to you; but perhaps you think it would be too ‘rigid’ and ‘scientific’ to critically re-examining your thinking. your motivations. and your possible self-deceptions.”\footnote{1S, (Ca) FL \#26s, lcaerfrom me to David Kaczymki. Summer 1982. pp. 4-6. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf The bracketed words 1your and ‘TJourr Wl!R in the origim.l as l wrote it to Dave.}


Looking back. I wonder why I answered my brother so callously. The fact that he showed no anger led me to underestimate the extent to which I was hurtinghim; yet I did realizethat Iwas hurtinghim, and I lmew that the little things he’d done over the years to annoy me (and the one or two things that had caused me real pain) were offset by the generosity he’d shown me at other times. Probably my irritation against him was exacerbatedby the fund of unresolved anger that I’d built up as a result of various frustrations in my earlier and currentlife.


But I now think that my brother on his side must have been increasing his fund of anger against me, even though he did not show that anger outwardly and may not have admitted even to himself that he felt it.


He answered my letter (FL \#265) with a letter (now lost) that was less conciliatory than his earlier one, and I answered in rum with FL \#266. The first part of this\footnote{(Ca) FL \#’,M, lcaerfrom me to DaYid Kaczymki. SummerI982. pp. 1-,.} was as callous as the preceding letter, FL \#265. But in the second haif\footnote{Same, pp. 5-10.} of FL \#266 I revealed to my brother my love for him to an extent that rd never done before, and at the same time I revealed a great deal about the nature of that love. I did this by recounting two dreams that I’dhad about him. One was the dream I’d hadatthe age ofseven oreight in which I saw him as emaciated and starving, as described in Chapter 2, p. 38


39. The otherdream is too long and complicated to be recounted here. Suffice it to say that it showed that my love for mybrother was ofa paternal or condescendingkind-I did not see him as an equal but as one who needed guidance and protection; and I even gave partial expression to the element ofcontempt that was in my feelings toward him.


In his reply (which has not been preserved), DIM: expressed gratitude for the affection demonstrated by my dreams, and said that I cared about him more than anyone else ever had, which quite possibly was true. This was the letter in which he said that he had previously feared that I’d had a hatred for him so great that I could not acknowleclgc it. (Sec Chapter 2, p. 39.)


I was surprised at the degree of gratitude that my brother expressed, and also at the fact that he showed no resentment over the condescending and contemptuous aspects of my attitude toward him. I was softened, and felt badly about the harshness of some of the things I’d said. In later letters I tried to take some ofdie sting out of them. For example:


[I]n regard to the implication in my last letter that I see you as weak, I’d like to qualify that, since you might think the judgement is harsher than what I intend\dots{}”


I received your last letter and note that it shows your usual generosity of character. Instead of being sore over the negative parts of my attitude toward you, you were favorably impressedby the positive parts.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#27t, letterfrom me ro David Kaczynski. September 1981.}


And two-and-a-half years later:


By the way, as long as rm on this sort of subject, you’ll recall that exchange of letters we had a few years ago in which I sharply criticized the motives behind your philosophical opinions \dots{} I tend to get hot and angry in frustrating circumstances, and for chat reason my criticisms of you, though they did in a general way represent my real opinions and feelings, were harsher and more uncompromising than they would have been if rd written about them in a completely calm state. The things I wrote then should have been softened and qualified a gooddeal.\footnote{) FL \#32.9, letterfrom me to David Kaczynski. March 15, 1986, p.6.}


I also made a point of praising Dave when there was an opportunity to do so. For instance, when he described how he’d dug himself a hole to live in, I complimented him on his foresight in cutting the sides at a slant;\footnote{(Ca) FL \#279, letter from me to David Kaczynski. December 10, 1983, pp. I, 2..} and I praised a particularly eloquentpassage that he’dwritten about the religion of the African Pigmies: “I like this passageso well that I have copied it in my notebook. So there you stand amongst all kinds offamous writers whome (sic] I have quoted from time to time in mynotes.”\footnote{Jt. Same. pp. 4, 5.}


Later I wrote:


For the last couple of years you seem to have been much more communicative in your letters than you used to be. Ofcourse I don’t care for all your letters, but some of them I find quite interesting and enjoyable to read. That your last letter was one of the more interesting ones you can deduce from the length of the reply I’ve written to it.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#299, letter from me to David Kaczynski. early 1985, p.12.}


But all this cannot have healed the wounds I inflicted on my brother with my cutting remarks, and, given his sense of psychological subordination to me, I can easily understand now why he felt I was overbearing.



\bigskip


In the letter (PL \#266) in which I described the two dreams I’d had about him, I told my brother that I wanted to drop our correspondence on philosophical issues because it was a waste of time.\footnote{JJ. (Ca) FL \#266, letter from me to David Kaczynski. Summer 1982, p.1.} Actually I wanted to drop it not only because it was a waste of time, but also because trying to discuss anything with my brother was a source of irritation and frustration. For a while he cooperated by not raising those issues in his letters, but it proved very hard to avoid getting into similar wrangles with him on other subjects. I would write something with which he disagreed, he would reply with some vague, elaborate, interminable argument, and I would find it extremely difficult to resist the impulse to point out the flaws in his reasoning, not because I was anxious to convince him of anything, but because to me a fallacious argument is like a stone in my shoe. Then he would answer with an elaborate rationalization that generally failed to address the points I’d raised and often misstated or misinterpreted what rd said. He tended to resort to accusations that I was being ..scientific or ““positivistic”“ or” something along those lines. For example, in a discussion that we had in 1989, he said he suspeetcd that there was a “logical agenda behind [my] criticisms.”\footnote{Ca) FL \#399, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me. probably September 1989, p.9.}



\bigskip


I am truly ashamed of the verbal cruelty I inflicted on my brother. Yet, given my personality traits and those of the members of.my family, and the relationships that existed between us, there was no way I could have gotten along comfortably with them, and ifI hadn’t revealed to Dave my contempt for him in the way I did, I probably would have had to do so in some other way. But I could have avoided this by simply breaking off communications with my whole family. I eventually did break offwith them, but it would have been better for all of us if I had done so twenty years earlier.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 12. My brother’s inconsistent attitudes toward mental illness}


Rather interesting is the inconsistency of my brother’s attitudes toward mental illness. Significant in this respect is a letter\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.93, lett.erfrom David Kaczynski to me. Ocrobenor2. 19842..} of his that I referred to in the Introduction, pp. 19, 20.


It is suggested that the reader review this letter now.


The Washington Po5t, evidendy on the basis of information provided by my mother and\Slash{}or my brother, wrote:


The family felt that Ted was projecting his own problems into his brutal critiques ofothers. He could talk of a madman in the hills in one letter, and Wanda wondered, ‘Is this how he seeshimself?’ In another letter he insisted one of David’s friends was schizophrenic and sent letters detailing how David should help his friend\footnote{(Hb) Wa.dsingt.onPo.si.June 16, 1996, p.A:u.}


The “madman in the hills” was one Al Pinkston (now deceased), an obvious paranoiac who believed that the Lincoln area was infested with KGB agents. My neighbor G.Wi. and I met him somewhere in the Dalton Mountain orSauerkraut Creek area about December1974-The story is told in a letter to my parents, which has survived\footnote{(Ca) FL \#IJ,4. lcttcr from me to my puems, late March1975, pp. 2.3.}\footnote{This note ruu been deleted intheprescmeditiondue to ongoinglegal proceedinpS,} There is nothing in either account that suggests that I saw myself as a nmadman in the hills.”


What is interestinghereis that when I told my brother this story. he said that he himself had long been trying to escape from reality. and he envied


Al Pinkston for having achieved such an escape. (!?) Don’t ask me to explain it-all I know is that that’s what my brother said!


As for the statement that I “insisted one of David’s friends was schizophrenic,” the friend in question was Joel Schwartz, and I did not “insist” that he was schizophrenic. I argued that there was a good chance that the problem of whichJoel complained was schizophrenia, or at least had some neurological basis. I did not “detail how David should help his friend,” but merely suggested that my brother might consider advisingJoel (directly or through his father) to consult a neurologist or psychiatrist. The reader can judge for himself from the relevant letters, excerpts from which follow:


Dave to Ted:


\dots{} A couple years ago \dots{} I loamed [sic] Ooel] an essay I had written \dots{} [and] I didn’t get it back for nearly two years, after repeated requests \dots{} and \dots{} he never did get around to reading it. \dots{}


\dots{} Joel confesses to having a serious problem, which he traces back to the head injury inflicted on him by his mother.”\footnote{FL \#Joo, letter from David Kaczynski to me, March or April 1985, pp. 15, 16.}


Dave had told me years before thatJoel had a silver plate in his skull because when he was a small child his mother went crazy and bashed him on the head with a hammer.


My brother’s letter continues:


Apparently. he’s been finding it difficult to function in many of the expected, conventional ways. The problem seems to be compounded by a curious sort ofobsession he appears to have with itending virtually all his extra money \dots{} on a variety of dubious treatments, some at the bands of obvious quacks-for instance, a man \dots{} who ‘put crystals on . . .\footnote{These three dcts appearin my brother’s Jeerer.} (his) body’. Needless to say. I’m worried about him, moreso [sic] in that I’ve been unable to make alot [sic] ofsense out ofhis own description of his complaint, and am left instead only with a variety of peculiar symptoms to consider.”\footnote{FL \#Joo, letter from David Kaczynski to me, March or April 1985, pp. 15, 16.}


Ted to Dave:


l’m sorry to hear aboutJoel. I only met him once, but he seemed like a nice fellow. I wonder whether the head injury is really responsible for his problems, or whether he got a bad gene from his mother.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#301, letterfrom me to DavidKaczynski. April 1985, p.9.}


Ted to Dave:


I just thought ofsomething. I recently read a book on schizophrenia. It seems that the disease is caused by a certain chemical abnormality in the brain. Apparently they now have drugs that can effectively control the disease except in the most severe cases. You ought to send a copy of that book toJoel’s father. As you know, I don’t approve of all this fancy technology stuff, miracle drugs and so forth, but I hate to think of the poor guy going to creeps who ‘put crystals on his body’ and crap like that when there are drugs that would probably do the trick. \dots{} The title [of the book] is ‘The Schizophrenias-yours and mine’\dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#338, letterfrom me to DavidKaczynski. May 16, 1986.}


Ted to Dave:


I scribbled that note (about Joel’s problem] at the last minute before sendingthe letter\dots{} Of course, I don’t know for a fact thatJoel’s problem is schizophrenia, butit does seem rather likely. \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#339, letter from me to David Kaczynski. May 1986, p.1.}


Ted to Dave: “I read that a number of normal people, as part of an experiment, signed themselves into public and private mental institutions all over the


U.S. They later had some difficulty in getting released, and eventually were all released as ‘schizophrenics in remission’!!\footnote{See D. L Rosenban. ..On Being Sane in Insane Places.Science, VoL ?79, No. IP70,January 19, 1973, pp. 250-158.}\dots{}


As you know, I take a dim view of miracle drugs and all that technological crap, and I would respect someone who made an intelligent decision not to use that stuff-I might well make such a decision myself in such a case-butit is disgusting that people who maybein severe suffering arc victimized by crackpot psychoanalysts and people who ‘put crystals on their body’ and shit like that\dots{} [Y]ou might think whether you can find some way of calling toJoel’s father’s attention these facts about schizos-if you think that may beJoel’s problem.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#341., lett.erfrom me to David Kaczynski.June 2.1986, pp.1•4}


Dave to Ted:


I looked for the bookyou recommended aboutscizophrcnia [sic] in the local library. but I couldn’t find it. As you can imagine, I would be more prone to look for the causes of mental illness in skewered [sic] perceptions or thought processes (or even in the ‘insanity’ of society itself)\footnote{Earlier my brother bad written “(WJhat is ‘craziness,’ socially defined. but that which lies beyond the pale of the social conceptsr (Ca) FL \#]Jo, leaer from David Kaczynski to me, late March orearly April1986, p.14} than in brain chemistry. . . . I would point out that society has a vested interest in treating non-conformist behavior as if it revealed something wrong solely with the individual, rather than including the people or the society around him\dots{} [S]ociety would be more interested in alleviating the symptoms of a ‘problem’ (to make the individual’s behavior more manageable or to refuse coming to terms with the perceptionsit entails) than to treat it’s [sic] causes, consequently the empirical methods of behavioral science are tailor-made for promotingsociety’s interests \dots{} [T]here is no sharp line dividing mental illness from sanity. Any precise diagno[s]tic tool would have to claim a nearly universal consensus for its implicit theory of reality-when as a matter of fact no such consensus clists\dots{} What you might call the grounds of belief formation. is such a wide-open territory that it would be hard to say that any single peculiarity ofbelief could be used as evidence for mental illness. [My brother was overlooking the fact that I did not refer to any ofJoel’s beliefs in suggestingthat he had schizophrenia.]


\dots{} After visiting (Joel] for a week \dots{} I strongly doubt that even most of the hard-core brain theorists would recommend him for chemical therapy. To a large extent, I was relieved by what I found. He has no hallucinations. His emotions are fairly even. He is no longer taking crystal therapy (but he is spending a great deal of money on what sound to me like very controversial massage treatments. When I questioned him about them, his descriptions and explanations plunged quickly into a sort of metaphysical poetry that I found delightful and intellectually tantalizing-but without fully quashing my doubts about the efficacy ofthe treatment. Hisself-consciousness seemed to be pecking out at me from behind this nebulous cloud of theories, and I truly couldn’t make up my mind whether he was badly deceiving himself or whether in fact his major need was for support and understanding from his friends and family to face an issue of incredible subtlety). When speaking about politics, philosophy. and religion his mind is very sharp and creative, and he has no difficulty expressing or receiving ideas in a way that is easily understandable to anyone who has staked out some similar intellectual ground. . . . But in some ways, he struck me far more oddly than ever before. His personal habits are grotesque. For instance, he seems to have a chronically runny nose, and when he isn’t wiping itwith his hands, the snots often run down \dots{} when he is distracted or becomes excited in discussions. He has also developed a chronic cough which he claims is somehow connected with his nebulous ‘problem’. He claims his sense of time is very poor, but I saw no outward evidence of that \dots{} In other, less-easily described ways he has behaved oddly as well, although not so oddly as to tempt me to descnbc him as crazy rather than simply eccentric \dots{}”


\dots{} I confess I’m not hopeful. Maybe he will continue slowly deteriorating as the years pass by. \dots{}.. [O]o you still think I ought to pursue the possibility of getting chemical treatment for Joel at this time?”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#342, letter from David Kaczynski to me, benJune 2 and June 17, 1986, pp.1-6.}


Ted to Dave:


The objective diagnostic tests mentioned in the book do not claim to determine whether anyone is sane or insane ( as far as I can remember, the word ‘insanity’ was never used in the book) \dots{}


As for explaining mental illness on the basis of ‘the ““insanity”“ ofsociety itself.this is certainly plausible in many cases, since our society often uses ‘mental illness’ as a label to pin on anything it disapp of.\footnote{[H]undreds of psycmatrists were appm:ndywillingin1964 to lend theirnames to the conclusion that Barry Goldwaa:r was menu11y unsound without curniaing him. Out culture is attuned to the concept of mmcal illness and ilJ cure. , . .N -Herman KahnandAnthony]. Wicaer. Yearzooo: AforSpa:iwuion on dieNatThirty-Tit Yam, The ManniUiao Company. NewYorlt, 1967, p.349.} But this is not reasonable in the case of schizophrenia, or at least not in the more severe cases of schizophrenia. Example: some severely schizophrenic children walk awkwardly with their legs wide apart as if they had difficulty” keeping their balance; the reason is that to them, the floor appears to be heavingand pitching under their feet. Arc you going to argue that the floor really is heaving and pitching and that society is insane for regarding it as stationary?


\dots{} My knowledge is of course very limited, but on the basis of what you told me I’d say Joel is a likely candidate for schizophrenia \dots{} In many cases schizophrenia gets worse with time. In such cases, if I remember correctly. the book said it was important to begin treatment early, because later the problem may be more difficult to control.


\dots{} On the other hand, specialists may be over-enthusiastic about the use of their own tools, and may exaggerate the benefits of the drugs and minimize the undesirable side-effects.


\dots{} Also, there are all kinds ofvalue-judgements involved in whetheror not one wants to use such drugs, even if one bas already concluded that they will benefit the individual patient in the purely medical sense. I won’t discuss those here-you can make up yourown mind.”


\dots{} [Y]ou can probably get [that book] through the interlibrary loan service\dots{}


Okay. once you read that book. you’ll know everything about schiz. that I do, so let’s drop the subject. I get sick of these interminable discussions by letter\dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#34], letter from me to David Kaczynski.June 17, 1986.}


My brother, however, seems to have been unwilling to drop the subject, for he responded with another long letter aboutJoel, from which I quote onlythe following:


I did as you suggested and through the inter-hbrary loan system, obtained and read the book you recommended. \dots{}Joel \dots{} claims to feel some time disorientation, and also to feel some dissociation of mind and body-butdoesn’t display any otherofthe major symptoms ofschizophrenia that I could tell; least of all does he seem alienated from human relationships ( only from society. in a way that is quite explicable and probably justifiable), incapable of affection, self-destructive, hallucinatory. orhumorless\dots{} Perhaps ifJoel’s ‘problem’ has some relation to a chemical imbalance, then his intellectual subtlety and brilliance may be one of the effects as well. Would the drugs serve to inhibit \dots{} these positive qualities as well? . . . [Y]ou can appreciate the dramatic character of the responsibility I wouldbe assumingif I ledJoel into the hands of some doctors who had no way of appreciating the loss their treatment might occasion \dots{} [W]hereas you would tend to rcgardjoel’s abstruse philosophizing as belonging to the realm offantasy. possibly even to the symptoms ofa disease. my own viewpoint inclines me to interpret them differently. even as signs of a richer, fuller inruition of reality, indeed, of ‘health’ itself.[16”


I had never even mentioned Joel’s philosophical opinions, much less suggested that they were symptoms of disease. My brother’s letter continued:


He says he has a problem which he can’t fully explain buc which is preventing him from using his talents in life\dots{} He conveys the impression of someone laboring under a heavy but invisible burdcn.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#345, letter from David Kaczynski to me, betweenJuly 2 and August 11, 1986, pp. :z.-6.} (Sec Appendix 5.)


In a letterofwhich only the first pagehas been preserved, I wrote:


I still think there’s a good chance that [Joel’s] problem is schizophrenia. Take his personal oddities like the snots running down his lip. Is there any way of explaining this in terms of emotional [nccds]\footnote{It’s not certain that “needs is correcthei’e. since most of the word has been ..cut ol”“ on the photocopy that I have.} or problems, philo-sophical attitudes, oranything ofthat sort? To me itsoundsjustsenseless.”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#346, letter from me to David Kaczynski. August II, 1!)86.}


Dave to Ted:


Mou seem to be ignoring my strong disinclination to accept the concepts which undergird medicine’s view of the brain-mind relationship to begin with, namely. that brain function has a strict causal relationship to thought-processes, and secondly. that brain functions can be described normatively. whether explicitly or not, with the effect that certain non-’common-sense’ points of view get to be labeled as invalid-are in effect regarded as symptoms orphenomena rather than points ofview at all\dots{} [F]ailing a clear-cut syndrome, l’d feel reluctant to putOoel] in the hands of doctors whom I wouldn’t trust for a minute to appreciate his’spiritual’ side, and whose professional narrowness and presuppositions mightcause them to do some really dangerous tinkering. Suppose they said, ‘Yeah, he’s a mild schizophrenic.’ So then they begintrying out difrcrcnt drugs onhim. Meanwhile, Joel, who feels a great yearning for understanding and communication, feels instead that he’s being treated more like a physical object than a human being. Do you really trust doctors so much that you would feel confidence in their professional, let alone their human judgement when it came to a case as complicated as Joel’s appears to be? Especially when you consider the utterly abysmal historical record of the medical profession in the field of ‘mental health’-from lobotomies to shock treatments to the mostly unwholesome and misguided self-preoccupations that psychoanalysis appears to stimulate. Also, when you considerhowfully integrated these nerds are in the (to me) unwholesome value-and economic structures of our present culture. [sic] \dots{} I don’t thinkJoel is suffering acutely. orat least not alot [sic] more than most of us arc, afflicted with the craziness and senselessness of this modern form of life.”\footnote{(Ca) FL ‘\#347, l.ctrerfrom David Kaczynski to me, August I986. pp. 3-6.}


Apparently referring to my earlier suggestion that he should communicate with Joel’s father, Dave added, “At present, I fear ‘going behind his back’ might be a grave mistake.”\footnote{(Ca) FL ‘\#347, l.ctrerfrom David Kaczynski to me, August I986. pp. 3-6.}


Ted to Dave:


In my last letter I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was trying to persuade you to persuade Joel to get drug treatment \dots{}


I agree that there is no clear-cut line dividing insanity from sanity, and that ‘mental illness’ often is a mere label pinned on those who don’t act as society demands. Further, I would question whether ‘mental illness’ and ‘insanity’ arc even useful concepcs-acept that they arc useful as propaganda tools. On the other hand, when someone is tormented by strange visions and disagreeable feelings that pass through his head owing to a hereditary peculiarity of brain chemistry. it seems absurd to refrain from callinghis condition a disease. Many schizophrenics themselves regard their condition as a disease and would much prefer to be rid of it. Note that Joel himself considers that he has a ‘problem’-severe enough so that he has spent a great deal of money on it. On the other hand, it is questionable whether the mildest forms of schizophrenia should be considered as disease, since if I remember correctly what I read, they may enhance creativity and result only in minimal distortion of thought and perception. And, as you remarked, a great deal of irrationality is normal to human beings anyway.”


“As to the use of drugs-you well know my feelings about the technological invasion of human dignity. In principle one should resist any step toward interfering in the human mind by technological means. On the other hand, here is this poor guy with a problem, looking for help and getting taken for large sums of money by fakes and crackpots, and who could very possibly be helped quite effectively by a drug that would take a kink out of the chemistry of his brain-it seems almost heartless not to try to point him in the right direction.


Besides the foregog, other questions could be raised about using or notusing drugs. Luckily; it’s a decision that I don’t have to make-I have the luxury ofbeing able to just dump the problem in yaur lap.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#348, letterfrom me to David Kaczymlci. August 1986, pp. I,:z..}


lf I remember correctly; my brother answered me with a letter (now lost) in which he dismissed everything I’d said about Joel on the grounds that I had unspecified “science-based assumptions” or something along those lines. I was, as usual, irritated by my brother’s rationalizations, but in this instance I kept my temper. Instead of pursuing the subject further, I simply suggested to Dave that he should talk to his friend Dirk West about Joel.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#349, lcttcrfrom me ro David Kaczynski. Sepcember2., 1986, p.6.} (Dirk West had considerable influence over Dave, and at that time I thought he had more common sense than Dave did.)


In this series of letters, clearly. I wasn’t trying to tell my brother what action (if any) to take in regard toJoel. I was simply trying to get him to face squarely the dilemma with which he was confronted: His friend was suffering. was seeking help, and could possibly get it from drugtreatment; on the other hand, there were various philosophical, sociopolitical, and personal factors that argued against persuading him to seek such treatment. What irritated me was that, instead of facing the dilemma honestly and then making a decision one way or the other, my brother invented rationalizations (some of which were quite irrelevant) for doing nothing.


I think what was really going on here was something like this: For obvious reasons, mybrother would have found it difficult to approach his friend about goingto a psychiatrist ora neurologist. But at the same time he didn’t want to feel that he was leaving a suffering friend in the lurch, so he invented rationalizations to justify his inaction. When I persisted in trying to get him to face the dilemma honestly. his ego conflict with big brother came into play. and, in order to avoid what he would have felt as adefeat at my bands, he plunged further into rationalization.


My brother visited me in Montana a few weeks after we had concluded our exchange of letters aboutJoel, and while he was with me we again discussed his friend’s problem. Dave attacked my supposed rationalist “assumptions,” and in reference to schizophrenics who saw the floor heaving and pitching under them, he said, “Maybe the floor really is heaving.” I resisted the temptation to argue with him about it, since I knew it was useless.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#401. letter from me ro David Kac:zynski. September or early October 1989 ( carbon copy kept in chc cabin), p.;. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf [W]hcn you came ro visit me, in reference to schizophrenic children who sec chc floor heaving and tossing under them, you said. ‘maybe the floor really is heaving \dots{} •. [The three dots are in the original.] Of coUISe you don’t really believe this-you just make that mtemmt to confirm an ideology designed to satisfy your emotional needs. Where your ego and your ideology aren’t at so.Ice. you take an entirely clifla’eD.t point of view. Thus, during the same visit, you mentioned [Kelly’s] case. Thcrc-since no friend of yours was invclwd and your ego and ideology weren’t at stake-you unhesitatingly accepted the existence of schizophrenia, the undesirability of it. and the faa that drugs can bring a schizo. phrcnic back to perception of reality. You also added. ‘Gee, rhope [no one in his\Slash{}her family has] got anything like that’. Ifyou really beliewd that the hallucinations ofa schizophrenic were as real as the perceptions of a sane person. why would you ‘hope (they didn’t have] anythinglike that’? \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf , refrained from pointing out the obvious contradiaions in your ezprcssed views bccaweby that time I knew that itwas hopeless to try to reason with you on that subject. \dots{}w}


During the same two-week visit,\footnote{The visit occupied the first cwo weeks of October1986.} my brother talked about a mutual acquaintance of ours whom I’ll call Kelly\textsuperscript{†}. He told me that he\Slash{}she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that he\Slash{}she was taking drugs for it. He said that Kelly was “almost normal” as long as he\Slash{}she was on the drugs, but that he\Slash{}she “went crazy” when he\Slash{}she tried to do without them. In reference to ct.ie fact that Kelly was genetically related to a family we knew, Dave added. “Gee, I hope (they haven’t] got anything like that.” When discussing Kelly’s case my brother unhesitatingly assumed that schizophrenia was undesirable and raised no questions about the utility of the drugs; he did not say anything about mental illness being caused by the “insanity of society itself,” nor did he suggest that the hallucinations of schizophrenics might be real.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#401. letter from me ro David Kac:zynski. September or early October 1989 ( carbon copy kept in chc cabin), p.;. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf [W]hcn you came ro visit me, in reference to schizophrenic children who sec chc floor heaving and tossing under them, you said. ‘maybe the floor really is heaving \dots{} •. [The three dots are in the original.] Of coUISe you don’t really believe this-you just make that mtemmt to confirm an ideology designed to satisfy your emotional needs. Where your ego and your ideology aren’t at so.Ice. you take an entirely clifla’eD.t point of view. Thus, during the same visit, you mentioned [Kelly’s] case. Thcrc-since no friend of yours was invclwd and your ego and ideology weren’t at stake-you unhesitatingly accepted the existence of schizophrenia, the undesirability of it. and the faa that drugs can bring a schizo. phrcnic back to perception of reality. You also added. ‘Gee, rhope [no one in his\Slash{}her family has] got anything like that’. Ifyou really beliewd that the hallucinations ofa schizophrenic were as real as the perceptions of a sane person. why would you ‘hope (they didn’t have] anythinglike that’? \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf , refrained from pointing out the obvious contradiaions in your ezprcssed views bccaweby that time I knew that itwas hopeless to try to reason with you on that subject. \dots{}w}


What is remarkable is that my brother seemed completely unaware of the inconsistency between his attitude toward mental illness when discussing Kelly’s case and his attitude when discussing the case of his friend Joel. lt is not uncommon for my brother to express contradictory attitudes or opinions without apparently noticing the inconsistencies involved. l attribute this to his mental laziness. He is so little in the habit of thinking, that even the most obvious contradictions often escape his observation.


Thus it is entirely possible that until he reads this chapter, he will remain unaware of the inconsistency between his attitudes toward mental illness as expressed in his letters, and his recent attempts to portray me as mentally ill, as in his interviews with the New York Time.s\footnote{(Ha) NYTinw. Nat., May 16, 1996.} and the Sacrammto Ba,\footnote{(He) Sacr4fflfflCo Bu,January t9, 1997.} and on 60 Mimaes.\footnote{(He) 60 Minuta, September rs, 1996.} He showed there not only that he was ready to conclude I was mentally ill on flimsy evidence, but that he wanted me to be subjected to presumably involuntary treatment”“ under conditions of confinement:”


MIKE WALLACE: The Kaczynski family \dots{} want him locked away. and treated\dots{}\footnote{Same, Pvt Two, p.13. My mother and brother were present and did not correct or coattadict Mr. Wallace.}


Compare this with Dave’s response to my suggestion thatJoel should be advised merely to investigate the possibility of taking treatment under voluntary conditions.


Earlier, in 1991, Linda Panik took two of my letters to her psychiatrist, a certain Dr. Mitchell who (according to Linda) practices “primal therapy.” whatever that may be.\footnote{The fact that Dr. Mitchell is Unda’s psycbiaaist is from (Qc) Written Rq,ons by Investigator p.a.. The fact that Unda said Dr. Mitchell gives primal therapy”“ is from (Qa) Oral Report from Investigator November10, 1997.”} According to an FBI report, Dave told the FBI that Or. Mitchell said that I was “not psychotic, but definitely paranoid and possibly dangerous. “\footnote{Na) FBI 3number I, p.rr, FBI 302 number3, p.i. Also see Note 30. In com:aaing the Montana physician. my brother and bis wim decidedly “going behind my back.”} Since my brother often gets his information garbled, it is not at all certain that Or. Mitchell actually said this, but if he did say it, then it seems to me that he was irresponsible in making such a statement on the basis of two letters that I wrote to my family. when he could not have had any knowledge of the history of my relations with my family (apart from what Dave and Linda may have told him, which he ought to have realized might be heavily biased).


To judge from the description of these letters given in the FBr reports, they must have been FL :\#458, in which I argued in emotional terms that my parents’ treatment of me had contributed to my lack of social self-confidence, and FL \#46r, in which I asked my brother, also in emotional terms, to persuade my mother to cooperate with my need to break off relations with the family. These letters were discussed in Chapter4. pp. 67-68, 70. The reader will recall from p. 70 that I intentionally exaggerated my feelings in FL \#461 in order to jolt my brother into taking the action I wanted.\footnote{According ro (Na) FBI 3m number 3, p.2., my brother told the FBI that this letter ended in an “undecipherable saawl” Both the original letter and a carbon copy ofit have been preserved. Neither ends in an undecipherable scrawl The writing is reasonably neat, right ro the end of the letter. In both FL \#461 and FL \#. r did press the pen down hard toward the end of the letter, so that it may have cut through che paperinplaces. This was a calculated attempt to impress my brother with the strength of my feelings. See Chapter 4, p. 70, I have never sent anyone a letter that ended inan undecipherable scrawl}


After my letters had been shown to Dr. Mitchell, either Dave, or Linda acting with Dave’s consent, scot copies of the letters to a physician in Montana whom I had consulted once or twice, and even telephoned the doctor in an effort to have me referred to a psychiatrist. (The doctor, who apparently was sensible enough to realize that this was a case of intra-family vindictiveness and not of mental illness, was unresponsive to their request.)\footnote{Na) FBI 3number I, p.rr, FBI 302 number3, p.i. Also see Note 30. In com:aaing the Montana physician. my brother and bis wim decidedly “going behind my back.”}


From the 60 Minutes interview: “LESLIE STAHL: Is it true that you had actually talked about having [Ted] committed? “LINDA PATRIK; We were advised that it was extremely difficult to get someone committed. “DAVE KACzyNSKI: We were told that he had to be a danger-a-a demonstrable danger to himself orto others \dots{}”\footnote{(He) 60 Minuru, September r5, 1996, Part One, p. 10.}


Again. the reader is invited to compare my brother’s attitude here with the attitude toward mental illness that he expressed in his letters aboutJoel. Notice that all this happened several years before my arrest, so that Dave can’t claim he was trying to portray me as mentally ill in order to save me from the death penalty.


Added March 20, 1999: Prior to 1989, neither mybrothernormy mother ever thought rwas mentally ill. A recent news item provides confirmation of what I’ve suspected for some time: that after Dave shacked up with Linda Panik in 1989, she persuaded him to believe that I was mentally ill. According to this news item:


The sister-in-law of Ted Kaczynski says she knew for years he was severely mentally ill\dots{} In the joint interview, David Kaczynski, an upstate social worker, said, ‘Our whole family was in denial about the extent of Ted’s illness.’ Only his wife, who said she never wanted Ted inside her home, pressed the issue. (“Unabomber Sister-in-Law Bares Ordeal of Family,” by Andy Soltis, New York Post, Feb. 13, 1999.)


How was Linda able eventually to persuade my brother and mother that I was mentally ill? My brother would have been the more receptive to any negative idea about me because of his covert resentment of me. Much more important, he is in a state of abject psychological servitude to Linda. On this subject, see Chapter 14. My mother is dependent on Linda indirectly. through her dependence on my brother who is the only living person to whom she is still close. Moreover, as I explained at the end of Chapter 7, she has her own motives for accepting Linda’s theory that I am mentally ill.



\bigskip


This is a good a place as any to address the issue of the supposed “shutdowns” attributed to me by my brother and my mother. The issue is difficult to deal with, because, naturally. one can seldom find documentation for the fact that somethingdid not occur, especially ifthe times of the supposed occurrences are unspecified orif the only living wimesses would have been the persons (in chis instance, my brother and mother) who are claiming that the events did occur. But the reader may perhaps be willing to accept my word over that of my brother and mother: I have already shown that they have made untruthful statements about me in a number of other instances; and my own honesty. as well as the excellence of my long-term memory, have been attested to in writing by the chief investigator in my case.\footnote{or memory. see Introduction. p.a. Note 5, and Appendix 10. \& for honesty. I asked Investigator (my chief invatigator) for his\Slash{}her opinion of my honesty and he\Slash{}she wrote to me on Man:h 16, 1998 as follows: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Ted: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf WhCDC¥a”“we asked you questions about yoursocialhistory. you made sme to answer the questions as fortbrigbdy and honesdy as possible. You provided information to your dcfaise team without 1’epldfor how persomlly painful or embarrassiagthe informationmightbe to you. You never witbhcld. distorted. or” embellished dewls and anecdotes about your life and observanons. It seems to me that honesty IS a value that you hold dear in all matterS.n (Qc) Written Rcpora by Investigator \#2., p,12.. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I’ve asked my erstwhile lawyers. Quin DenvirandJudy Clarice, whether they apewith Investigator \#2.’s opinion of my honesty. and they haw answered that they do agree with it. (Ch) Letterfrom Quin OenvirandJudy Clarice to me. September I, 1998.}


In case the reader imagines that I don’t remember the “shutdowns” because they were some sort of trance during which I was wiconscious, I point out that my brother and mother represented the shutdowns as occurring on numerous occasions, beginningin my childhood. If I had had such trances, it is simply incredible that no one would ever have told me about them and that my mother never told ourpediatrician about them. There is no mention of any such thing in the medical records.


For that matter, nowhere in the family correspondence, or in any other surviving document acatcd before my brother’s contact with the FBI, is there any mention ofthe supposed shutdowns ( except myunresponsiveness after hospitalization at the age ofnine months. which wedealtwith in Chapter I, and certain adolescent sulks that we will mention below. which do not fit my family’s description of most of the “shutdownsH.) On April 12, 1996, eight days after my arrest and well before her media interviews, my mother had an interview with Investigator \#I that was devoted to an overview of my life. Investigator \#I’s report of this interview covers nine single-spaced pages, and nowhere in it is there any mention of anything resembling the alleged shutdowns ( except my reaction to the “hospital experienceff).\footnote{(Ka) Incerview ofWanda by InvestigUor\#t.}


Moreover, my brother’s claims arc notself-consistent. According to the FBI, my brother told them that the shutdowns occurred on “four distinct occasions.”\footnote{(Na) FBI 302. number3, p.3.} Butby the time my motherand my brotherwere interviewed by the Washington Post, the number of shutdowns appeared to have greatly increased: “Though at times rred] seemed like a normal child \dots{} every so often he would shut down, refusing to speak. \dots{}”\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post.June 16, 1996, p.A:2.o.} And, referring to my high-school years: “The family remembers fewer shut-downs during that stretch.”\footnote{(Hb) Washington Post.June 16, 1996, p.A:2.o.}


In my brother’s and mother’s accounts of the shutdowns it is hard to separate the conscious lies from the self-deceptions, and these from the simple errors of memory. Some of the accounts are so far from anything that actually happened that it seems impossible that conscious lying is not involved; but on the other hand, my brotherand mother both arc so adept at persuading themselves to bell what they want to believe, and their memories arc so faulty, that it’s possible that they did believe much oftheir own garbage. It would take more time and trouble than it’s worth to review each of their statements about my supposed shutdowns, so I will mention only a few examples.


According to the FBI:


DAVE stated that on four distinct occasions, TBD has displayed a type of’almost catatonic’ behavior \dots{} The first washis withdrawal after a threeweek [sic; actually five days] hospital stay when he was an infant. The second was during the journey to begin college at Harvard, when his father noted that TED became uncommunicative and withdrawn for a period of some hours.\footnote{(Na) FBI 302. number3, p.3.}


My father did not come with me on my njourncy to begin college.” Before I was even admitted to Harvard, I made a trip there with my father to look the school over. On the way home, for some reason, I was in a grumpy mood for a few hours and, when spoken to, I gave curt, ill-tempered answers. I was particularly gruff to the stewardess on our plane-ride back to Chicago, because she was very attractive and I knew thatsince I was only a kid she could have no interest in me. To call this behavior “almost catatonic” is silly.


According to the Washington Post,


One day. as they were planning to hand in their application [to lease a piece of land in British Columbia in 1969, Ted shut down, without reason. ‘I wouldwalk up to him and say. Well, arc we goingto do anythingtodayr And there would be no answer, David said.”\footnote{(Hb) Wa.dsingt.onPo.si.June 16, 1996, p.A:u.}


My brother told the New York Times much the same story.\footnote{(Ha) NYTinw, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.23, column4,} and something similar is perhaps hinted at in a rather confusing sentence of the FBI report.\footnote{(Na) FBI 302. number3, p.3.}


But no such thing ever happened. If Dave wasn’t simply lying. then I can only explain his tale as follows. Because ofhis psychological dependence on me (sec Chapter 8, p.117), he was acutely sensitive to my moods and responses. If I were in•a grumpy or uncommunicative mood for a day or two (as happens to most people now and then), my sullen demeanor would take on disproportionate importance in my brother’s eyes. Since he is prone to get his facts garbled anyway (See Appendix II), it wouldn’t be surprising if, a quarter century after the event, he really believed that I had refused to answer when spoken to.


At most there may have been two or three occasions in my adult life when, for a brief period, I have refused to answer when spoken to, and those would have been times when I was extremely angry at members of my family; for example, following the Ellen Tarmichael affair. Refusing to speakis a very common way of showing anger.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late March or early April 1986, p.19: ffOid you know that once when I was in high-school [Dad] refused to talk to . me for two weeksr}


On the basis ofirs interviews with my brother and mother, the Washington Po.st reported: “[EJveryso often [Ted] would shut down, refusing to speakor make eye contact, staring downward, outof rcach.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski. to me. late March or early April 1986, pp. :w, 21! 1 remember times when mother, in herand according to herlimitations, tried to give you sympathy and find out what was making you unba (Although. as must be admitted •.she would have refused to accept the truth bad you been able to tell her.) She would sit dawnbeside you. try to pet you, and ask what was wrong in a soothing voice. In such cues. you would characteristically slap her handaway. mutter an insult. and leave the room. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In rcfmence to a supposed shutdownof mine that allegedly occuned during the early 1970,S, my brother told the Wa.rlringron Po\# ((Hb) Wa.rlangto,t Post, June 16, 1996, p.A2l): “I remember my mother sitting down m:xt to [Ted] at some point andmokingbishair and saying. ‘Tedwhat’s wrong? \dots{} He gave the FBI a similar story. (Na) FBI 3oi number 3, P.lBut dm simply did not happen. If my brother wasn’t consciously lying. then be probably got earlier memories of my adolescent sulks mixed up with some later cvmt.}


This, again, is false. The closest it comes to reality is this: Many times during my earlier teens (age twelve to fifteen?) after a quarrel with my parents or some outburst of verbal abuse by them, I would go into a sulk and lie on the couch, oron a bed, with my face buriedin the cushions or the pillow, perhaps for as long as an hour or two. I certainly could not have been “staring downward” with my face buried in cushions. Often my mother would come to comfort me and stroke my head, and in such case I would sometimes push her away;\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letter from David Kaczynski. to me. late March or early April 1986, pp. :w, 21! 1 remember times when mother, in herand according to herlimitations, tried to give you sympathy and find out what was making you unba (Although. as must be admitted •.she would have refused to accept the truth bad you been able to tell her.) She would sit dawnbeside you. try to pet you, and ask what was wrong in a soothing voice. In such cues. you would characteristically slap her handaway. mutter an insult. and leave the room. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In rcfmence to a supposed shutdownof mine that allegedly occuned during the early 1970,S, my brother told the Wa.rlringron Po\# ((Hb) Wa.rlangto,t Post, June 16, 1996, p.A2l): “I remember my mother sitting down m:xt to [Ted] at some point andmokingbishair and saying. ‘Tedwhat’s wrong? \dots{} He gave the FBI a similar story. (Na) FBI 3oi number 3, P.lBut dm simply did not happen. If my brother wasn’t consciously lying. then be probably got earlier memories of my adolescent sulks mixed up with some later cvmt.} but sometimes I would voice some of my complaints about the way my parents were treating me, and my mother would promise improvement. But of course there was never any lasting change in her or my father’s behavior.


If this kind of reaction on my part was abnormal, then I’m certainly not the only abnormal one in the family, because my mother, in middle age, would often go into sulks, lasting sometimes two or three days, during which she would spend most of her time lying on her bed. When spoken to, she would answer either not at all or with some self-pitying whining about howbadly the world was treating her.



\bigskip


Apart from the myth of the “shutdowns,” my mother and brother have cold so many other lies in their effort to portray me as mentally ill that it would be impractical to reply to them all, so I will deal with only three examples.


I. From the Washington Post “When his father saw Theodore’s violent reaction to a rabbit killed during a huntingtrip, he gave up the sport.”[3’°


To my knowledge, my father never hunted butonce in his life. Though I was very young at the time, I remember the occasion clearly. Ralph Meister had a friend who owned a farm and often hunted rabbits on it. The farmer once invited Ralph and my father to hunt with him. I went to the farm with my parents but, to my disappointment, I was not allowed to go outwith the hunters. Though Ralph and the farmer both had shotguns and my father had only his old .[22, my father was the one who killed the rabbit. I was proud of him for it. I persuaded my mother to let me watch while the rabbit was being skinned, and r expressed disappointment at the fact that I wouldn’t get to eat any of it. (The farmer probably wanted to let the meat age for a few days.) My reaction to the death of the rabbit was in no sense violent or emotional, and my father didn’t “give up” hunting. because he had never been in the habit ofhuntingin the first place.


2. According to the Sacramento Ba:


Ted preferred classical music by Vivaldi and Bach that ‘had mathematical perfection and symmetry,’ his brother said. ‘I can’t ever recall him singing songs orlistening to lyrics.’\footnote{(Hc) Sacn\&nlCIUO ,Jamwy 19, 19’11, p.AI6.}


This has to be a conscious lie. because throughout my adolescence, through my twenties and into my thirties. one of my favorite pastimes was singing songs to contrapuntal guitar or zither accompaniments that I composed myself. Among the songs that I sang in the hearing of my brother (and I mean that I sang the lyria, I didn’t just hum the tunes) were “The Wabash Cannonball,” “Battle Hymn ofthe Republic,” “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” an obscene variant of “Billy Boy.” various Christmas carols, etc., etc.


When my brother sang. he accompanied himself on the guitar only with chords, and more than once he complimented me on the ingenuity of my contrapuntal accompaniments. Then one evening in 1979 at our parents’ home in Lombard, he came out of his room carrying our zither and walked into the living room, where I was reading. Without a word he sat down and sang a song, with a good contrapuntal accompaniment of his own devising. When he was finished I complimented him on the accompaniment. Without acknowledging my compliment or saying anything else, he got up and marchedback to his room. Evidently it was important tohim to show that he, too, could compose clever accompaniments.


3, According to the New York Tima, after our friend Juan Sanchez Arreola was hurt in an accident,


David said Ted wted to do something for Mr. Sanchez, but his solution ‘reveals that in some ways he was out of touch.’ ‘He read about a millionaire who would receive requests for money and decide who to give it to. Ted decided this was the best way to get help for Juan, to pay his medical bills, and he drafted a letter that he sent to me. I was supposed to get an 0.1. from Juan and send it to the millionaire. And of course, we never heard. For an intelligent person it seemed so . . . extremely naive.”\footnote{(Ha) NY nmu, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.2.4. column+ The tbrcc docs ue in the original}


The millionaire in question was Percy Ross. who then had (and for all I know may still have) a column that appearedin certain newspapers. People would write him with requests for money. Some very small percentage of the letters were answeredin Ross’s column, and the writers ofthose letters would receive gifts of money for the more-or-less worthy purposes they had described. I didn’t decide this was the best way to get help for Juan.”“ I simplycouldn’t think ofanythingelse, since I had little money myself. So of course I felt there was no harm in writing co Ross. I was well aware of the fact that the chances of success were very small, and my brotherknew that I was aware of it, because in the same envelope in which I sent a letter to Dave I enclosed a letter that I asked him to give to Juan, in which I wrote, amongother things:”


My brother or I will write to this rich man to find out if he will help you to pay your debt, but this millionaire receives thousands of requests and can grantonly a few. Still, itwill do no harm to write him. Who knows? It’s possible that he may help you.\footnote{(Cd) 1JK•JSA \#2, letter from me toJU211 Smchez Arreola. November 14. 1988 •} (Translated from Spanish)


At the time, my brothergave no indication that he thought me out of touch”“ or ““naive”“ for writing to Percy Ross. In fact, he wrote me:”


Juan thanks you for your interest in his case. . . . Of course, I’ve explained to him that this isjust a wild chance, so he shouldn’tgethis hopes up. His case, however, is truly unique, since although poor, he is noteligible for public assistance or, apparently. Medi-caid while his application for residency is pending. The millionaire mightwantto take into account thatJuan contributed to our society with his labor for more than thirty ycan at very low wages\dots{} Enclosed is a page summarizing the debts. We can get more details if the millionaire shows interest inJuan’s casc \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#386, letterfrom David Kaczynski ro me, Nowmbcrs, 1988.}


So my reward for attempting to do a good deed (though admittedly at a very long shot) is that now my brother tries to use it to portray me as mentallyill.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 13. My brother’s writing}


DORIN o his high-school years my brother developed a strong interest in literature, which became a very important part of his life.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#38,, letter from David Kaczynski to me. September 1988, p.r. 1MJy litcrary experiences are among the ones [ukc most seriously ••\dots{}} In conjunction with this he aspired to become a creative writer. He wrote at least one novel and many shortstories, butover a span of two decades he was never able to get anything published.


Now and then I still send my stories to small literary magazines. butthey always come back rejected ifthey come back at all. Itaffccts myconfidenceto a degree.”“ He then writes that hejustwants ““a nod of undcrstanding.”“\footnote{(Ca) PL \#JI,, letter from David Kaczynski to me, Oaobcr or Nowmbcr 198,, pp. 2, J. The comment about “scorched grass refers to a story\_by Horacio Quiroga. ‘El Potra Salvaje’ (‘The WUd Colt’) (Ma) Translations by1JK. See Appendix 4,}


Apart from two or three minor pieces between 1969 and 1971, my brother nevershowed me any ofhis writingprior to 1988, nor did I ask him to show me any of it. In 1985 I wrote him:


Something I’ve been meaningto say for some time . \dots{}


Maybe you wonder why I’ve never asked to read any of your stories or other writings. What I want to say here is that it isn’t just a matter of disdainfulness. The reasons why I’ve never asked to readyour stuffarc, for one thing. the fact that our tastes and attitudes differ considerably reduces the likelihood that I would like your stuff, and increases the likelihood that I would find it irritating. Furthermore, if it turned out that I didn’t like it or considered it to be poor writing. I would be faced with 3 choices: either to praise it dishonestly (which I don’t like to do), or to criticize it more or less freely, which would mean saying things that you might find pretty cutting or to say nothingat all about it, which tends to imply a negative judgement.


If you ever wanted to send me any of your stuff, I’d read it, with the understanding that if I said anything at all about it I would give an honest opinion\dots{} The point I wanted to make is that the fact that I’ve never asked to read any of your stuff isn’t just the result of disdainfulness.\footnote{J. (Ca) FL \#301, leacr from me to David Kaczynski, April 198,, p.1.}


My brother answered that he recognized a writer is not likely to get a good reading from family and friends. but added thatwhen he had something that he was really satisfied with, he might show it to me with the express expectation that I “wouldspeak.[my] mind freely.”\footnote{Ca) PL \#302., letter from David Kaczynski to me. April orMay1985, p.1.}


Three years later my brother sent me one of his stories as a birthday present, with a letter that began:


Happy birthday!


This year you get a booby prize instead of a real present: one of my short storics.”“\footnote{(Ca) PL \#-m, letter from David Kaczynski to me, late April orearly May 1988, p.1.} In the course of reviewing the family correspondence while preparing this book, I’ve had occasion to read the foregoing sentence several times, and every time I do so, my heart aches for mybrother. I react the same way when I read his comment (quoted earlier) about wanting just ““a nod of” understanding.”


Dave’s letter continued:


Seriously, I was pleased with the way this one turned out and thought that you might enjoy it, or at least feel in sympathy with some of the ideas I try to express in it. . . . Please, though, feel under no obligation to comment. . . . Consider the story as offered strictly for your enjoyment, with the hope that it doesn’t fail completely in that mission.[5”


The story was called ‘The Raid’, and Ithought that parts ofit were very well written. AU of it was very well written in comparison with what one would expect from an individual chosen at random from the general population. But, in my opinion, the story as a whole was not of professional quality. My brother docs not have the instinct of careful craftsmanship, and ‘The Raid’ was marred by a number of small errors in the use of language. Apart from dialog, the story was written in literary English, and even used (or misused) such relatively uncommon words as “suzcraincy,”\footnote{(Mc) Storyby David Kaczynski. ‘The Raid’, p.5} ‘“matutinal,”\footnote{(Mc) Storyby David Kaczynski. ‘The Raid’, p.5} “smithy.”\footnote{Same, p.10.} and “privy”\footnote{Same, p.17.} (as an adjective). In such a context it makes the well-educated reader uncomfortable to see “like” where “as if” should be uscd.\footnote{ame, p.10 (twice).} or to find such phrases as “Deborah Tolliver got a sour look on her facc”\footnote{ro. Same, p.:z..} or “the women he’d been privy to observe in his lifc.”\footnote{Same, p.17.} I don’t mean to suggest that a story written in literary English must never contain an “incorrcctly”-used word or an “awkward” -sounding sentence. There may be valid artistic reasons for introducing the “incorrect” or the awkward into a literary work. The point is that my brother did not use words incorrectly or awkwardly in order to achieve an effect; his errors were simply the result of carelessness, as is indicated by the fact that they merely annoy or distract the reader without contributing anything to the story.


Such defects could no doubt be patched up by a good editor; and by working for some time with a good editor I think my brother could have learned to keep the defects from getting into his stories in the first place. A more serious problem with ‘The Raid’ is that the reader is left wondering what the pointofthe storyis. Itis clearthat my brotherwanted to illustrate the difference between the Anglo attirudc toward life and that of the traditionalMexican; but ifthis is the pointofthe story. then whybringin the girl who gets pregnant, the yams of the old frontiersman, or Sheriff Dan’s thoughts about marriage? The storyjustseems to ramble aimlessly.


The Raid’ was not without its merits. For instance, my brother gave one illustration of the difference between the Anglo and the Mexican attitude thathas stuckin my mind ever since as being particularly apt.\footnote{Sarne, p.6: ‘:.\textbackslash{} white man would build a house to outlast himself. bygenerations if he could. A Mexican would build one that had to be shored up every few years. because he might not need itlonger than that.” I don”t know whether dm is literally aue, but it does seem to ezpress a between the tndiiiona1 Anglo and the traditional MeJ:ican attitude, if one can believe such boob as Mai\&anAmaic4,u of S01Uh Tem.s, by William Madsen, or Viw\& Mcm,, by Charles Macom Flandrau. It seems that to the typical Anglo, a house is an ezpression of bis ego, whereas. to the typical Mezican peasant, a house was merely a place to live.} I probably would have enjoyed reading the story if only because it was a reflection of mybrother’s personality-passive and directionless, yetobservant and frequently offering interesting comments. But ‘The Raid’ was spoiled for me by my brother’s ambition to be a serious creative writer; since I assessed it as something that presumably aspired to be of professional quality. I was bothered by defects that I might otherwise have overlooked. Because Ihad toldmybrotherthat I would commenton his writing honestly if 1did so at all, and because I didn’t want to tell him that he still seemed to be a longway from producing a professional-quality story. I said nothing to him about ‘The Raid’.


I’ve seen only a very few of the many stories my brother has written, but judging from what I have seen I would say that he is much better at writing letters than at writing stories. My brother does have a gift for verbal expression. In his letters he often describes experiences, scenes, people, and feelings quite vividly, sometimes even poetically. When writing a letter he doesn’t have to weave a plot; the structure of the letter is provided by the experience that he is relating or the concern that he is trying to communicate. I think another reason why his letters arc better-written than his stories is that in writing his letters he usually was not trying to write H creatively” but was merely making an un-self-conscious effort to express what was on his mind; hence he was less apt to be misled by artistic vanity.\footnote{But he ceminly was somatma misled byvanity inbis letters. He wcu!d use a big. fancy word where a plain one wouldhave done better. or he would introduce an wmecessarily pretentious expressionatthe expense ofForezample. inbis answer to my aiticism of the ideas he had borrowed from Heidegger, he wrote in 198r. ‘1 imagine you don’t understand my humor, in which seriousness and farce are wont to dance with one another.(Ca) FL \#24,, letter from David Kac:zynsk.i to me, late summer orfall of 1981, p.6.} I’m not sure whether he makes fewer blunders in handling the details of language in his letters than he docs in his stories. I am much less conscious of such blunders in his letters than I am in his stories, but that may be only because his letters seem co flow along and hold my interest betterthan his stories do, so that I rend to overlook any imperfections of detail.


I occasionally praised Dave for his letters. Referring co a comment he’d made on the religion of the African pygmies, I wrote in 1983:


I especially liked the following passage from a recent letter of yours: ‘\dots{} the [molimo]\footnote{The “[molimo T in brackea is in the letter as I wrote it to Dave. So are the three dots.} ritual demanded something like an attitude of pretend” that was aware of itself as such. I think of modem religions as tending to become confused in this area, so that the alternative to the empirical interpretation of reality, in drawing near co the empirical, is only usurped by it, so that the religious ideas are transformed as absurd empirical assertions, while losing theirpoeticlife and suggestiveness.’\footnote{The passage is from (Ca) FL \#2.78, letter from David Kaczynski to me, October 1983, p.2.. 15,}


I like this passage so well that Ihave copied it in my notebook. So there you stand amongst all kinds of famous writers whomc (sic] I have quoted from time to time in my notes.\footnote{) FL \#2.79, letter from me to David Kaczynski. December to, 1983, pp. 4, s.}


In a 1985 letter\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.99, lettcr from me to David Kaczynski. early 1985, p.a.} that I quotedin Chapter11, p. 154. I told Dave howinteresting and enjoyable I found some of his letters; and in 1987 when he sent me an account of a very interesting trip he’d made to Mexico, I praised him rather generously for the way he’d written it up, as we’ll sec in a moment. Yet I wish now that I’d praised more of Dave’s letters, because there were a number of ochers that did deserve praise, and I failed to give it.


About June 1987, my brother spent a week or two at the home of his friend. Juan Sanchez Arreola, in Magistral dcl Oro, state of Durango, Mexico.\footnote{) FL \#358, letter from David Kaaynslti to me, between March and May 1987.} He sentme a long( eleven-page) account ofthe visit that I found fascinating.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#36o, letter from David Kaczynslci to me, June orJuly 1987.} Since I thought he was much better at writing that sore of thing than he was at composing fiction, and since I knew he’d been trying unsuccessfully for many years to gee something published, I cold him in my next letter:


I read your account of your adventures with the greatest interest \dots{} Your adventures seemed most wonderful to me-it must have been like steppinginto a different world.


I also thought your account was very well written. I assume you will make other visits to Mexico in the future, and after you have accumulated enough material I’ll bet you could publish a book on your experiences. I thinkthere would be a much better market for a book like that than there is for fiction. Ifyou wrote the whole bookas well as you did that account that you sent to me, and if it were properly organized and so forth, I don’t sec why you shouldn’t be able to find a publisher for it. I thought you did a very good job of characterizing Rosa\footnote{It’s not dear whether Juan Sanchez’s wife’s mme was “Rosa. or ‘“Rosario.” According to an article in the New Ym Thna, December 8, 1997, late editiontinal, page 86, column s, the name was “Rosario.” Ar least one invatigator from my defense team interviewed Juan and told me dw his wife’s name was “Rosario \dots{} The inwstigator also rold me that Mezicms do not commonly use “Rosa” as a nickname for “Rosario.” See (Qd) Note from lmestigator \#s. How. a newspaper article of undetermmed date, a photocopy of which was sent to me byJames Brooke of the New Ym Tuna, and which wu based on an interview with Juan Suichez and his wife, gives the wife’s aame as “Rosa\dots{} My brother also gave bname as HR.oAH inhis Jetter; r} and some of the other people you described.”


I do have a couple of minor criticisms. Fl.l’St, Iwonder if itwasn’t unfair to compare Rosa to a child. A linle condescending, perhaps \dots{}


Also, your last line, about ‘a bestial dialectic which filled the earth with intense music while humanity slept,\footnote{(Ca) FL \#J6o, letter from DavidKaczynski to me.June orJuly t987, p.a.} struck. me as perhaps too lushly poetic to fit in with the tone of the rest of the material. But some people might differ with me on this point. And as I said, on the whole I thought your accountwas very good.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#361, letter from me to David Kaczynski.July IJ, 1987, pp. 2., J. On p.1 of dm letter, I remarked in passing that Pancho Villa (alias Ooroteo Arango) wu a native of Durango. This is the only mention of Pancho Villa char occurs anywhere inmy correspondmce. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf According to a newspaper article of undetermined date, a photocopy of which was sent to me by James Brooke of the New Ym Tuna, and which wu based on an interview with Juan S4ndlez: in his letters. Mr. Kaczyn.ski asked Ouan Sanchez] about Mezican history. especially about Pancho Villa. \dots{} 1 was bom four years after Pancho Villa was killed, but I propmed chat he come down for a history tour with me,’ Mr. S6nchez said.” A New Ym nma article of \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf December 8, 1997, page 86, column 5, claims that my letters to Juan described my “fascination with Pancho V’dla.” None of this is true. All ofJuan’s letters to me have been preserved, and I saved copies of almost all my letters co Juan. Nowhere in any of this correspondence JS there any mention of Pancho Villa, or of an offer of a “history tour” withJuan.}


I now suspect that my brother thought his line about “bestial dialectic” was the best part of the letter and was disappointed that I didn’t care for it. Anyway, he never responded to my suggestion that he should accumulate material for a book.


In February or March 1989, Dave sent me an account ofa story thatJuan Sanchez Arreola had told him.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#394. letterfrom David Kaczynski to me, February orMuch 1989,}


The original version ofthe manuscript of this book included the full text of the story, but it has been deleted because my brother has refused to allow irs publication here.


My brother’s telling of this tale had a few defects of detail, but these could easily have been patched up, and it seemed to me that on the whole the account was very well done. I wrote Dave: ‘Tve just received your letter that contains Juan’s story. It’s very intercsting\dots{}


Yes, it would give me pleasure to receive more ofJuan’s stories. You recounted this last one very well. If the other stories arc as good as the two\footnote{Mybrotherhad earlierwritten me another ofJuan’s stories.} that you’ve already told me, has it occurred to you to publish a collection of such stories? \dots{}


I’ve read again your rendering of the story. and it seems to me to be excellent. The tone and the language seem to me to be just right for such a story.”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#]95, letterfrom me to David Kaczynski. Much28, 1989, pp. 2., 3, 5.} (Translated from Spanish)”


I concluded by pointingout(I hope tactfully) a few of the minor infelicities oflanguage that occurred in the story.\footnote{Same, pp. 5, 6.}


A short while later my brother sent me, as a birthday present, his rendering of another ofJuan’s tales-a considerably longer one that he called, ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’. This story l thought was really very good, even though it had imperfections of detail that I felt were more important than those of the preceding story.


In a letter that accompaniedthe story, my brother wrote:


\dots{}[FJor this and any future stories I send you. I’d appreciate any criticism that may occur to you. I doubt I’ll sec every point your way. but meanwhile I’m aware of how difficult it is to read one’s own prose with fresh and objective eycs.\footnote{) FL \#396A, letter from David Kaczynski to me, Spring 1989.}


In an answering letter (now lost), l praised ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’ highly and, in compliance with Dave’s request, I gave him an extensive critique of its flaws. He answered:


I’m glad you enjoyed your birthday present.


Thanks for . . . your long analysis of the writing. which must have taken a good deal of time and effort to complete. I found several of the criticisms helpful, and plan to incorporate them in my revisions. I doubt if you’d enjoy reading the revised version. however, since I find myself unable to agree with you about the use of figurative language in this piece.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#]97, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me. Spring 1989, p.I.}


My brother then launched himself into an elaborate series of rationalizations intended to justify his use of certain metaphors and similes that I had criticized. If he had simply said that he disagreed with me and was going to retain these figures of speech, l would have been a little disappointed. since I felt that they detracted from what was otherwise an excellent story. But I would not have been irritated. What did irritate me in this case, as in many earlier cases, was Dave’s habit of pretentious rationalization.


Here is an example. ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’ included this sentence:


Even Don Francisco’s eyes sparkled and he showed his few teeth in a face like aacked mud.\footnote{(Mc) Storyby David Kaczynski. ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’, first version, p.8.}


I aiticized this simile (“face like cracked mud”) on the grounds that it wasn’t clear what it was supposed to mean. My brother answered:


If you pay close attention to your reading. I think you’ll notice that equivocal metaphors are used frequently in fiction. The ‘cracked mud’ similie [sic] works on the basis of three comparisons between the old man’s face and cracked mud: the color (gray), the tenure (the aeases on an old man’s face that would presumably deepen as he smiled); and a quality of opaqueness Quan finds the old man’s expression opaque rather than transparent at a moment when he is confused. searching for some clue as to why the old men arc laughing; in effect, he comes up against his own ignorance in the old man’s sphinx-like demeanor. until a moment later the truth-or at leastpart of itwns onhim).\footnote{(Ca) FL \#397, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me, Spring 1989, pp. 4, s.}


The first two comparisons would have been fine if only my brother had rephrased his simile in such a way as to make it clear that itwas the texture of the man’s skin that was being compared to cracked mud. The “opaqueness” comparison is ludicrous, because no reader, no matter how sophisticated and attentive, wouldbe able to divine those meanings in the “cracked mud” simile.


Dave’s letter finished off with somewhat of an air of wounded vanity:


If you don’t mind my making a suggestion, Ted, it would be that you make an earnest effort to enter the consciousness and spirit of a story as it’s written before making up your mind as to how you think it should be written\dots{}


I have another suggestion, since you’ re clearly. and probably with justification aloe [sic] more interested in Juan’s stories than you are in mine. Why not come down and meet Juan \dots{} ? You could hear his stories for yourself, and then consider writing them up in the rcportial [sic; ““reportorial”“ is meant] fashion youjudge bcst.”“\footnote{Same, pp. 5’, 6.}


In this case I did a relatively goodjob of controlling my irritation at my brother’s interminable rationalizations. In my reply I did point out the evidence of wounded vanity in his letter\footnote{(Ca) FL \#398, letterfrom me to DavidKaczynski.July 2.5, 1989, pp. 2., 3.} and I did maintain (not very tactfully. rm afraid) my position that some of his metaphors and similes detracted from the story.\footnote{Same, pp. 2., 4, 6, 8.} but on the otherhand I toldhim that onre-reading ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’ I felt less uncomfortable with these figures of speech\footnote{Same,p.1.} and I conceded that other readers might respond to them more favonbly than I did.\footnote{Same, pp. 5, 6, 8.} Moreover, I said that the story was “damn good”\footnote{Same,p.1.} and that I liked it “very well indeed, in spite of my criticisms. “\footnote{Same,p.4.} In answer to Dave’s defeatist suggestion that it was Juan’s stories rather than his (Dave’s) rendering of them that interested me, I wrote:


I think there must be a great deal of ‘you’ in the stories\dots{} Borrowed plots are common among great writers . . .. The effect of ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’ must depend heavily on yourretelling. since it could hardly bejust a literal translation of Juan’s words. If I or someone else told the story, it might have seemed pointless and uninteresting. As you tell it, the story is effective and the characters liw.’\footnote{Same,p.5.}


I was perhaps laying it on a bit thick here, but not to such an extentthat I felt I was breaking my promise tobe honestin commentingon my brother’s writing. I did attack some of his rationalizations. (I knew it was futile, but it is my misfortune that I find it extremely difficult to refrain from pointing out the defects in a fallacious argument.) Among other things I said:


As for making an earnest effort to enter the consciousness and spirit of the story-it’s your job to communicate that consciousness and spirit to the reader-you can’t expect the reader to divine by magical insight what that consciousness and spirit’ is supposed to be.’\footnote{Same, pp. 6, 7.}


Predicrably. my brother responded with an even more elaborate and defensive series of rationalizations, ofwhich some samples follow: “(In my last letter] I honestly believe I was defending an honest conviction more than my own ego\dots{}\footnote{JS. (Ca) FL \#]99, letterfrom DavidKaczynski to me, probably September 1989, p.2..}


David went on to cite in his defense “the poet Rilke” and “the artist O’Keeffe” who, as David cold it, advised “courage” and “obstinacy” in young artists if they were to “advance beyond mediocrity and technical expertise.”\footnote{ame, p.3.}


But my brother did not need to advance beyond technical expertise; his problem was that he had not yetattained technical expertise. In the same letter, my brother went on to speculate on how Faulkner or Proust would have struck a creative teacher, though he is careful to disclaim membership in their “category of talent”.\footnote{Same,pp. 3, 4}


Your observations suggest that you see a writer as a communicator in a fairly simple and straightforward way, so that an intelligent and educated reader needs only to sit backpassively. so to speak, and let himself be ‘communicated to.’ \dots{} I think you should know that the trend of modem thought is against depicting the artist as a straightforward communicator\dots{} My own feelings tell me, ‘Whybe spoon-fed when you can have the pleasure of freely participating in a work with your own imagination? . ..\footnote{Same. pp. 4, S•}


Further on in the letter, in an evident reference to my supposed “science-based assumptions,” my brother expressed a suspicion that there was a “logical agenda” behind my aiticisms.\footnote{Ca) FL \#]99, letterfrom DavidKaczynski to me. probably September 1989, p.9.} But he concluded his letter on a generous note:


Please keep in mind, Ted, that in outlining these arguments and differences, I by no means want to suggest that I don’t value your criticisms and appreciate the effort they’ve costyou. In fact, I value them very higbly.\footnote{Same, p.11.}


Many readers will have noticed by this time that my brother is a fairly typical representative of a certain class of unsuccessful would-be artists, and shows the charactt;ristic symptoms: He emphasizes “originality” and neglects technical skill (technical skill requires talent and hard work. butthe concept of originality is vague enough so that anyone can convince himself that his work is original); he is touchy about criticism-rather than accepting it he invents rationalizations to place the blame on the critic for not appreciating his creations; he compares himself to great artists who were not accepted, or had difficulty being accepted, or might not have been acceptedbecause ofthe unconventionality and originality of their work.


Yet, as I noted earlier, my brother does have a talt for verbal expression, and I think that what prevented him from becoming a good (i.e., profcssional-quality) writer was simply his weakness of character; or, as a psychologist might put it, the fact that his ego was not well-developed. (Here I use “ego” to mean not vanity, but the directing and organizing faculty of the mind.) Because of it he lacked the self-discipline to develop technical skill with the details of language, so that his writing was marred by expressions that were grammatically incorrect, awkward, or confusing; he was unable to look at his own work objectively enough to see its good points and its bad poincs, so as to be able to change what was bad and retain what was good; and I doubt that he could have organized intelligently a booklength piece of writing unless it consisted of a collection of shorter pieces each of which would stand more-or-less independently. Fmally. he was unwilling to acknowledge that he was not good at constructing stories of his own, and that, unless he retold stories he’d heard from someone else, he would have done betterto write about personal experiences.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 14. My brother’s relations with Linda Patrik; I break off with him}


I never knew my brother to have a girlfriend, or to go on dates, or to show any sexual interest in girls until, some time during his college years, my mother mentioned to me that he had a crush on a young woman named Linda Panik whom he’d known in high-school. I’ve already described (in Chapter 9, pp. I3I-I33) how in the early seventies he was attracted to a woman named Luisa Mueller. But apart from Linda and Luisa I don’t believe he ever took even the first step toward a sexual relationship with any female. He never did develop an overt sexual involvement with Luisa Mueller; nor was there any physical relationship between him and Linda Panik before he reached his late twenties.


Until 1986] my brother never said anything to me about his relations with women, and I never asked him about them. Intimate personal matters just were not discussed in our family. I won’t attempt to explain his celibacy here, but will mention two facts.


First, my brother’s high aspirations seem to have extended to women: From certain remarks that he made I gathered that he did not consider a female attractive unless she was quite good-looking; yet he himself had neither the physical qualities nor the kind of personality that would have made him attractive to women (see Chapter 9, p. 131). Second, he apparently had a fairly serious hang-up about sex. I quote here in full a passage from one of his letters of which I quoted a part in Chapter 9:


When your interference vis-a-vis [Luisa Mueller] touched off an explosion, I believe this is how I expenenced everything (regardless of whatyour true motives might have been)-I saw you acting as a sort of surrogate super-ego in the matter of our parents’ highly (though subtly) repressive attitudes coward sex. I suppose I felt that siblings ought co confederate in the struggle with their parents to assert semal independence, and in that light I probably considered your letter to them as a serious bettayal, cspecially serious in that I felt we had both already been damaged by their repressive attitudes, so you ought to have lmown what the pain was like. What made things worse and more humiliating for me, is that I had alrwly submitted to my conditioning-the inculcated repressions had already conquered my desires (perhaps luckily. all in all) and consequently I experi-cnced the repression as pertaining not only to behavior, but as arousing guilt over the mere occurrence [sic] of sexual feelings.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#330, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me. late March orearly April 1986, p.10.}


I answered:


You assume that I, like you, have, or had, a major problem with guilt over sex. I was really astonished to find you misjudging me so badly. Of course l’m not free of shame over sex-I don’t suppose anybody is in our society-but I never had enough shame over sex to feel that it was a serious problem. Actually, though I knew you were kinda prissy, I was surprized [sic] to learn that you had such a problem with sex guilt as you indicate in your letter. I never felt that our parents’ attirudcs toward sex were particularly repressive, neither explicitly. nor ‘subtly’ as you put it.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#331, letter from me to David Kaczynski. April us, 1986, p..t.}


However that might have been, my brother told me nothing whatever about Linda Patrik. He never so much as mentioned hername to me before 1986, probably because he was afraid that I would make some negative comment about his relations with her. The little I lmew about her I learned from my mother, from hearing my brother’s end of a couple of brief telephone conversations that he’d had while we were both at our parents’ house in 1978, and from some of Linda P.’s letters to him.


I found these letters one day during the early 1970s when, in my brother’s absence, I was shoveling the garbage out of his dump in Great Falls. They were in a drawer, not lying out in the open, and I knew that he would not want me to read them, but I read them anyway. I do not like to have to confess to this, but I do confess to it. because I mean to tell the whole truth about the relations between my brother and me. As far as I can remember, it is the only thing I’ve ever done in regard to him that was clearly and definitely not fair play, a violation of trust. a breach of the unspoken rules that governed our relationship. Why did I do it? I was full of contempt for him, and when you have contempt for someone you tend to be disregardful of his rights. But contempt was no excuse for violating my brother’s privacy. and, ever since, I’ve been uncomfortable about having read chose letters.


The letters were not very informative, but they did make this much clear about Dave’s relationship with Linda Patrilc He had a long-term crush on her; his relationship to her was servile; she didn’t appear to have any interestin him as a male, but she seemed to like usinghim as a shoulder to cry on, someone to unburden herself to. Meanwhile she carried on relationships with ocher men, and my brother knew it, yet he kept mooning after her.


The next I heard of Linda Patrik was in 1978, when my brother and I were staying at our parents’ house and he received a couple ofphone calls from her. From his endofthe conversation.itwas evident only chat she was inviting him to visit her and that he was accepting the invitation with alaaity. I asked no one any questions about Dave’s relationship with Linda P., but my mother volunteered some very scanty information: It seemed that Linda was having some sort of trouble with her husband-a divorce may have been contemplated-andshe had turned to Dave for com.fort.


I heard not another word about Linda Patrik until my brother visited me in Montana in 1986. At that time I noticed a verylarge turquoise ring on his finger and asked him where he’d gotten it. He answered that Linda Patrikhadgiven it to him, and that wasthefirst time he ever mentioned her to me. He gave me no information about her, however, and from consideration for his privacy I did not ask for any. I heard no more about Ms. Patrik until three years later.



\bigskip


At about the same time (September 1989) that my brother sent me his last exercisein rationalization in justification of ‘TheConjurer’s Stone’ (FL \#399), he sent me also his rewritten version of that story, and with it a letter in which, amongother things, he said:


I’m returning to Sclienectady on Oa. 8 to undertake the experiment of living with Linda. I’ve been in love with her for more than 20 years, so much so that no other woman has ever seriously interested me \dots{} [T]his is a very happy time in my life. So wish me luck.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4oo, letterfrom David Kaczynski to me, probably September 1989.}


At this point I decided rd had about enough of my jackass of a brother, so I wrote him an irritable letter in which I told him I didn’t want to hear from him any more-unless he ever found himself in serious aouble and needed my help, in which case I woulddo what I could for him. Hercis how mybrother has dcscnbed this letterto the media:


In 1989, David told his brother he had a relationship with Linda and had decided to go to Schenectady, N.Y. to be with her. He also said he expecred to marry her. [False. Neither FL \#400] nor any other letter of my brother’s in 1989] made any mention of a possible marriage with Linda Patrik.\footnote{Oa-1e did not marry Linda legally untilJuly 14, 1990. (Ge) Marriage certificate of David Richard Kaczynski and Linda Ellen Patrik.}


At that time he decided to end his relationship with me, end communicatingwith me,’ David said. ‘It was an extremely angry. total surprise to me. He tended to view me as someone who was easily manipulated by others and for some reason he had gotten the notion that Linda was a manipulating female who was using me.’ The accusation seemed particularly bizarre, David said, because ‘he has never met her to my knowledge.’“


One interpretation of his brother’s letter, he said, might be that Ted was disappointed that he would give up the lifestyle they had shared. ‘It may have been just terrible for him to think I would rejoin society,’ David said. ‘I thinkit goes deeper than that.’


David said the letter contained ‘a long litany’ of his presumed faults but it added that ‘he did care about me’ and said that ‘I was throwing away my life.’“


By marrying? he was asked.


Sure.’““ (New York Time.s)\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May ui, 1996, p.24, column 4}


In 1989, Theodore Kaczynski reacted angrily when David wrote toTed and told him he was planning to marry Linda Patrik, a philosophy professor at Union College in Schenectady. \dots{} Ted had never met Panik but said she was manipulative. (Washingtcm Post)\footnote{(Hb) Washmp Po.st.June16, 1996, p.A2.I.}



\begin{quote}


“LESLIE STAHL: \dots{} And Ted blamed David for deserting him, by fallingfor Linda. MIKE WALLACE: He was devastated when he learned that you were happy with Linda, and that you, of all things, married Linda.


“DAVID KACZINKI: It was entirely uncxpccred. He had never met Linda. And I got a letter that was pages and pages and pages long. full of criticisms of Linda, criticisms of me. It was as if I had somehow betrayed him.”\footnote{(He) 6o Mim\&ta, September15, 1996. Part One, pp. B, 9.}



\end{quote}


Nearly 10 years ago (sic], Ted wrote his brother a venomous letter stating. in capital letters, that he never wanted to sec or hear from David ‘or any other member of our family’ again. He was angry because his brother was gettingmarried. (Sacramento \&e)\footnote{(He) B,Jamwy19, lWl,p.AI6.}


Actually. the fact that my brother was going to live with Linda Panik was only one among several reasons why I broke off with him. My letter was nearly fourteen pages long, and only four of those pages dealt with Dave’s relations with Linda Patrik. Also, the letter nowhere describes Linda as “manipulative”.


Apparently Dave or (more likely) Linda destroyed my letter. But maybe my brother would have been more careful in describing this letter if he’d known that I’d kept a copy ofit. This was a carbon copy. so there is no question of any errors of transcription. Since the letter is significant, I reproduce all of it here. The first part refers to another story my brother had sent me that was loosely based on one ofJuan’s talcs.


Dear Dave:


As for ‘Ernesto and the Widow’\footnote{do nothave a copy of ‘Emato and the Widow’, since I sent my copy back to \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Dave with comments written in the margins. The story of Juan’s on which ‘Ernesto and the Widow’ is loosely based is in (Ca) FL \#396B, letter from David Kaczynski to me, spring or summer of 1989.}-This is a style of story-telling that I dislike. On the other hand, there mustbe a lot ofpeople who like that kind ofstory-telling, since that style is much in vogue nowadays [amongintellectuals]. I only read the story once, and while reading it I was in a state of irritation at you for reasons that will be explained below; moreover, I was continually interrupting my reading to write comments in the margins. Thus I was less able to judge how the story flows along than I would have been under other circumstances. Moreover I am, naturally. less sensitive to differences in a form of writingthat Idislike than I wouldbe in a form of writingin which I take an interest. So I’m not sure if I can judge the story well. But, for whatever it may be worth, my reaction to the story is as follows.


Here and there I noticed places where words were used amateurishly or not quite correctly. But apart from that I thought it was a good storyfor those who like that type ofwriting, but not fo\_r me. Ifthe little awkward places I mentioned were cleared up, I sec no particular reason why the story couldn’t be published. But, while I felt pretty sure you ought to be able to find a publisher for the stories thatstuck closer to the material you had from Juan, I don’t know whether you could find a publisher for stories like ‘Ernesto and the Widow’. The. difference is that, while the stories that followed Juan’s material had a note of authenticity-something on the orderoffolkloric material-’Emcsto and the Widow’ is obviously a made-up story. merely inspired by an incident you heard from Juan. Of course there arc thousands or millions of people in America who want to write fiction and they all think they have something original to say. so there is an abundance ofstories offered-farmore than anyone wants to read. But there arc not so many people who can offer authentic stories from a peasant culture. That’s why I think your stories that stick closer toJuan’s material-with theirnote of authenticity-have a much better chance of being published than”


Ernesto and the Widow’, which jwtdoesn’t fit into the same category.


As for the reason why you’ve never been able to get anything published,


I can only say this:


The story titled ‘The Raid’, which you sent me some time ago struck me as hopelessly amateurish-both in the details of language and the general outline of the story. If that story is typical of your previous writing. then it’s obvious why no onewantsto publish your stuff-it’sjustplain bad, by anyone’s standard. ‘Ernesto and the Widow’ is such a vast improvement over ‘The Raid’ that the difference seems incomprehensible. If your prev:iow writing resembles ‘Ernesto and the Widow’ rather than ‘The Raid’, then I suppose that your failure to get anything published is due either to the fact that, as I mentioned, there arc more would-be writers than therearc readers, or else to the fact that here and there in your writing there appear little awkwardnesses oramateurish constructions. What you need is someone to criticize the details of your language (as I did with ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’) to induce you to develop literary craftsmanship.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#401, letter from me to Oavtd Kaczynski. September or early October 1989, copy from the cabin, pp. 1-3. Though most of this copy is carbon copy. it’s possible that part of the tirscparagraph (duougb the word “cm:um.swices”) may not be carbon copy; because I may have begun writing the letter before it occurred to me to mp a copy of it: I then transcribed manually the part of the letter I had already written, applied arbon paper, andmade the rest of the copy by that means. Also, on p.8, the wotd ‘servitude” turned out neuiy illegible on the carbon copy, hence was written in manually after the copy was finished.}


I now feel embarrassed at having spoken as favorably as I did of ‘Ernesto and the Widow;. I don’t have a copy of it now, but I rememberit as crap-it simply repelled me. However, it was of a genre-one might call it “modern”-that repels most readers anyway and is attractive only to a small minority of literary highbrows. Since I couldn’t pretend to understand that kind ofliterature, I gave my brother the benefit ofthe doubt and assumed that the story was an adequate specimen of its type, apart from the defects ofdetail that I mentioned. I would have done better to tell Dave simply that I didn’t understand the story and leave it at that, but I suppose my desire to make him feel good was competing with the contempt and irritation that led me to make very cutting remarks at various other places in the letter. Herc again my conflicting feelings toward my brother arc evident.


The letter continued:


The question is whether you are capable of profiting from such criticism. It seems doubtfui. It seems that your vanity prevents you from making any suggested changes except on inessential\footnote{Legibility of this word is poor; the reading “inessential” is open to question.} points—and sometimes even on minor points it prevents you from malting changes. Herc are two examples from your revised version of ‘The Conjurer’sStone’. First, on p. I, the phrase ‘descend to the street on strutting claws’. Leave aside the fact that I think the metaphorc [sic\footnote{Not only is there a superfluous •e” scuckon the end ofthe word “met2pho” but the quotedpconwns no mecaphor.}] is hackneyed. As I carefully explained in my last letter, the sentenceis illogical because the buzzards don’t descend on their claws, they descend on their wings. This is justthe kind ofamateurish linguisticblunder that will discourage an editor from publishing your stuff.


[tis not an arguable point. The sentence is dearly and plainly illogical, there is no conceivable literary motive for introducing that kind of illogic at this point, and any competent editor would agree that it is simply an amateurish blunder. If you felt you had to retain the ‘strutting’ claws metaphor you could have done so by reconstructing the sentence to eliminate the illogic.\footnote{As it stood in both the original and the revised wrsion of (Mc) Story by David Kaczynski, ‘The Conjurer’s Stene’, p.1, the relevant part of the sentence was: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf \dots{} a few [buzzards] would descend to the street on muumg claws, tear morsels of food from garbage pails. and even peck like pipm at dry tortilla crumbs. \dots{} \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf This could haw been rewritten as: \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf . . . a few would descend to the street, where, on sc:ruamg claws. they would tearmorsels of food from garbage pails. and CJm peclclike pigeons at dry rortilla crumbs. ..} I carefully explained in my last letter what was wrong with the sentence, yet you let it stand.



\bigskip


\emph{Second}. On the last page\footnote{(Mc) Story by David Kaczynski, ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’, pp. 7, 8 of the original wrsion, p.6 of the revised venion.} you have: ‘some of the others began laughing so hard it looked like they might hurt themselves’. As I explained carefully in a previous letter,\footnote{This letter, now lost, is the first one in which I commented on ‘The Conjurer’s Scone’.} this sentence is grammatically incorrect because ‘like’ is not a conjunction.\footnote{Like is often used as a conjunction in colloquial English. but here irs use as a conjunction jars the well-educated reader because the rest of ‘The Conjurer’s Stone’ is writteninliterary English.} To make the sentence correct you have to replace ‘like’ by ‘as if’. There is no conceivable literary motive for using the incorrect ‘like’ instead of the correct ‘as if’. Yet you let the sentence stand.”


I can see no motive for your leaving these rwo incorrect sentences in their original form except stubborn vanity-vanity of the most puerile kind.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4o1, letter from me to David Kaczynski. September or early October 1989, copy from the cabin, pp. J, 4}


This last remark was unnecessarily cruel. Many people would show as much vanity-motivated resistance to changing something they’d done as my brother did.


To argue about metaphors-whether they arc hackneyed or not, appropriate or not, etc.-is reasonable, since after all that is a matter of taste. But I suppose you can understand why I get frustrated and irritated when you ignore mycorrectionsofdear-cut and unarguable errors oflogic orgrammar.


Even when it comes to metaphors-your defense of your metaphors and similes (in an earlier letter) irritated me because-while one can reasonably argue about those metaphors-your arguments were simply silly. You explained all these meanings that these metaphors were supposed to convey-meanings that no one but you would ever guess at or even sense intuitively.”


Of course, you have the right to write anything you damn well please. But I’m not going to criticize your work any more because, as I’ve just explained, I find your reactions frustrating and irritating. I do feel that you’ve got something good there in your re-tellings ofJuan’s stories, and I would really be very pleased on your account if you could get them published. I would moreover be willing to spend considerable time criticizing the details of your style if it weren’t for the fact that, when you ignore my corrections of clear-cut, unarguable flaws, itjust seems futile, and it’s too irritating and frustrating.


More than that. This has been building up for a long time. It’s notjust this business of the stories. I find you insufferably irritating in general. You’re certainly not the type of personality I would choose for a friend-I just happened to get stuck with you as a brother. As you know, I have tender feelings toward you. but that’s just because you’re my brother and because of old tics going all the way backto childhood.


Some of your letters are a pleasure to read, but, just as often, they irritate me and make me conscious of an unbridgeable gulf between you and me. It’s not so much a difference of attitudes or ideology-in some respects our attitudes are pretty similar-as a difference of personality. The ideological differences arc largely a reflection of the personality differences. You use verbal formulations to satisfy your emotional needs, very often to protect your ego [here, ego sclf-cstecmJ, and you frequently insist on verbalformulations that arc meaningless (or at least, whose meanings you don’t try to analyze) or contrary to reality. or simply ludicrous. I use verbal formulations in a reasonably honest attempt to dcsaibe reality. I am so constituted that I find it difficult to listen to your nonsense without arguing against it. So when you write me some of your silly ‘ideas’ (as you choose to call them) I am faced with a choice: either I restrain myself and make no reply, which is frustrating. or, what is more frustrating. I permit myself to be drawn into writing you one of these interminable letters in which I explain my point of view in detail-though it is absolutely futile, because I know by this time that, wherever your ego is involved, you are absolutely impervious to reason and will resort to the most far-fetched rationalizations to avoid having to make any concession.


good example occurred a few years ago when I ventured to suggest that your friend Joel might have schizophrenia. I don’t know whether that suggestion was right or wrong. but the point is that your reaction to it was irrational. You tend to take any criticism of your friends, from me, as an assault on your ego. In this case you also took my suggestions as an attack on your ideology; even though I was careful to frame my arguments as tactfully as possible and in such a way as to avoid offending your ideology. Of course you got your back up and became absolutely insufferable. Later, when you came to visit me, in reference to schizophrenic children who sec the floor heaving and tossing under them, you said, maybe the floor really is heaving’\dots{}\footnote{The three doa are in the letter as I wrote it tD Dave.} Of course you don’t really believe this-youjust make that statement to confirm an ideology designed to satisfy your emotional needs. Where your ego and your ideology aren’t at stake, you take an entirely dif. fcrent point of view. Thus, during that same visit, you mentioned [Kdly’s] case. There-since no friend of yours was involved and your ego and ideology weren’t at stake-you unhesitatingly accepted the existence of schizophrenia, the undesirability of it, and the fact that drugs can bring a schizophrenic back to perception of reality. You also added, ‘Gee, I hope (no one in Kelly’s family has] got anything like that’. If you really believed that the hallucinations of a schizophrenic were as real as the perceptions of a sane person, why would you ‘hope (no one in Kelly’s family had] got anything like that’?


l refrained from pointing out the obvious contradictions in your expressed views because by that time I knew that it was hopeless to try to reason with you on that subject-you would never under any circumstances make any concession. I find that kind of thing thoroughly contemptible and insufferably irritating-though in the majority of cases I refrain from showing my irritation, since it would accomplish nothing anyway.”


This has just happened too many times. If you don’t irritate or disgust me in one way then you do so in another. I’ve justhad enough of it. My tolerance for irritation was low to begin with, and the older I get, the less I can tolerate irritation.


And now, to top off my disgust, you’ re going to leave the desert and shack up with this woman who’s been keeping you on a string for the last 20 years. You write, ‘I’ve been in love with her for more than 20 years, so much so that no otherwoman has ever seriously interested me.’ You forgot to add the qualification, ‘except [Luisa Mueller].’ But leaving that aside, I would say that love is one thing and grovelling servitude is another.Judging from the comparatively little that I know of the case, it seems clear that this woman has justbeen exploiting you. I recall that one time when I was helping you clean out your apartment in Great Falls, I picked a letter out of the garbage on your table and started reading aloud: ‘Dear Linda, Of course it was a blow to learn that you maybe falling in love with someone\dots{}\footnote{The three doa are in the letter as I wrote it tD Dave.} You got mad and snatched the letter out of my hand”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#401, letter from me to David Kaczynski. September or early October 1989, copy from the cabin, pp. 4-9•}


The reader will notice that I did not tell my brother here that I bad once read several of Linda P.’s letters that I had found in a drawer. I would have been ashamed to confess to that.


My letter continues:


But it’s pretty clear what was going on there. She knew you were stuck on her and she knew that she wasn’t much attracted to you as a male. Under the circumstances, the decent thing to do wouldhavebeen to simply cut off all relations with you. In that case you probably would have forgotten about her eventually and would have found someone else. But she found it more expedient to keep you on a string-to keep hold of your affections while her affections wandered elsewhere. Women like passive, gentle males-but they don’t typically consider them desirable as lovers. Especially when they arc younger, women are attracted sexually by dominant, virile males. Bur they like to have a shoulder to cry on-some gentle, affectionate person to whom they can tum for emotional support. There’s nothing evil in that-but in using you for that purpose, lmowing that you were in love with her and that her love was going to go elsewhere, Linda Panik was exploiting you. She must have realized that it would be painful and humiliating for you when she unburdened herself to you about her love affairs, yet apparently she did so anyway. tojudge from that letter.


When she got married, I can just imagine her husband’s amusement when she told him about ‘this poor sap who’s been in love with me for years, and still is, even though I am marrying you’. Then when her marriage broke up, the first thing she did was run to you for a shoulder to cry on. And you accepted that. Don’t you have any self-respect at all? Apparently not. It’s just too despicable.”


So now, after having kept you around as a kind of spare tire for the last 20 years, she’s finally ready to shack up with you. Maybe because she’s getting older and can’t so readily find sex partners any more, maybe for some other reason. Does she love you? I venture to doubt it. I’ll bet you’re the one who is making all the concessions and saaifices. Thus you’re going up to live with her in Schenectady and she’s not going down to live with you in


Texas. It’s safe to say that you two will be adoptingher life-style andnotyour life-style.\footnote{Same. pp. 9, 10.}


I was reasonably sure that Linda Patrik’s life-style was more-or-less conventional middle class, since I recalled that my mother had told me in 1978] that Linda was a professional woman, though I didn’t know what her profession was. It turned out that I was right. Linda Patrik’s life-style is essentially conventional middle-class, in spite of certain gestures toward nonconformity on her part (such as her Buddhist religion) a quirk that is easily accommodated by modem American middle-class values.


The letter continued:


If you want to find out whether she loves you, try this: Ask her to make some major concessions to your life-style and preferences. For example, ask her to live with you in Alpine. This would be a reasonable compromise, because in Alpine she would have most ofthe urban conveniences to which she is presumably addicted, yet you would be close to the desert. Ifshe says yes, then probably she really cares about you. Ifshe refuses to consider the possibility of movingdown to Texas, orof maltingany other major concessions to your life-style, then clearly she doesn’t love you but is merely using you as a convenience.


The idea here is not actually to extract concessions from her. For instance, if she agreed to live in Alpine, you could then, ifyou wanted to, be generous. change your mind. and say. ‘No, let’s live in Schenectady after an•. The idea of asking for concessions is simply to find out whether she really cares about you or whether she is just exploiting you and wants to have everything on her own terms.”


But if I know you, you probably won’t even have the nerve to ask her to live in Alpine. I can pretty well guess who the dominant member of that couple is going to be. It’s just disgusting. Let me know your neck size-I’d like co get you a dog collar next Christmas. I recall your negative opinions about [Sally’s] selfishness in her relationship with [Bill Wadham] and I wonder whether your own case is going to be any better. You thought [Sally] was selfish because [Bill] wanted to suy in Chicago, [Sally] wanted to [move], so of course it was a foregone conclusion that they would [move]. How does this differ from your case? At least [Sally] didn’t keep [Bill] on a string for 20 years before marrying him.


The only thing I’ve really respected in you has been your Ufe in the desert. I especially remember how you returned that beautifully made spear•point to its original resting pl.ace out of respect for the people who made it. and how you crossed the Rio Grande with Juan and shared hisrisks and hardships. So now you’re going co leave all chatjustbecause this female bas finally decided to permit you to become her personal property. and I presume that you will nowbe adopting a morc-or•lcss convmtional middleclass life-style. While you’re at it, why don’t you take a few courses and learn to be an accountant? Or better-why don’t you go to law school? I’ve always felt chat if a thing is worth doing. then it’s worth doing right. so as long as you’re selling out you may as well go all the way and become alawytt


Be all that as it may. I’ve just been disgusted and irritated by you too damn many times. I just can’t take all that crap any more. So from now on, I am just going to cease corresponding with you altogether, and I’ll thank you not co send me any letters of any kind. There’s no question of ill will hcrc-i.t’s just that I can’t any longer take the frequent irritations thatI have from you. You probably don’t realize how often I’ve restrained myself in the face of your irritating traits. That’s the reason for the present outburst of irritation in response to relatively minor irritants; as I said. it’s been building up for a long time. T’une after time. after receiving a particularly asinine letter from you I’ve cold myself that I ought to cut off correspondcncc with you, but then I’ve always softened again. But now I just can’c cake any more. I realize that it’s partly my fault. It’s troc that you’re a fatuous ass and that our personalities arc incompatible, but it’s also true that my tolerance for irritation is unusually low. I suppose that one reason why you get me so upset may be the fact that I do care about you. When my neighbor down here chatters along idiotically like the jerk that he is, I just listen noncommittally to his nonsense and then forget it. But when you speak orace like a fool. I find it hard to be indifferent.


You’re still my little brother (unworthy though you are of th.at honor) and you still have my loyalty. and rm ready to help you if I can whenever you may be in smow need. But. as I said, I’m not going co write you any more. and I don’t want co receive any letters from you either. If you sendme any letters I’ll justthrow them in the stove unread. \&apt: ifsomething really important comes up, you can write to me and get my attention as follows: On the envelope, draw a strt:ight. heavy li,u: wtda the st4mp (ar stamps). Ifyou send me a letter with this marking. I will know that it is something particularly important and will read the letter. But don’t cry wolf by putting this marking on an envelope that contains an unimportant letter. Ifyou do so, then I will no longer regard the marking. and you’ll have no way of getting in couch with me ifsomething important comes up. Ju co what I consider important: If you’re seriously ill, that’s important; if our parents aoak. that’s important; if you’re in any kind of serious trouble and need my help. that’s important; and so forth. On the other hand, ifyou wane to justify to me your ideas about writing. that’s not important; ifyou wane to explain your relations with Linda Paaik, that’s not important; and so forth.


I realize that, not knowing very much about the case, I may possibly be wrong about your relations with Linda P. (though I’m probably right), and I don’t doubt that you could be induced co withdraw your threat (contained in your lase letter) to send me some of your gcofball ideas on language and litcracurc\footnote{(Ca) FL \#400, letter from David Kaczynski co me, probably September 1989: ‘1’d like to punue the discussion oflaaguage and literary issues. \dots{}} (the lase thing I want to hear from you), but it wouldn’t really matter, because if it’s ot one thing then it’s another. Ifyou don’t irritate me in chis way then you irritate me in that way.”


So let’s just call it quits. for the indefinite future.


But remember-you still have my love and loyalty. and ifyou’re ever in strim\&s need of my help. you can call on me.-Tcd”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4o1, letter from me to David Kaczynski. September or early October 1989, copy from the cabin, pp. 10-14.}


The letter shows dearly the conflict between my contempt for my brother. on the one hand, and my affection for him, on the other.


As for Dave’s claim that l broke off with him “for getting married,” the letterspeaks for itscl£ I will only add that I had actually been hoping that he would get married-to someone who was not in tune with mainstream middle-class values-so that I could have had a niece or nephew.


Did l predict accurately the kind of relationship that Dave would have with Linda? I was right on the nose. Well no, I wasn’t right on the nosethe reality turned out to be even worse than rd expeaed.


Investigators who have conducted extensive interviews with Dave and Linda have found that she is unmistakably the dominant partner. In fact, at least one invcstigacor went so far as to say that Dave is “utterly dependent” on Linda psychologically. My brother himself told this investigator that ever since bis early teens he has regarded Linda as “sacred .. (his word). Linda stated that in high-school she and other girls had never thought of Dave as a potential lover-he was only a mend. She never thought of him as a potential lover until he was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old.\footnote{Investigator th gave me all of the infurmation in this paragraph orally on September J, IS)96, and I wrote it down from memory on the rollowmgdaJ September 4-This is what I have now designared as (Qe) IJMsdgator Note Number 2. On Ocmber 8, 1997, IIMsagatar th c:onfirmcd orally and without qualification allof the informationinthis paragraph. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Qe) Investigator Note Number 4 (which wu written onSeptember I4. 1996 and record\& information that Investigator \#2. gave me orally on September 13, I996) states that according to rnvesngamr my brother is “totally dependent on !us wtfe.” (The quotation marks indicate that these arc the words of Investigator \#2.) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf An independent source confirms the investigators’ opinion of Dave’s relationship with Linda. A person who knows Dave and Linda wrote to me on November 9, 1998 : \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I doubt that David will not go to the proverbial bathroom without Linda and either they will both answer questions or she will answer for him. Remember, I’ve seen this pair in action before.(The double nega presumably is unintentional.) \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf The writer of this letter prefers to remain anonymous.} In January or February of 1998, I asked Investigator \#2] to confirm in writing the information in the paragraph of this book to which the present footnote refers. On February IS, 1998, he\Slash{}she gave me pp. I-II of (Qc) Written Reports by Investigator \#2., page I of which stated, ‘“Dave is dependent on Linda psychologically. Dave told this investigator that since his teens he had regarded Linda as ‘sacred’. Linda stated that in high-school she and other girls had never thought of Dave as a potential lover. She never thought of him as a potential lover until he was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old\dots{} I pointed out to lmestigator \#2] that he\Slash{}she had written merely that Dave was dependent. whe?CaS he\Slash{}she had earlier told me that Dave was utterly dependent. Investigator \#2] agreed that the stronger statement was accurate, and inserted the word ..utterly”, so that his\Slash{}her written report now reads, “Dave is utterly dependent on Linda psychologically.” That would correspond to 1977or 1978.


In Chapter 15; we shall see that under Linda’s influence, Dave’s attitudes and behavior have been completely transformed.


The worst of it is that everything I have learned about Linda Pattik brings me to the conclusion that she is completely self-centered, and probably ruthless. While I had guessed correaly (more from my knowledge of my brother’s character than from the little I knew about Linda) that Dave would fall under the domination of his wife, I had no idea that she would be as dominant as Linda Paaik seems to be.\footnote{Ja) Mad Gfflius, p.u.3 states: iman Mafi. a sophomore student of Linda’s, recalled one day in class when theywcre discussinglove, andlindabegmtdlingherstuderuuboutOavid. ‘She said in their first year in college in two difrermt citia, her husband [David] once left school to be with hee He basically blew off school and came to be with her and stayed for months. It was very romantic. They wanted to get married back then. and they timlly did. She told us the story to show bow deep their lave wu.’since Mad Genius is riddled with major errors. it is an open question whether Linda really said what Iman Man allegedly said she said. Butifshe didsayir then it doesn’t speak well for her honesty. 0a¥e no doubt wanted to marryllff at dw: time, but she didn’t want to many him. \& noted earlier in this chapter, by her own account she thought of Dave only as a mend and.not as a potmtial lover until he was in his late rwenties; and apart from what I learned of her lave-life from her correspondence with Dave. she married someone else before-she got around to marrying Dave attheageofIfshe bad bad a •deep-for him, she would have married him many yeanearlier. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Does she lcm: DIM:? My guess i.s dw: she loves him in the mne way dw:she loves her cats, orany otherpossessiom dwserve for hergntifiadan.}


Linda Patrik was a physically attractive woman who, as a professor of philosophy, occupied a position of \&irly high status. Why would she take up with a man like my broth an unsuccessful would-be writer who had neither good looks, nor virility. nor status, nor, seemingly, anything else that would recommend him to a woman of that type? Itis easy to arrive at a plausible guess: She W2ntcd someone whom she could control completely, and from chat point of view my brother was ideal. (And. by the way. she doesn’t have co be “manipulative” in order to control him. She can just tell him right out what she wanes.)


Why. on the other hand, did my brother choose co put himself in servitude to her? Clearly it was an expression of his lifelong tendency to place himself in a position of subordination, to seek someone to look up to and follow, to become dependent. It’s easy to sec why he didn’t find me satisfactory as an object for adulation: I didn’t respect his dependence-I wanted him to be independent. Often during my teens. and occasionally in adulthood when I lost my temper. I made my contempt for him all too obvious. Partly for that reason, partly because ourparents valued me more than they did him. and partly because of the difference between our respective per-sonalities, he had been gnawed all his life by a resentful sense of inferiority to me. Perhaps equally important, he didn’t choose his subordination to me. A3] his big brother. I had been imposed on him by chance.


In contrast, Linda Patrik was an object of adulation that my broer chose himself. Furthermore-and this would be very important for Dave’s self.esteem-she probably has a certain degree of reciprocal dependence on him; in that she leans on him for a sense of physical security. as is suggested by the following emaccs from my mother’s letters:


Lindais in Greece to teach philosophy. Howcvct; when war broke out. classes were cancelled at American University. and she was told to sray put by the American Embassy for the time being because it was too danFous for Americans to fly out at this time. Americans were asked not to go about much and not to congregate in groups for fear they would become targets for terrorists.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#427, letterfrom my mother to me.January 19, 1991, p.2}


Dave says she sounds stressedin her phone calls to him. and he’s thinkingof flying out to join her. (The college will pay his plane fare.)”“\footnote{(Ca) FL \#42,cJ, letter from my motherto me,January 23, 1991, p.+}



\begin{quote}


“Dave \dots{}[is] in Greece right now \dots{} .”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#430, letter from my mother to me.January30, 1991, p.t.}



\end{quote}


Of course, if there had been a terrorist attack, Dave could have done nothing to protect Lin-he has no fighting skills ofany kind-but it must have made him feel like a man for a change to have a woman lean on him for a sense ofsecurity.


It is easy to form a plausible hypothesis as to the reason why Linda and Dave showed my letters to their psychiatrist; why they tried to persuade a doctorin Missoula to refer me to a psychiatrist, and even discussed the possibility of having me committed to an institution. Knowing Dave, I can be quite sure that he showed Linda my letter (FL \#401) in which I argued that she was exploiting him. That letter must have aroused her rcsentment-d the more because what I wrote was true. The behind-my-back macbinations about psychiatrists and mental institutions would have been her way of retaliating against me, and also of driving a wedge between my brother and me so as co eliminate me as a possible rival for his loyalty. Dave would have gone along with her schemes not only because of her dominance over him. but also because of his own deep rcscnancnt of me.


The truth is that. all his life, my brother’s relationship with me has been bad for him. He probably would have had problems with his self-esteem in any case owing to the inconsistency between his high aspirations and his limited capacity for disciplined effort, but those problems must have been greatly czacerbated by the contrast between himself and his older brother-not to mention his older brother’s cutting criticisms. It would have been better for us both if I had broken off my connection with him at the earliest possible date.



\bigskip


I suspect it was Dave’s relationship with Linda that enabled him to fulfill an ambition that he had nursed for two decades: He finally got one of his stories published. ‘El Cibolo’, by David Kaczynski. appeared in the Colorado Writer’s Forum\footnote{(Mc) Story by David Kaczynski. ‘El Cibolo’.} in the fall of 1990. It seems to me to be a professional-quality piece of work, free of any serious blunders of the kind that mar my brother’s earlier stories-or those of them that I’ve seen. 1be most likely Imation that I can think of for this sudden improvement inhis literary craftsmanship is that Linda criticized the writing for him. pointing out the flaws in his use of language and helping him to .correct them. He certainly would have been much more ready to accept such criticisms from her than from me. By helping my brother in this way to gee one of bis stories published. she would have strengthened her hold over him.


Personally I did not care for the plot of’El Cibolo’, but I liked verymuch the way my brother described the protagonist’s relationship with the wild country he lived in and with the people who inhabited it. So on the whole I thought it was a good ory. I wrote to my mother co that effect. and suggested that she might pass my favorable comments on to Dave.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#4J7, Ietter from me to my motbez; December11, 1990 (copy kept in the cabin; I do not have a complete copy of the mailedcopy): “I’ve read I)aw’s story ‘El Cibolo’ . . . ifyou like, you C3D pus OD to him the following comments. i thought ‘El Cibolo’ WU a good What I thougbl Dzw did especially well was evoke the emotions involvedin El Cibolo’s relationship with the country in which he li:wd and with the people who occupied it. I WU very fllvorably impressed by this, let US 5aJ poetic aspect of the story. lbe plat. to me, WU of lime interest-cneielya \&amewodton which m bangthe eYOCUians ofnawm. etc. \dots{} ‘El Cibolo’ looks to me like a profasiona1 piece of work-I didn’t detectin it any seriousblundersofthe kind thatI foundinDave’sotherwmmg.,that [‘\textbackslash{}le seen. “Private to you Ma;you needn’tpaa the followmg on to Daw. Dave’s earlier writings that I’ve seen were sprinkled hae and there with liDguistic blunders that. in my opinion (and. apparently in the opinion of editms to whom he sent his work\} made them unpublishable, \dots{} •mCibolo’ is comparatively free of such blunders. and is therefore such a vast and sudden improvement on Daw ‘s earlier work chac I can think of only one ezplanation. and that is that Daw has found some capable person ro critiaze his writing whose aitidsms he is more willing co accept than he was mine. That person would very likely be his wife \dots{}H \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I wrote that last paragraph because I had become aware that my mother W85 pwfed up with pride avu One’s havmg gotten a srory puhlisbed, and, for rcasons that by now shouldbe obvious to the reader, I detested that kind ofpride on herpart. Because of that, and also because of old rcscmmena. I wanred to puncture her vanity. I believe the paragraph ro be accurate. of course, but my motive for writing it was to take my motherdown a peg.}


The story is interesting for what it perhaps suggests about my brother’s psychology. I gather that it is based at least in part on real historical events. (“Other writers have described how El Cil,olo made bis escape. “\footnote{(Mc) ‘El C!bolo’, p.181.}, Nevertheless, an author’s choice of subject, the way he handles it, and what he decides to emphasize cell us something about the way bis mind works.


El Cibolo’ must have been written well before Fall. 1990 (that is, at the latest. less than a year after my brother left the desert to live with Linda Patrik), and it is consistently antagonistic toward civilization, especially in its modern form:


He couldn’t \dots{} rescue the wilderness \dots{} Even without entertaining any precise image of the furore (spared. mercifully, the sight ofpaved roads, fences, and power Iines\footnote{After his marriage to Linda, my brotherrm a power line ro his cabin. See ChaptCrI5’, Note 24,.} infinitely dissecting the miracle of space)\dots{}\footnote{(Mc\} ‘El Cibolo’, p.185’.}


The story also includes a generous dose of bloody revenge and gruesome violence. which my brother treats sympathetically:


[T]he Apaches let fly their war whoops and the massacre began. It was one of those occasions when a victimized people got the upper hand just long enough to earn notoriety as the aggressor •\dots{} [El Cibolo] cue down slives with bis own strong ann. His garments grew dark and shiny with blood. . . . El Cibolo found himself alone among the scattering of bloody and disfigured corpses. But his heart was tranquil. \dots{}I\#\footnote{(Mc) ‘El C!bolo’, pp. r 183.}


My brother is a vegetarian. When my parents visited me in the early 1980s. my father told me that Dave had become a vegetarian after a fishing trip during which he had gotten sick at the sight of a fish’s death struggles.\footnote{I am depending mainly on memory here, but my memory bas some support \&om (Ca) FL \#2:u,, lctter from me ro David Kaczynski. August 28, 1979, p.i. NI agree with yourdecision about notfishing for pure ‘sport.’ M for-vegetarianism-l wouldjust mention one thing\dots{} Vicamm B-u \dots{}” This suggesa that, in a single letter, my brotherhad told me bothofbis dedsion to stop fishing and ofhis becoming avegetarian.} Even before he became a vegetarian my brother was always squeamish about eating meat. He told me on several occasions that he thought his aversion to meat went back to an incident in which as a small boy he had been frightened at the sight of chickens being cut up. When he visited me in Montana in 1986 he mentioned that he thought his vegetarianism might have something to do with the fear of death.\footnote{ossibly re1evmt here is a remark that my brother made to me in 1984: “Do you remember how suscepcible I used to be to imaginary fanl” (Ca) FL \#283, letter from David Kaczynski to me, betweenJanuary and May 1914. p.:i. Dave was of coune referring to bis childhood.} Since I was busy with something else at the time, I did not pursue that conversational opening. Now I wish I had done so. It would have been interesting.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 15. How my brother’s attitudes changed under Linda Patrik’s influence; why he denounced me to the FBI}


Let’s look at some of my brother’s attitudes over the years. Over and over again his letters-those written before 1989, when he shacked up with Linda Paaikhow his hostility to the c:xistiDg system of society and its underlying values. In filer, they express such hostility far more than my letters do.\footnote{This is on the basis of a subjeane assessment. I not aaually made a count of the number of times my brcdlerand ( ezpressednegative opinions. iD the surminglecren, about modem society.} The reader has already seen examples of my brother’s negative attitudes toward present-day society in some of his writings that we’ve quoted earlier. Here I summarize a few more cnmples:


At this point in the original manuscript of the book, I quoted ac length from a long series of my brother’s letters to me. In view of my brother’s objcctions to the publication of these letters, and consistent with the copyright law’s “fair use doctrine, .. I have been obliged to make minimal use of my brother’s letters throughout this book, and have reluctantly substituted summaries and paraphrases when feasible. The use of summaries makes it impracticable to convey my brother’s ideaswith perfect accuracy, because it would be impossible to transmit those ideas enctly without using exactly. or almost exactly. the same words that my brother used. I have done the best that I can do.


In the early or mid-198os my brother wrote to me about a visit he had made to the border town of Ojinaga, Mexico. He favorably contrasted the relaxed aanosphere of chis town with Anglo hyperactivity. indicated his feeling that material wealth was shameful and “[his] disgust for meAmerican dollar”, and then went on to imply that North American economic power probably was, in some metaphorical sense, criminal.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2J6, letter from David Kaczynski to me, between 1981 and 1985’.}


In a letter that he wrote me in 1981, my brother stated that his ideas grew in large part out of my critique of modern technology, and he indicated his opinion that modem technology ..is not just machines. but a whole method oftaking on experience, and moreover, a methodwhich, for all intents and purposes, assumes a will of its own regardless of human •choices’\dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#247, lettcr from David Kaczynski to me, summer or fall of 1981, p.4,}


In a 1984 letter addressed co me, mybrotherdescribed anxiety aboutthe future as characteristic of modem city life. He indicated his opinion that this anxiety was a response not to real dangers but to the emptiness of the aspirations on which modern dty people base their. and ..the essential nullity of the promises which draw them all their towardthe future.”\footnote{Ca) FL \#283, letter from David Kaczynski to me, between January and May 1984, pp. I, 2\dots{}}


In a letter of December 1984. my brother implied that urban life was highly distasteful. that the bad aspects of progress were inseparable from the good ones, and that he opposed pavingthe access road to the Terlingua Ranch. where he lived.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#298, letter from David Kaczynski to me, December 1984, p.4}


ln a 1985 letter, my brother quoted the distinguished nc Henry James describing electric lighting as “the white light of convenience that hehatcd”.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#300, letter \&om David Kaczynski to me, March or April 1985’, p.7 (note in margin).}


In another 1985 letter, my brother indicated his opinion that rural and small-town Mexico represented a “far less noxious manifestation of culture” than NorthAmerican culture.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#Jen. letter from David Kaczynski ro me, April or May1985’, PP, 3, 4,}


In a letter that he wrote to me in che spring of 1986, my brother implied that he rejected che assumption that the United States was a “free country”. He indicated his opinion that the Soviet Union often served as a kind of “straw man” that prevented Americans from thinking about the problems of their own society. He further suggested that there was little if any more freedom in the United States than in the Soviet Union, and that in this respect the American situation was perhaps worse than the Soviet one because “our oppressors are not so easily objectified and they aa with the subtlety of thought ratherthan the awkwardness and crudeness ofphysical forcc”.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#Do, letter from David Kaczynslti to me, late March or early April 1986,}


In a letter of August x986, my brother indicated his opinion that most people in the industrialized world “are afflicted with the craziness and senselessness of this modem form oflife”.\footnote{P-49-(Ca) FL \#w, Jetter \&om David Kaaymki to me, Augusc Is,86, p.6.}


In August of x987] mybrotherwrote to me thatin his opinion, ifthe economic development of Mexico were successful. the consequences for the culture and landscape of Mexico wouldbe highly negative.\footnote{(Ca) FL ‘\#363, letter from David Kaczyaski to me, August 1987, p.2,}


In August of 1988 (or possibly 1989), my brother wrote a letter to the AlpwAvalandse arguing that the access road to the Tcrlingua Ranch Lodge should not be paved. He based hi, argument. in part, on the notion that genuine aff’ection for the desert presupposed acceptance ofits hardships.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#38o, newspaper dipping sent to me by my mother iD late summer or fall of I988. (Date of clipping appears to be 1988. but legibility of the last digit is poor on the photocopy that I have, and the date could conceivably be 1989.)}


It would be nice to think the organization of our kind of society is gradually breaking down, but I suppose that would be Pollyannaish.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#377, lettcrfrom David Kaczynski to me.June 1988, p.2.}


This last cmaccis from a letterthat my brotherwrote me inJune x988. E.ightand-a-half later he told the Sa.aamento Bee, ifthe government were to put mybrotherto death, myfaith in thesystem wouldbe shattered\dots{}\footnote{(He) Sacramento Bo:,January19, 1997, p.AI6, column 6.}


Whence comes this “faith in the system?” My brother’s attitudes seem co have changed agreat deal in eight years! But it doesn’t surprise me. Dave has never had any fixed attitudes, beliefs, or principles. Wbatevc-beliefs or principles he may profess arc simply a matter of convenience; as his needs change, his beliefs and principles change with them. He will change his beliefs and principles in order to gain acceptance in a social milieu. to gratify his vanity. to avoid losing an argument, or to justify anything that he has done or wanes to do. According to Time:


David is a straight arrow, sensitive and moral \dots{}’ notes Father Melvin


La Follette. an Episcopal-priest and a friend.\footnote{(Hg) Timt:, April 21, 1996, pp. 44. 4,.}


Father La Follette would naturally think this. since my brother undoubtedly professed a morality consistent with that of the social milieu to which he belonged in Tcxas.\footnote{My brother has always been well liked wherever he has been, and I thmlt part of the reason for this is that he is a chameleon who aummatically and unconsciously changes bis behavior, speech. and opmions iD such a way as to make himself acceptable and pleasing to whatever social milieu he happens to be absorbed inat any givm time.} At other times and places. his moral values have not been exactly what would be acceptable to an Episcopal priest.


Back in Lombard in 1978] or ‘79, my brother had to take a driver’s test, or had to get his license renewed, or at any rate had to do something or other at a driver’s-license facility. He came back fuming with anger and frustra. tion at the inefficiency of the facility and the long, unnecessary delays he’d had to put up with. As he was venting bis complaints, I said in jest, r-so let’s go over there some night and throw a brick through their window.”‘ “Okay,.. said my brother, apparently in all seriousness. “You wanna do chat?”‘ I declined. Needless to say. Dave had neither enough courage nor enough initiative to do iton his own.


Once in the spring of 1979, he remarked to me, ‘Tm not going to worry about morality any more. I used to thinkthat morality was the most important thing in the world. but rm not going to worry about it any more.” As to his having previously thought that “morality was the most important thing in the world, .. I suspect that that had only been some passing fad of his, since he had never talked to me about morality.


My brother had a little Dacsun car, and at about this same time (1978-79) he became very dissatisfied with the way his dealer was treating the service agreement-or something along those lines-anyway. whatever the source of his dissatisfaction was, he got angry enough at the dealer so that he said to me, “I would seriously consider going over there some night and vandalizing the place.” I mentioned this in a letter to him a couple of years later. “[Y]ou never committed that vandalism against that Dacsun dealer as you talked about doing.”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#241, letter from me to David Kac::zymki, late SU11UDer or \&JI of 1981,} How did I know that my brother hadn’t committed the vandalism? He hadn’t told me-I just knew that he had neither enough initiative nor enough courage to do it. I’m referring not so much to physical courage as to the courage to overcome cramed-in inhibitions.


The inconsistencies in my brother’s attitude toward morality don’t necessarily imply conscious cynicism on his part. I think he believes more-orless sincerely what he needs to believe ac any given moment. I mentioned earlier chat he seems to be unconscious of his own inconsistencies.



\bigskip


My brother’s letters show that contact with nature was a very important source of fulfillment and satisfaction for him. I summarize some typical examples:


Here again the original manusaipt contained extensive extracts from my brother’s letters, and again I am obliged restrict the quotations orsubstirutc summaries because of my brother’s objections.


In October of 1983] my brother wrote that in an urban environment he felt turned in on himscH: whereas in the desert he czperienccd ..a much greater capacity to feel engaged with things”. He indicated that in urban life his energies were expended largcly in ‘fending off nebulous disasters .., whereas in the desert, bis cff’orts yielded positive. rewarding results.\footnote{(Ca) FL th.,S, letter from David Kaczynski to me, October 1983, pp. 4, ,.}


For a time, my brother lived in a hole in the ground on bis property in


Texas. In 1983 or 1984 he wrote to me czprcssing his appreciation of this primitive dwellingand the closeness to nature that it afforded. He also indicated the satisfaction that he took in his ememcly simple life-style, and observed: “My present dwelling hardly mars the landscape at all, and is surrounded by bushes so that you can’t even sec it from dose by. Nestled in a sort of burrow; I feel a closer kinship with the way the animals live\dots{}”\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.Bo, letter \&om David Kaczynski to me, December 1983 or January 1984, pp. J, 4,}


In anocher letter of 1983 or 1984. my brother indicated his appreciation of “che welcoming silence” of the descrr.\footnote{Ca) FL \#:i81, letter \&om David Kaczynski to me, December 1983, orJanuary 1984,p.4,}


In 1985 my brother wrote to me dcsaibing a backpacking aip he had taken. The letter includes some very beautiful passages dcsaiptive of nature. It also expresses my brother’s inccme distress on discovering that a campground he had once used had been enlarged co twice its original size and was now full of campers’ vehicles.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#Joo, l.etterfrom DavidKaaymkito me, March orApril1985, pp. 4,,. 8, 9,}


When my brother came to visit me in Montana in October 1986, he was on his way back down to Texas after a summer of working as a bus-driver in Chicago. Soon after he arrived I remarked that he seemed unusually cheerful. He said that his cheerfulness was due to the fact char he was on his way back to the desert. He added. “If you think rm cheerful now, you should sec me when rm in the desert!”


There is no doubt in my mind that my brother’s appreciation of nature was genuine, and that his times in the desert provided the richest and most fulfilling experiences of his life. Yet when he decided to shack up with Linda Patrik in order to satisfy whatever need of his own (sec Chapter 14. p. 203). he did not hesitate to sell out to the system and betray the wilderness by becoming part of the consumer society that. a short time before. he had abhorred. He had written me at some time between February and April of 1988:


I found myself drawing parallels to ourown society. The cycle of credit and consumption; the addiction to a lifestyle that hinders any fuller self------’ ‘tualb taliza ..zt 1i;-.u1non; a wtmg spin ru non \dots{}\footnote{(Ca) FL \#374, letter from David Kaczynski to me, between February and April 1988, p.2.}


Less than two years lacer. Ralph Meister informed me by letter that Dave had bought himself a brand-new pickup truck.\footnote{I did not sa11e this letter from Ralph Meister, but my brother himself confirmed that he did buy a new pickup auckar about the time hestartedliving with I..mda. (Qc) Written Reports by mr\#2, p.1.} Ac the same time my brother began wearing forty-five-dollar shirts and other czpcnsm: clothing that Linda bought for him.\footnote{On September J, 1996, I obtllioed from lmestigator th onlinformadon to the cffi:a that ..S-mce their marmge. Linda bas been buying vuy ezpemive. stylish clothesfor my brother, whichhe wears.Thil is a directquote \&om(Qe) Imati.gator Note \# wbidi was writteD by me; itis not a \textbackslash{}’el’bacim quote of the statement of Inwsagamr \#2.. H on Oaobcr 8, 1w,, Imesagator th am l reviewed a verbatim transcript of Iawstigator Note am Investigator thconfirmed orally that this item of information wu correct. This is reported in (Qe) lnvestigator Note \#r. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf At some point Investig.ator \#2 had told me that Dave wore shirts costing forty or fifty doUars that Linda bougbt for him. Later I asked Iawstigaror \#2 ro confirm this, and be\Slash{}she cold me orally on Oaobcr8, 1997, that Unda buys Dave forty-five dollar shirts and he wears them. (Qa) Onl Report from Investigator \# Oaober 8, 1997. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Still laterI asked Investigator co give me written confirmation of this, and he\Slash{}she wrote: “On Oaobcr1. 1997 ..David also coatirmcd that he occasionally wean shirts that cost around forty-five dollan which Linda bas bought for him. (Qc) Written Reports by Investigator \#2., p.r. The word “occasionally. had not been included in the onl report of the October 7, IW, interview of David that lavestigator thbad given me.} Ac some point he had electricity installed-athis cabin so that Linda could use her computer there. and he put in a driveway.\footnote{The naremc:nr that Dave bad clearicity iDstalled so that Linda could use her computer, am that be puc in a driveway. comes from Ga) MAii Gom\&s, pp. 61, 12.1. Bue this book is so riddled with iDaccuracies that the infi>mwionis ofdouhdw. value. HDave was incervicwedby an imesdgator on Oc:tobcr7, 1997, and on October 8 lmestigaa>r infixmed me orally that Dave bad coafirmed that he did have electricity put in his cabin for Linda, and he did install a driveway. (Qa) Oral Report from Investigator \#2., October 8, I997. Later I uked tor \#2. co give me written confirmation of the pare about the electricity. and he\Slash{}she wrote: “On October 7, 1997, David K.aczynsk.i confirmed that . . . [he] installed electricity in his cabin for his own convenience as well as Linda’s.” (Qc) Written Reports by Investigator \#2., p.r. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf It is worth noting that (Ca) FL \#4B2., letter from David Kaczynski. to me, November 2.0, I995, appears to have been pn:pan:d on a computer. When Dave visited me in Montana in I986, we spent some time with his friend Al Ne. Al mentioned that be’ d taken a coune on compuccrs, and Dave responded that computers were the aspect of technology that he found most rcpellcnt.} He cut off his beard and long and a published photograph shows him with hair that appears to have been “done.. by a professional stylist.\footnote{(ja\} Mall Gffli1\&S, p.61, states that Dave cut off’his longhair and beard on shacking up with Linda Patrik. and this particular item of information docs seem to be correct. because one of the photographs inserted between p.n6 and p.m of Mall Gffliau shows him with no beard and with hair that appears to have been styled.M}


(I recall my brother making contemptuous remarks at some point between 1978] and 198I about rebels of the 1960s who had later sold out and adopted abourgeois life-style. Sec Chapter 8, p. 123.)



\bigskip


Dave has told the media that he brought me to the attention of the FBI in order to protect human life:


[T]he thought that a family member-our flesh and blood-may have been responsible for harming other people; destroying families. is-it-it brings such deep regret and sorrow.\footnote{(He) 60 Minura, September t5, 1996, Part Twa, p.u.}


[I]f God forbid. I were in a position to prevent more lives from being lose. I couldn’t do otherwise\dots{}\footnote{(Ha) NY Tunu, Nat., May 2.6, 1996, p.2.5, column+”} ‘“Ceminly myinterest from the beginning was to protect life.”\footnote{(He) Sacramento Bo:,January19, 1997, p.AI6, column 6.} ‘“Violence and the taking of human life is not a way co resolve human problems. It can’t work.”\footnote{(He) Sacramento Bo:,January19, 1997, p.AI6, column 6.}


As a matter of fact. history shows that it very often docs work. Be that as it may; my brother’s explanations of his motive for going to the FBI come across as a string of stereotypical platitudes. It is a curious face that when my brother describes his feelings with complete sincerity. his speech and writing arc never trite or stereotyped; instead. his language is often vividly expressive. Bur when vanity interferes with sincerity in his “creative” writing. he sometimes uses hackneyed turns of speech. Much more marked is the ttitencss of his language when he is trying to deceive himself or others about bis own feelings; in such cases, his expression often, though nor always, becomes distinccly flat and stereotyped. Compare the passages we’ve seen with the extracts from my brother’s letters that we’ve reproduced in this and earlier chapters.


In face–to–face relations my brother is generally compassionate, and I indicated at the end of the last chapter that he has sometimes shown himself ro be quite squeamish at the sight of suffering or gruesomeness. But I can’t recall any instance in which he ever expressed concern aboutsuffi:ring that he didn’t wimcss personally and that wasn’t inflicted on anyone he knew. I don’t remember him ever expressing regret at assassinations, disasters, or even the brutality of war. It is certain that through mast of bis life he has not had any principled opposition to violence.


For a brief time after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy he expressed fervent admiration for Sirhan Sirhan: He said that he envied


Sirhan’s fanatical commitment to a purpose for which he was prepared to sacrifice everything. One evening at his apartment in Great Palls he casually remarked. NI should become a aiminal-of the senseless kind. .. (Ibis. of course, was only a fantasy; I knew and I think my brother knew that he would never rake any practical steps toward putting it into effect.) After John Hincklcy’s attempt to assassinate President Reagan. Dave wrote me:


Reagan has recovered, I regret to inform you \dots{} Another bullet hit Reagan’s secretary in the head. Naturally. he’s alright.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#2.34, letter from David Kaczynski to me, March or April ?911. The Spanish original is: “Reagan ha recobr6, Iamemo te informar. ••Una otra bala atin6 al secreWio de Reagan en la cabeza. Naturalmmte cst:i bi.en.I’m uncenam as to why Dave said that Brady was “alright.•} (Translated from bad Spanish) \_


When he visited mcin Montana in 1986, my brother expressed satisf.iction at the Challenger disaster, even though scwral astronauts bad been killed, because it was a blow to the pretensions of the space program. Knowing him as I do, I am certain that if Dave had known of the Unabombcr before 1989, he would have regarded him as a hero.


Dave’s claim that he and Linda went to the FBI in order to •’save.. is further undercut by the fact that the Unabomber had promised to stop the bombings if his conditions were mer. Dave and Linda must have known about the promise. since it was well publicized. In fact. the New York Times wrote:


Professor Patrik . . . read a surge of news accounts about the Unabomber. The articles told of \dots{} the Unabomber’s promise to cease the bombings ifthe manuscript was published.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 2.6, 1996, p.2.5, columm3, +}


My brother knew that Iam reliable about keeping promises andthat. ifI were the Unabomber, there would be no more bombings as long as the conditions were met. Since the Manifesto had already been published, the Unabomber was not to resume his attacks unless the mediarefused to publish his three follow-up mcssagcs;\footnote{As conditions for permanmdy stopping bis aa:ack.s. the Unabomber demanded publication of the manifesto and of three much shorter ammal follow-up znes. sages. He also reserved the right to use violence ifthe authorities ever succeeded in tracking himdown. (Ha) NYTimes, Nat., April 26, 1995, p.AI6. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Thus, by heJping the FBI to find the Unabomber, my brother would have been incrm.ringthe risk of furtherviolmc:e-if I were the Uaabombec.} which was unlikely given that they had published the manifesto. In any case, ifmy brotherwas worried aboutthat possibility, he could have sent me a message (an anonymous one, if he thought that necessary) stating that he suspected me of being the Unabombcr and thac he would give my name to the FBI if there were any more bombings. IfI were the Unabombcr, that would have been an cff’ective deterrent.


So why did Dave and Linda denounce me to the FBI? (knowmybrother well enough to be fairly confident in guessing-to an apprmimation. anyway-whac his motives were. Since Dave’s lack of initia is such cbac he doesn’t take decisive action until prodded by someone else, the firstimpulse would have been provided by Linda. This is supportedby media reports, for whatever they may be worth.\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 2.6, 1996, p.2.5. columns 3, (He) 60 Mimaa, September 15, 1996, Put Two, p.(ii): “LESUE STAHL: •.Linda dragged David to the local library to read the manifesto.P. MIKE WALLACE: .•Unda tumed to a childhood friend. Susan Swanson. a private imestigat.or in Chicago, to find an e:zpert to compare Ted’s letters with the Uoabombcr’s Manifesto.•} Linda’s mo likelywouldhave been vindictive: she had probably hated me ever since reading what I wrote about herin my 1989] letterto Dave (FL \#4or, reproduced in Chapter 14).


Once well embarked on the course that Linda had set for him. Dave would have held to it tenaciously until-barring clear proof that I W3S not the Unabomber-he endedbybringing me to the attentionofthe FBL This is confirmed by a letter that Susan Swanson (Dave’s and Linda’s investigator) sent to Newsweelc:



\bigskip


Your article on David Kaczynski . . . conveyed the mistaken impression that he had to be pushed into contacting the FBI regarding his suspicions about his brother, Ted. . . . I would like to set the record straight•\dots{} [H]e never waffled orstalled.”“\footnote{(Hf) Nle,JuncJ, 1996, I.ETTERS section.}


Dave was motivatedby his tendency co see me as a tyrannical aggressor in any conflict in which I was involved (sec Chapter9, pp. 133-13s) andby the (probably unadmitted) hatred that he bore me because of his own sense of inferiority andbecause ofthe faa that. to my shame, I had many times said things that hurt him cruelly. Above all. I think he wanted to exert power overme and feel thathe was victorious ovcr me.


This docs not mean chat he had no conflicting feelings about his course of action. On the contrary; his resentful impulses had to overcome his very real aifcction for me and a strong sense of guilt over what he was doing. This guilt is indicated. for enmple,by his having tried to get the FBI to conceal permanently the fact that it was he who brought my name to their attention.\footnote{(Db) Dave’s Deposition, pp. 159-163.} Apparently he was ashamed of what he was doing.


Very likely Unda kept prodding him along, and this would have been important to him in that it provided him with support and enabled him to feel that he alone was not responsible for the action that was being taken. He also turned for support to his friend, Bill Wadham.\footnote{Same, pp. 2.1-23, Ouk,West declined to give Dave any opinion as to whether I might be the Unabomber, but he did suggest to Dave that he ought to visit me. Accordingly, my brother wrote me a letter (Ca) FL \#4S2., November 20, 1995, in which he said be would like to come and see me. This le1ter was an interesting eurcisc in bypoaisy. It was cucfully mnnulatcd to avoid giving ‘my hint that Dave suspected me of being the Unabombcr or that anything else unusual was happening; it rambled along nomlgially about how much he cared for me. and concluded: “I’d lib to see you because we’re brothers, with shared memories and a bond of genuine afleaion bdWl!m us.This ac a rime when be was conranplating dmouncing me to the FBL The expressions offeeling inthisletter do not have the flat, sweacyped quality that my brothers language ofi:en shows when be is being imincere; pemaps because he took bis time and pi”epan:d the letter carefully. I’m reminded of the way he used to take me in by telling little lies as a kid.. He’s a very good liarwhen he takes the tTOuble to put out the necessary dfort. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Since ( had made it emphatically clear that ( wanted to separate myself permanently from the family ((Ca) FL \#461, lctter from me to David Kaczynski.July :i.o, 1991; FL \#466, letter from me to David Kaczynski. August 13, 1991), I don’t know how he could have czpeaed. me to let him come andvutt. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In my answering letter (Ca) FL \#4’3, letter from me to David Kaczynski. November 30, Iffl, I reminded himin saongrcnns that I never wmted to see or hear from him orany memberof thatstinkingfamily a.gain-butwith this qualification: I reaffirmed my commitment to help him if he were ever in desperate straits; ifhe needed such help he could contact me.}


But. in my opinion. even without any support from anyone, once Dave felt that a decisive victory over big brother was within his grasp, be would have carried the affair rhrough to a conclusion--<hough without admitting to himself that he wu impelled by rcscnanent. Being an adept rationalizer, he would have had no difficulty in providing himself with an unselfish motive.


Of course, after the FBI had been contacted, the matter was out of his hands, and from char point on he was simply manipulated by the reds. His deposition shows how naive he was and how easily he swallowed the FBI’s lies.\footnote{For example. an FBl agentnamed Kathleen Puckettwho had a degree inpsychology told my brother that I would be happier ifI were permanently imprisoned, and he apparently swallo\textbackslash{}Wd it. (Db) Dave’s Deposition, pp. ll4, ll5-Dave is well aware of my poweriul. need for personal freedom. andonly an io.aedible degree of both gullibility and self-deception could have enabled him to bewM that garbage. Of course. he Wdnud to believe itbecause ithelped him resolve his conflia. Also see (Db) Dave’s Deposition, p.a.o.}


Though I’m fairly sure that the foregoing rcconmuction of what.went on in my brother’s mind is more orless correct. I have to admit that itis ro a degree speculative, so the reader is at liberty to remain skeptical about it.


But we have clearly established in the course of this book that my brother docs have a very real and strong (though perhaps unconscious) resenanent of me, and we showed a few pages back that a concern for humanlife was notlikely to be the major part of his motive for denouncing me to the FBI. He claims that his motive for representing me in the media as mentally ill is to save me from the death penalty. and the implication is that he is impelled by concern for my welfare, but here again his motives arc not cuctly what he pretends.


It’s quite true that Oavc doesn’t want me to get the death penalty. but the reason has little to do with concern for my welfare. He knows very well that imprisonment is to me an unspeakable humiliation and that I would unhesitatingly choose death over incarceration. In his story, ‘El Cibolo’, he shows that he understands and appreciates this point of view:


..So this, El Cibolo thought. was imprisonment: the denial of t:Ver’f gut. especially beauty and space. \dots{}.\footnote{(Mc) Story by David Kaczynski. ‘El Cibolo’, p.178.}



\begin{quote}


“[El Cibolo] would be czpccting death hourly. and even supposing the indictment intended cnc:tly what ic said, what were the probabilities he could survive the deliberations of a court that was notoriously ruthless in defending the interests of the empire? Ifjustice were a sham, perhaps it was just as well to abbreviate [with death] the inevitable misery and humiliation, for at least now he could be consoled that he went to his grave in the full flower of his dignity and manhood.”\footnote{Same, p.180.}



\end{quote}


Precisely what my brother wantS is to deprive me of my dignity and manhood, to humiliate me and bring me low, in revenge for his own feelings of inferiority and humiliation; feelings for which I was partly (but only partly) responsible through the way I had treated him when we were kids and through the cutting things I had said to him on certain occasions in adulthood.


He did not want me to die, but that was not from concern for me, it was simply because he is chicken-heartcd. As I pointed out at the end of Chapter 14. he is frightened of the crude and obvious cruelty of death. rn his statements to the media he repeatedly mentioned how tenible M would feel if I were put to death; he made no reference to my feelings on the subject. Ir was his own pain and not mine that he was worrying about:


“‘It would be very, very difficult to live with myself. David said. ‘Knowing that I had delivered my injured, disturbed brother over to be killed.\footnote{Hb) Wa.dlinpPosi,Junc 16, 1996, p.A2l.}


“David, for his part, said he would suffer in the extremeifhis brother were given the death penalty.


I would be plunged into hell for the rest of my lifi:.’ he said. ‘and I don’t think I deserve that.”\footnote{(He) Samzmenca B. January 19, I’NT, p.AI6, column s. Also see (Ha) NT Tuna, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.25, column3.}


But my brother’s motive for lying about me to the media wu not only to save me from the death penalty. In fact. that motive was less important than his desire to inflict further humiliation on me. This can be shown in four ways.


Fint: Some of the things he said to the media could only have ied my risk of getting the death penalty. For instance, the fact that Iwas abused psychologically by my parents would win sympathy for me that prcsumably would decrease th\_c likelihood of my being sentenced to death, yet we saw near the end of Chapter 3] that my brother went out of his way to deny that the abuse had occurred, even though he knew very well thatithad. Did he do this in order to protectour mother from public embarrassment? If so, then he was weighing our mother’s mere entb4rr4S.mlfflt against my life or death. Since our mother had clearly wronged me, one would think that she ought to be apectcd to put up with the embarrassment of having the truth rc:vcalcd, especially since my life was at stake.


In addition, my brother denied our father’s abuse of me, even though our father was dead. Ifhe thought it would be too cruel to our mother to have even our father’s abusiveness revealed, he could at least have bad the grace to remain silent on the subject; but instead he described ourfather as always generous”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, columD 1.} and said that “Both parents were warm and nurruring. “\footnote{(He) S4ffllJllffltO B.January 19, I9W, p.A.16, column r. In tbis Ba: iDrerview my brother docs a great deal of whining over how awful be feels about the f.u:r that he had to denounce me to the FBI. hue a photograph on p.1 oftheBa:, apparently taken at the time of the in shows him with an ezpression so self. salisfied that two members of my defense team independentlyezpressedannoyance at his smug appearance. It’s quite true thatbe is ll’Oubledby guilt CMrwhat he’s done. but l think his sense ofguilt is oucweighed by his samncti911 athaving fimlly gotten revmge onbigbrodw:.} There is no way this could have been motivated by a desire either to save me from the death penalty or to protect our mother.


Besides denying the abuse. my brother made a number of sratcmcnts about me that made me look mean and therefore, one would suppose. inaeased my risk of receiving the death penalty. For example, according to the New Yorlc Tima, he described me as “overbcaring”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, columD 1.} and “incapable of sympathy. insight, or simple connection with people, “\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, columD 1.} and he accused me of “imperious put-downs.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.22. column i.} And, as I showed in Chapter IO, be cook a “hard line” in portraying to the media my role in the Ellen Tarmichael “ affair, rather than admitting (as he’d done earlier by implication) that there were circumstances chat mitigated my behavior. He claimed he was trying co “humanize” me,\footnote{Same, p.1, column r.} but he said only a few things chat tended co do that; bis portrait of me was on balance rcpcllcnc and hardly likely co win the sympathy of a jury.


Scanul: After my brother’s and mother’s interviews with the New Yorlc Times and the Washin.gt011] Post. and on 6o Minutes, my attorneys made it quite dear to Dave that by giving media interviews he was not helping. but harming. my legal position: On October 24, z996, in Investigator \#]’s office in San Francisco, with Or. K. present, Investigator \#3 cold Dave chat the kind of publicity he was creating was causing me emotional distress to such an extent that it was intring with my ability co cooperate with my lawyers in preparing my defense. Dave seemed to acknowl that he heard and understood.\footnote{(Qc) Written Repof!S by Investigator \#2. p.1. This information must hae been conveyed to Investigator \#2. by Investigamr \#J.} Yet in January 1997, my brother gave another media interview of the same kind as the earlier ones.\footnote{(He) B.Jamiary19, I9W, pp. Al. AI6.} At this point he could hardly have claimed that he didn’t know he was harming me.


Th.int: Since agreeing co a plea bargain inJanuary, 1998, I have been out of danger of the dcath.,pcnalcy. On February 22, 1998] my brother gave an interview to the Sdten.tct:ad.y Swtday Gazette, according to which “David Kaczynski said his convictions about his brother’s mental illncss \dots{} havc alienatedhimfrom a brother whom he stillloves deeply. ‘Itseems like every word I speakis a dagger to my brother’s heart,’ he said\dots{} Yet Dave has continued to give inccrvicws in which he lies about me and talks about my alleged mental illness ( e.g., Ptopll! Magazine, August 10, 1998), evci though he no longer has the excuse that he is trying to save me from the death penalty.


Fmuth: In his media interviews, Dave desaibed events in language that seemed to have been chosen to make me appear guilty. In fact, the prosecueing attorneys in my case quoted his statements to the media several rimes in their brief opposing the Motion co Suppress Evidence chat my attorneys filed in my behalf.


The truthfulness of the affidavit and its supporting reports is strongly supported by David Kaczynski’s post-search public statements. For cnmple. about two weeks [sic; actually it was twenty days, or nearly three weeks] before David executed his declaration in this case. the Sticramcnto Bee quoted him as discussing the phrase ‘cool-headed logician’ as follows: ‘I choughc. ‘Who else have I ever heard use that expression but Ted r No one\dots{} It’s got co be him.’ Sec Cynthia Hubert, Role in Captun: Haunts ICaczy,tslci’.s Brother, Sacramento Bee, Jan. 19, 1997] at AI (attached as Emibit 33). During an interview with the New Yoric Times printed on May 26, 1996, David stated that when he first read the introductory section of the UNABOM manusaipt his ‘jaw dropped,’ and he i>ericnced ‘chills,’ because ‘it sounded enough like him that I wu really upset that it could be him.’ Sec David Johnson BC Janny Scott, UNABOM Manifesto Horrified Broth.er, Sacramento Bee, May 26, 1996] (reprinted from the N. Y. Times).\footnote{(Pf) Government’s Opposition to Motion to Suppress. p.66. The prosecuting attorneys quoted my brother’s statements to the media also on p.43 (footnote). \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf In fairness to my brother, l should point out that immediately after the words “It’s got to be him,” the \emph{Bee} article continued: “But [Dave] ‘went back and forth’ with his suspicions \dots{},” a stmment that the prosecutors found convenient to omit. (Hc) \emph{Sacramento Bee} January 19, 1997, p.A16, column 4. Even so, the way my brother described to the media his role in my arrest described to the media his clearly tended to encourage a presumption that I was guilty.}


Thus it is clear that my brother did not give his media interviews in order to help”“ me, but because merely bringing about my arrest was not a sufficient revcige for bime had to rub shit in my face by subjecting me to public humiliation.”


Nevertheless-my brother cooperated with my attorneys by participating in several interviews with them and with Dr. K., and he signed for them a declaration that they used with their Motion to Suppress Evidcn. And after one of myattorneys had desaibcd to him the miseries of being injail, Dm: wrote me a letter (October 30, 1996) in which he said:


I both fear and in a gut sense lmow the effect this must be having on you. I lmow that I am the immediate cause of this suff’cring. I’ve passed through periods of denial, in which I aied to convince myself that my actions might even have helped you. But all of that is over now. Ihave had to glimpse my own city. . .. I’m so, so sorry for what I’ve done and for how it hurts you.”\footnote{(Cb) FL SuppJemenary Item \#J. Notice how trite that last senIPDce is: lm so, so sorry. \dots{}”Dowe glimpse here the flat. stereotyped mode of expression that often marks my brother when he is being insincere? Maybe, maybe not. But I have no doubt that most of the letter is quite sincere.}


My brother is a ship without a rudder, blown this way and that by the wind. His attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and professed principles change in accord with the emotions of the moment and the influence of the people he is among at any given time. After recovering from the paroxysm of guilt that was expressed in the foregoing letter. he gave the interview to the S4’T4fflfflt0] Bee even though. as was noted earlier, he knew that by doing so he was harmingme emotionally and interferingwith the preparation ofmy defense. While he was with people who supported me, that is, my attorneys. he was overcome with remorse, but when he got back to Unda,


Wanda, and their circle of friends in Schenectady-people who probably cold him he was a “hero” for denouncing his brother-he regained his nerve and treated himself to another round of rubbing shit in my face with the Bee interview.\footnote{(Hc) SaanfflfflfO Bee.January 19, 1997, p.AI6, colwnn2: “Davtd \dots{} acknowledg(ed] that he has had bouts of depression inrecent months. \dots{} But with the support of his fmuly and friends, he said, ‘I have bounced back.’“}


The fact that my brother both loves me and hates me is notVcr’f remarkable in itsel£ Itis not uncommon for people to have strongly conflicting feelings toward one another, or for relationships to alternate between hostility and affection. What is remark.able is the seeming lack of connection between the two aspects of my brother’s personality; they do not seem to be integrated with one another. When be is being friendly with me or generous toward me he speaks and acts as ifhis rcsenancnt did not exist, andit is possible that he is completely unconscious of that aspect of his feelings •. toward me. Atany rate, it seems clear that he is unwillingto face up to it and think about it or talk about it. Though I mentioned in my letters the indications of his resentment toward me.\footnote{ar example. (Ca) FL \#248, leacr from me ro David Kaczynski. late summer or fall of 1981, pp. 17-1.0.} he never discussed the issue and never denied or clearly admitted that he had any such resentment. The nearest he ever came to admitting even that the issue existed was after my first apology\footnote{(Ca) FL \#263, lctter from me to DavidKaczynski.July 30, 1982.} for having harassed him when we were kids. He then wrote:


I thank you for \dots{} your sympathetic undcrstandmg of what may have surfaced at times as rcsenancnt on my part.\footnote{(Ca) FL \#264. letterfrom David Kaczynskito me, Summer 19h, p.1.}


And that was all he ever said about his resenanent.


It is possible that my brother’s hatred is “dissociaced” in the psyt:biatric sense of the word.\footnote{See latterhalf of Chapter :z.} But, not being a shrink, I will speculate no further in that direction.



\bigskip


What then shall we make of David Kaczynski? Is he a hero or a villain? To the convinced and committed bourgeois, terrified by cb.e social instability that threatens his comfortable servitude, Dave seems to be a hero. Many other people will feel equally strongly that he is a villain: Not only was he motivated by malice that grew in large part out of his own sense of inferiority to his brother, but his revenge was a despicable one that cost him neither risk nor effort. and be apparendy has not even bad the courage to face up to his own motive.


To me the issue is not so simple. In the first place. while covert\footnote{Covert in the sense that be probably hi.des it ewn from himself} malice was undoubtedly my brother’s main. motive for lying about me in the media, it may have been only part of his motive for denouncing me to the FBL Since he readily absorbs the values of the people around him. itis possiblc that after living for several years in an essentially conventional milieu he was sinccrcly shocked by the suspicion that ( might be the Unabomber.


Moreover, my brother is for the most part a generous and kindly person. Statcmcncs and writings of his that I’ve quoted in this chapter and in Chapter I4] indicate that he has at times had fantasies of doing violence to people and to propeny, but in practice, as far as I know, he has never done harm of any kind to anyone but me.


And as for what he’s done to me, I can’t claim it is completely unjustified. I suppose I ought to be excused for the way I abused him verbally during my adolescence, since I was too young to understand what I was doing. But the cruel things that I said to him on certain occasions in adulthood arc another matter. Even though I didn’t know how badly I was hurting him, I did know that I was hurting him. (Sec Chapter 11.)


My brother’s personality has its radically disparate aspects; when I think of him as the gentle, generous man who truly appreciated nature and wrote so beautifully in his letters about his experiences in the desert. I feel sharp\_ regret at many of the things I said to him: my resentment is muted, and I feel that he had a right to retaliate against me. When I thmk about his ugly side, about the covertness ofhis resentment, about the way hehas subordinated himself to a selfish, vindictive woman, about the lying, underhanded nature of his revenge, and about the fact that his resentment grew at lease in part out of his own self inflicted p\$)1Chological subordination to me, I feel very bitter against him.


On balance I condemn him, because his revenge seems to me to be far out of proportion to my offense.


At the same time, I realize that I am not in a position to judge him objectively. Some people who arc sufficiently detached from the situation to be free of bias, and who understand the lasting pain and injury that can be inflicted by verbal cruelty. may well feel that my brother’s retaliation has been no more than an eye for an eye.



\bigskip


But Dave’s personal betrayal of me is much less important than his betrayal of an ideal, his selling out to an evil kind of society that is destroying among other things the wilderness that gave him the richest experiences of his life. A traitor is always hated far more than a straightforward enemy, and is an object of contempt to everyone except those who expect their side to gain some advantage from his treason. I distinguish between a traitor and a dcfeaor. By a dcfeaor I understand one who changes his ideology and his loyalty as a result of an extended period of serious soul-searching. By a traitor r mean CC who switches sides as a mere matter of convenience, or in order to gain some personal advantage, whether material or psychological. My brother is unquestionably a traitor. There is not the slightest evidence that he did any serious soul-searching before selling out. As soon as Linda Pamk offered him the opportunity. he unhesitatingly made himself her acolyte in order to satisfy his own peculiar psychological needs. In doing so he left the desert, promptly joined the consumer society. adopted its values, and even, as would appear from his Bee interview, acquired “faith in the sysccm.”\footnote{(He) Sacramento Bo:,January19, 1997, p.AI6, column 6.} His denouncing me to the FBI was not only a personal betrayal of me, it was an act of commiancnt to the system, its values, and its power. To those of w who regard the syStem as evil, my brother is another Judas Iscariot, except that, unlike the original Judas, he doesn’t even have enough courage to go and hang himself\footnote{henJudas. which had betrayed him, when be saw that he was condemned. repentedhimself, and brought again the thirtypieces of silver ro the chief priests andclden, “Saying. I have sinned in that I haw bcmyed the innocent blood. And they said. What is that to us? See thou to that, “And be case down the pieces of silverin the temple, and deputed, and went and banged himself.. Matthew 2,:3-,. I trUSt my readers will realize that. in comparing my broth.er toJudas lscariot, I do not intend any comparison ofmyself with Jesus Christ.}



\bigskip


During a telephone conversation with one of my investigators in spring 1998, Dave asked whether it was possible that I could ever forgive him. But he did not offer to retract publicly the lies he had told about me or to do anything else to make up for what he had done.


Repentance is chca sincere repentance-if it is not accompanied by any difficult act of reparation.\footnote{nus, of course, is true also of my own repentance over the tbiags I sometimes said to my brother; but, under the circ:wml:mCeS. I don’t think I owe him aay reparation.} Some years ago I read the Spandau Diaries of the former Nazi Albert Specr.\footnote{Albert Speer. Sptindl\&u: The Strm Dfaria, Pock.et Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, 1977.} Speer’s ruminations about his own guiltwere fairly impressive as evidence oft houghtfulness and sensitivity. But I did notice that the book gave no indication that Speer had done, or intended to do, anything to make upfor his actions as a Nazi. He apparently was in a comfortable position financially and he might, for ezample, have devoted large amounts of money or of personal effort to helping former victims of the Nazi regime, or their families, or victims oftyranny in some other part of the world. It seemed co me that it must have been rather easy for Speer to sit in his safe and comfortable study and write a book (for whichhe was probablywell paid) about his guilt.\footnote{Infairness to Speer. Ishouldmention that behad spent twmty years inprison as a war criminal. which certainly was not easy; but itwu ofno practical use to fi>rmer victims ofthe Nam.}


To answer my broth’s question, yes, I could forgive him-under certain conditions. Basically he would have to undo his treason by detaching himself permanently from the consumer society. from the sy5tem and everything that it represents. In order to do this he would have to break off all connection with Linda Patrik. because her dominance over him is such that he could ncvcr make a lasting change in himself as long as he maintained a relationship with her.


Two possible courses ofactionwouldbe open to him. He could goback to his Taas desert, rip the electrical wiring out of his cabin, and return to his former way oflife; or he could join some group that is fighting the systern-for example. some group of radical environmentalists of the Earth First! type. I think the second alternative would be the only safe one for him. My brother does not easily adhere to any consistent line of thought or action without support from other people. If he went back to Tu.as. it’s more than possible that he would fall again under the influence of the people he knows there. such as the Episcopal priest. Or, if Linda Panik wanted him back, she could go down there to fi:tch him, and it’s not likely that he would resist her. Bue if he immersed himself in a radical milieu. the influcncc of the people around him would help him to stay on a steady course. In this way he would not only earn my personal forgivmess;\footnote{When I say that be would haw my forgiveness, I mean that I wculd no longer bear him any ill will and that I would regard all accounts between us as having been squared. But under no citcumstances will I ever again hold amiable CODvenation or maintain a personal relationship with him. Any such relationship would be bad for both of us.} what is more important, he would be cleansed and redeemed of bis treason against the values that he once held in common with me and many other people. I know how to put him in touch with environmental radicals, and I believe they would accept him ifhe came to them repentant.


But, unfommatcly. I think it’s unlikdy that my brother will break away from Unda Patri.k or from the consumer sod.cry. ( think his submerged hatredof me and his strange need for his servile relationship with Linda are too strong: and beyond that I think he is simply too lazy. If he does not redeem himself: then as far as I am concerned he is the lowest sort ofsewn and the sooner he dies, the better.



\bigskip


Yet the opportunity for redemption is there if he wants to take it. The wild countryis waiting for him. and it always forgives those who are truly repentant.



\bigskip

\chapter{Chapter 16. The media}



\begin{quote}


Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.\footnote{Janet Malcolm. TheJovmalist and CM MKJ’dmr, Vintage Books, Random House, 1990, p.J.}



\begin{flushright}

―Janet Malcom


\end{flushright}



\end{quote}



\begin{quote}


L.M. Singhvi \dots{} relates the anecdote of an Eastern European journalist who said: “ \dots{} our newspapers, like those of the rest of the world, contain truths, half–truths, and lies. The truths are found on the sports pages, the half–truths are found in the weather forecasts, and the lies are found in everything else.”\footnote{LA]onta”‘1 SOll41t4Z, May r8, 1997, p.7-IA]ffltllllaSOIUWUis a supplementinserted in the Mexican newspaper IA\}Of’TIIJIUL The passage quoted has, of course, been aamlated from Spanish.}



\begin{flushright}

―La Jornada


\end{flushright}



\end{quote}



\begin{quote}


It must be the very first thing you learn in journalism school: Why do research when you can make things up?\footnote{David Gelemtcr, DniwittgLi(e: Sl\&ff’Mffgdre Una\&ombcr, The Free Press, I997, p.51.}



\begin{flushright}

―David Gelernter


\end{flushright}



\end{quote}


At the end of Chapter I we saw how Serge F. Kovaleski and Lorraine Adams of the Washington Post misquoted my mother’s Baby Book. In his New York Times article of May 26, 1996, Robert O. McFadden wrote that the Unabomber was desaibed by a wimess as having “reddish-brown hair.”\footnote{(Ha) NY’Zima, Nat., May :MS, 1996, p.24, colwna +} But the desaiption that the FBI obtained from the witness in question stated that the Unabomber had reddish-bland hair,\footnote{(Pd) Application and Affidavit for Search Warnnt. p.Ba, paragraph 154,} and chis information had been massively publicized. So why did McFadden make it reddish-brown! Obviously it was inconvenient from the point of view of bis article that I didn’t fit the desaiption of the Unabomber. The reader can judge for himself whether McFadden’s misstatement was consciously dishonest or merely an inadvertent error.


In the very next paragraph McFadden makes another statement that seems to bear the earmarks of a conscious lie. He states that when the Unabomber was spotted by the wimcss he “panicked” and “fled”. There was no basis for this statement. The Unabombcr’s coolness in leaving the scene had already been publicized.\footnote{For enmple (Hf) NApril 15, 1996, po.. the woman banged on the window. motioning t:hc man away. He calmly picked up the bag and left.” Media repons of t:hc Ul12bomber’s calmness are supported by t:he FBl’s repons of ia mtCI’Vlews with the wimess. (Ne) Police-FBI Inrervicw ofTammara Fluehe. February u. 1987, p.5: “FLUEHli stated that t:hc individual never seemed in a hurry, and walked at a normal pace.(Na) FBI 302, number u. Nowmber 18, I993, p.1: “FWEHE said that when she yelled to GAY the individual pladngthe device on the ground looked up at her \dots{} he then slowly stood up. aimed around and walked toward300 East Street.” (Nd) Memorandum of lnrervicwwith Tammara Dawn Flu.che on December 16, rm: “FWEHE stated the individual who placed the device .•. knew he wu being observed, but did not appear to be startled or afraid andthe individualslowly turned around and walbd away. •.. This individual seemed very confident and in no hurry when he leftthe area.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I am not especially trying to defend the Unabomber’s courage. I am concerned only to show how littlejusmication McFadden had ferhis statement. The reader canjudge fer himself whether the statementwasa comcious lie.}


For the benefit of people who find it incredible (as I once would have found it) that journalists employed by respectable news organizations would intentionally lie in their articles, I note that according to an Associated Press report, ‘The New Republic magazine and the Baston Globe acknowledged that writers made up quotes and people used in st0rics.”\footnote{Michael White. “Bditars UrplTo Challenge Aa:uracy.» Associated Press, October IS, 1998, 1720 SOT.}


Many journalists do not hesitate to mislead individuals in order to get material for stories. As an example I quote the following from a letter from Sherri Wood, librarian at Lincoln, Montana:


[O]ne day a reporter came in (to the library] from the S4C1’rffllDlta Bee and asked for an interview and we told him no. Then he asked us for just some general information about you and the arrest, and the town, justfor background information. He said that it would be off the record. I said ok. and went to file books as we talked. Aftera while I heard Mary askhim why he was writingifthiswas all off’ record andthen he saidhe hadchangedhis mind and decided to put it on record. We both immediately shut up and then asked him to leave, after we told him what a rat we thought he was. He did then go on to print an article and made it sound like I gave him an interview voluntarily. \dots{}I do not trust the press. \dots{}\footnote{(Cb) FL Supplementary Item \#14. letter from Sherri Wood to me, February ., 1998, p.1. Early in April of 1998 I asked Jeff’ Sewrson. a legal assistant OD my defense team, to call Sherri Wood and ask herifitwouldbe alrightfer me to use the quotation to which this fcomote refers. She gave her permissionorally. Later she sent Mr. Severson a letter in which she slightly corrected whatshe had written in FL Supplementary Item \#i. Instead of saying that the reporter had “changedhis mindanddecided to putiton record.shewrote: “He stated he bad decided that it should be up to his boss if what we were sayingshould be off the record ornot.” See (Cb) FL Supplemcnwy Item \#I,, letter from Sherri Wood to JeW Severson, April 8, 1998. There m: no other discrcpmcics these cwo letters of Sherri Wood.}


Unmistakably conscious lies about concrete facts arc relatively infre. quent in the media. False statements are czcrcmcly common, butit is clear that many of them arc simply the result of negligence, and it is often impossible to distinguish the intentional falsehoods from the negligent ones.


In the May 26, 1996-.New York Times articles about me, I counted at least 42] clear errors of fact. in addition co the two probable lies that we cited earlier. To give just a few examples: The Tunes states that my father “loved to go hunting.”\footnote{(Ha) NTTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.. column J.} To my knowledge he hunted once, and only once, in his life. The Times states that my motherwas “familiarwithscience”.\footnote{(Ha) NTTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.. column J.} In reality she doesn’t know as much science as the average fifth-grader. The Tunu states that the car I bought in 1967] was used.\footnote{(Ha) NTTfma, Nat., May 26, 1996, (U3, column3} In fact, it was new. The Tima has myfllthcr’s ployment history badly garbled.\footnote{Same, p.. column 4-The truth is that my fu:hcr had been working fer a Chicago company called Cu.sbion•Pak. In or around1966, Cushion-Pak.sent him co Lisbon, Iowa to start a small branch rhat was called Iowa Cushion-Pak. Iowa Cushion-Pak was doing well when the parent company called my fatherback to Chicago. After working fer a few yeaa in Chicago fer Cushion-Pak. my father resigned and took a job with Foam Cuttiag Engineers because it was much closer to his house in Lombard. 1’be owners of Foam Cutting Engineers were not the same as those ofCushion-Pak and Iowa Cusbian-Pak. Infact, Foam Cutting Enginecn and Cushion-Pakwere competitors.} Etc., etc., etc.


Other national news sources didn’t do much better than the New York Times. Thus Time .Magazine wrote that I had “an outhouse out back” and a root cellar below my cabin, that I had volumes of Thackeray. that I sometimes stayed inside for weeks at a stretch\footnote{(Hg) n. April 15, 19!,)6, pp. 40, 41-I neYerbad anouthouse. I did have a root eellar, but itwas not underneath my cabin: itwas more than a hundred feet awai I bad no volume of Tbackcra\}t I could not have stayed indoors fer weeks at a stretch eYen if I had wanted to. because I badto fetch water. cut firewood, tend my garden. gather wild greens. h1.1Dtfcr meat. andso forth.} (all of which arc false) \dots{} the errors just go on and on and on.


The errors we’ve ju.st been citing arc probably inadvertent ones that resulted merely from excessively sloppy reporting. since it isn’t clear what motive the media would have for lying in these cases. But when false statements are made that tend to inaiminate me. or tend to make me seem repellent or despicable, itis often difficult to tell whether the falsehoods are accidental or malicious. For example, when Time reported that I had “bomb manuals” in my cabin\footnote{(Hg) nmc, April r,, 1996, p.41 wro that my home bad ..two walls filled Door to ceiling with Shakespeare and ‘I1iKbray and bomb manuals » In i:ealitJ no wall of my cabin. had more than a single shelf of boob; I bad perhaps two or three volumes ofShakespeare, not more: no Tbackcray; and Ibad no bomb manuals whaaoeva:.} (which is false), were they lying purposely or were they just relaying false information that they had received from some F’B( agent? When Newsweek wrote, “Ted continued to take handouts from his brother-a few thousand dollars in money orders over the years.” was the falsehood intentional oronly the result ofsloppiness in collecting facrs?\footnote{The quomtion is from (Hf) NApril :a:i, 1996, p. I accepted “bmdoui:s” from my parents. Every one of them was matched by an equal handout to my brother, except for the final handouts in 1991, amountmg to S7,700. See Chapter 7, pp. 111, 113. A3 to the \$7,700, my brother could nothave complained that he was gemng short-changed. since atthat time I rmodall dai.m to my share ofour parents’ estate, so thaI the entire amount (a maacr of some hundreds of thousandJ of dollars) would go to my brother on our mother’s death. See (Ca) PL \#46x, letter from me to David Kaczynski.Jiuy 20, 1991, pp. 8, 9. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf I never asked for nor accepted any “handouts” from my brother. In Chapter 9, pp. 138-139, I described how he oif’ered me money for medical treatmentin case I needed it and how I declined his offer. In 1985 my brother offeffli to give me S:wo for bus fare so that I could visit him in Texas. (Ca) PL \#3(n. letter from David Kaczymki to me. April or May I985’, p.+ I d.”Your 08:cr to give me \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf S:200.00 for bus fare is very generous-but l couldn’t accept it.N (Ca) FL \#304, letter from me to David Kaczynski. lare spring or summer of1985, (U. lnlare 1994 I asked my brother for two loam toalliog \$3,000. My brother did lend me this money. but a loan is not a -lt is true that I wu unable to repay my brother at the time when I had told him I hoped to do so. but it is al5o true that the loan wu well scc:urcd, so that he wu in no danger of losing his mo I changed the deed to my land so that it was heldby my brother and me in joint tenancy. and ifI had died itwould aummatically have become bis sole property. I al5o sent my brother noces in whic;h 1 scared that the land wu to become bis property ifI didnot repay rhe loam by a specified date. According to a loca1 realtor, the land could have been sold for about twelve or fifteen thousand dollus. All this is confirmed by my com:spondmce with. my brolher, (Ca) PL \#473 through PL \#483, and by (Ga) Deed\#6.}


Thus far I have been discussing only false assertions made by the media themselves concerning concrete faccual matters. But there also have been falsehoods of other types. One of these types I call the ..irresponsible quote.” A newspaper or magazine protects itself from the accusation of falsehood by means of little phases like •Jones said \dots{}. or ..according to Smith. \dots{}. For example, the New York Times wrote: “Burch Gehring . .. said he once heard (Ted] complain about his costs rising ro \$300] from S200] a”\footnote{(Ha) NY Tunu, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.24. column L} which is false. The Tuna also quoted a former neighbor of mine, [Le] Roy Weinberg. to the eff’ect that as a kid I ..didn’t play”.\footnote{(Ha) NY Tuna, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.n, column 3. A photograph publisbcd in \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf (Hg) Time, April 15, 1996, p.46, shows me playing in a sandbmin our back yard in Evergtecn Parkin1I very oftenplayedinourbackyard. and Leray Weinberg must frequently have seenme doingso. since bis backyard began only afnr feet beyond the point where ourback yard ended.} a statement so implausible on its face that it should have aroused any reporter’s suspicion. What is much more serious, the Times quoted irresponsible statements that tended to incriminate me: nStade Frederickson. a Greyhound agent in Butte, remembered ticketing Mr. Kaczynski-’a geeky-looking guy’-about I5] times on intercity buses south to Salt Lake City or west ro the coast.”\footnote{(Ha) NYTima, Nat., May 26, 1996, p.24. columnt.} Frcdcrickson’s statement is false. “At a Burger King restaurant next to the bus terminal in Sacramento, Mike Singh. the manager, remembered [Ted]. He was gwhat appeared to be an armful of books. He had a sandwich and a cup of coffee and left. Kaczynski rook a room at the Royal Hotel. next door to the bus station. A desk clerk, Frank Hensley. remembered him because he stayed there periodically in recent years. usually in spring or summer, for three days to a week at a time. He used the name Conrad co sign the registration book. .. \_\footnote{Same, p.25, column x.} Singh’s and Hensley’s statements also arc false. IfFrederickson, Singh. and Hensley didn’t simply invent their stories, then they have confused me with someone else. In carlier chapters we discussed many other false statements about me that have been quoted in the New Ym Times or other national news sources. And-it must be emphasized-there have been so many others ( even in the New


York Times alone) that it would be impractical for me to tty to mention all of them. I haven’t even tried to count them.


As experienced journalists, the New York Timu’s reporters and staff writers are well aware chat, especially in highly publicized cases, there arc a great many people who will make statements that arc false or grossly distorted, either because they arc stupid, or because they want to see their names in the paper, or for some ocher reason. Yet the New York Tinu:s and other national and local periodicals have quoted the uncorroborated words of any jerk who has taken it into his head to talk ro the media, and they have done so without warning their readers that the quoted material is highly unreliable.


Among the large numbers of WM:rified statements that arc available, do the media select for quotation diose that give a story the slant that the editors want? They probably do, though it is difficult to prove it. It is worth noting that almost all of the false statements that have been published about me in periodicals of national circulation have been negative or neutral; only a rare few have been positive.


There is yet another way in which die media purvey falsehood, and in this case there cannot be the sllghcest doubt that intentional slanting is involved.Journalists will make negative statements about an individual that are so vague that there is no way they can ever be definitely proved or disproved, yet by repeating such statements over and over again throughout an article they can give their readers a decidedly false impression of the individual in question.


Robert O. McFadden’s article in the New York Tima provides an excellent example of this technique. The article appears under the headline, “The Tortured Genius of Theodore Kaczynski.”\footnote{Same, p.1.} In reality I am neither tortured nor a genius. McFadden proceeds to assert that in my Montana cabin I “watched dying embers flicker visions of a wretched humanity.\footnote{Same, p.1.} I did nothing of the kin The nae paragraph states that mathematics was the “sole passion of (my] life” and that it was “suddenly dead” .\footnote{Same, p.1.} Actually; mathematics was nev\textbackslash{}:r the sole passion of my life, and my interest in it declined not suddenly butgradually; over a period of years. McFadden then dcsaibcs my undergraduate days at Harvard as “humiliating”.lP They had their bad points, certainly; but I never felt that they were humiliating. He dcsaibes the lines at the comers of my mouth as “obstinate”,\footnote{Same, p.1.} but there is no rational evidence that they have anything to do with obstinacy. In his fifth paragraph, McFadden speaks of my supposed “imtabilitics”, ..obsessions”, and ‘“rigidities’“\footnote{Same, p.1.} without presenting any rational evidence that I


(I) was unstable, obsessed, or rigid, and he goes on co say that I “deteriorated \dots{} until my family”did not recognize” me,\footnote{Same, p.1.} which is sheer fantasy. The ankle rambles along endlessly in the same vein.


Mose of these assertions are so indefinite that it would be virtually impossible ever to prove them false. How would one prove chat one has no “instabilities” or that one has not “deteriorated”? The won:fs are just too vague. It might be possible to disprove a few of the assertions ifone wanted ro tak.c the trouble; for example, I might be able to document that fact that mathematics was never the sole passion of my life. But I would have to devote several pages to this seemingly trivial point, and in doing so I would look ridiculous because I would appear to be making a mountain out of a molehill. I would look even more ridiculous ifI tried to prove that I am not NtortUred”, since the word was never meant to be taken literally anyway; it was used only for its emotional impact. Yet emotional language and indefinice assertions of the kind used by McFadden, when repeated over and over, can quite successfully portray an individual as a repellent sicko.


Needless to say. the New Yorlc Times is not the only periodical that uses this technique. The method is applied quite generally in the news media.


Before my arrest-that is, before I had the opportunity to compare what I know to be the truth. with what the media say-u someone had told me how dishonest the media are I would neverhave believedit. Since my arrestI have calked with a number of lawyers. investigators. jail personnel, and law enforcement officers who in their daily work have seen the dilFercncc between what they have personally experienced and what the media report, and they have all told me that most journalists have little regard for truth and little hesitation about embroidering their stories. As one very able lawyer aprcssed ic to me, !hese people arc animals animals!” (See Appendix 6.)


Why do journalists stretch the truth as tar as they do? For one th.mg, the news media are supponed mainly by advertising. and to sell advertising space they need a large audience. They know that the public is more attracted by a dramatic .story that portrays someone as a hero or a villain than by a sober, careful, balanced account.


For another thing. the media are controlled by people who arc committed to the system because it is from their position in the system that they get their power and their status. Consequently. the media constitute a kind of checrleading squad for the system and its values. Journalists who don’t cooperate with the system’s propaganda line arc not hired by major news outlets, and that is why the news media uniformly support the basic values of th.c system. It is also why they portray as a villain ora sicko anyone who appears to be a threat to those values.


In my case. the FBI quickly succeeded in convincing the media (through dishonest tactics chat we will discuss later) that I was probably the Unabomber. Journalists must have realized that my identification as the Unabomber was unccrcain, since the FBI is known to have railroaded innocent people in the past, but they knew that they could attract a bigger audience by jumping on the bandwagon and crumpeting to the world the capture of the supposed Unabomber than by publishing a sober account chat retained rational skepticism.\footnote{The media often .inserted little inconspicuous phrases intheir articles that would enable them to claim that they had not actually said that I was the Unabomber, but it is safe to say that most readers scan:ely noticed these phrases and received essentially the message that I was the Uoabomber. For example, (Hg) nme. April 15, 1996, p.g: ‘i’b.e man who seems to be the Unabomber W3I arrested-another enmple of the way in which a demon, hitherto concealed. may shrivel when brought into sunlight. The suspect’ s family mmed him in because they rccogaizedbis writing,-4killerbetrayedby bis own prose style.” \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf Despite the phrase “seems to be” and the fact that I wascalled a ‘smpec:t\dots{} to all but rhe most careful readers this amounted practically to a statement that I wu the Unabomber.} Moreover. the Unabomber had attacked the basic values of the system in a strikingly effective way; hence, once they had accepted the assumption chat I was the Unabomber, the media bad to maintain the propaganda line by depicting me as a repellent sicko.


During the first months following my arrest I repeatedly asked my lawyers about the possibilicy of suing some of these people for libel, but they told me that it probably wouldn’t be worth the trouble. because the very volume of publicity about me bad made me into a “public figure,.. and the libel laws concerning “public figures” made it very difficult for any such person co win a libel suit.


The m.tement I made earlier, that the major news media .uniformly support the basic values of the system. may be questioned by some readers who notice that it is not uncommon for the media to aiticize various aspects of the system. But there is a difi’crcnce between questioning aspects and questioning bd.Sicvalucs of the system. The media aiticize. for ezample corruption, police brutality. and racism whenever they appear in the system. but in doing so they arc not criticizing the system itself or its basic values. they arc aiticizingdiseases of the sy3tem. Corruption, police brutality, and racism arc all bad for the system. and by aiticizing them the media arc helping to strengthen the system.


On infrequent occasions the major news media do allow cauti.ous aiticism of some of the syscem”s basic values.\footnote{Sec, for example. (Hg) ThM, August 28, . pp. 50-57, ‘ihe Bwlution of D.. by Rebert Wright. The author does hint u pracacal action. but none that would be inconflictwith the basic needs and values of the SJSfCD1} But such criticism is expressed in more-or-less abstract terms that keep it remote from the sphere ofpractical action. The attitude is always, “Isn’t it too bad that such-and-such; but after all we just have co. accept it and live with it as best we can\dots{} No one is ever encouraged to do anything that might actually upset the workings of the system. “‘Ifyou mean to tell me,’ said an editor to me, ‘that Esquire tries to have articles on important issues and treats theminsuch a way thatnothing can come of it-who can deny ic?”\footnote{Paul Goodman. Gnnwtg1’p Abud, Vumge Boob, 1960, Chapter:i., pp. 39-40} Criticisms of the system that appear in the media constitute one of the safety valves that help to relieve the average man’s resentment; and moreover they provide the illusion of independent-minded journalism. Thus they help to deaden the impulse to real, substantial. fundamental dissent.



\bigskip


After my arrest on April 3, 1996, FBI agents and officials began disclosing to the media massive amounts of information concerning the alleged evidence found in my cabin, and other supposed evidence against mc--though much of the “information” was in fact false. Even if all of the information had been true, its release would have been unethical and contrary to regulations. The government itself admitted this:


The United States acknowledges that government personnel have disclosed to members of the press certain details of the search of Kaczynski’s cabin and of the government’s investigation. Although there is no evidence that these disclosures were made with the intent to influence legal proceedings [ha!], such disclosures were improper and contrary to Department of Justice policy.\footnote{(Pb) Government’s opposition co Oonahoe’s motion. P-4}


FBI Director Louis Frech and Attorney General Janet Reno must have known about the massive disclosures to the press within a day or so after they began. In fact. Frech issued the following directive on April 4


To protect the integrity of this investigation and prosecution, I am reminding you of our ‘bright line’ policy. and there is to be no discussion with the media regarding any aspect of this case. It is not only di.stressingto both me and the Attorney General. but to every person who has worked so tirelessly on this matter over the last several years, to read and hear investigative information in the press. It is destructive to provide that information and must not continue to happen (sic]\dots{}\footnote{Same, p.3.}


But the disclosures continued for s days. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Louis Frech and Janet Reno could have stopped most of the disclosures immediately ifthey had wanted to, because this was notjust a dribble of information leaking out covertly; the disclosures were on a massive scale.\footnote{(Pa\} Donahoe’s memorandum in support of motion ta dismiss. Appendi.z A and Appendi.z 8.} The lawyer who was then representing me, Michael Donahoc, told me that FBI agents involved in the search were openly taking items of alleged cvidcnc;c from the cabin, showing them to representatives of the media, and aplaining (not necessarily truthfully) what they were.\footnote{For confirmation see (Cf) Letter from Quin Oenvir to Michael Donahoe.} Yet Frech and Reno allowed the disclosures to go on until, on April r,, Frech issued a statcmcnc


I ordered an investigation early this month of whether any FBI employees have leaked. investigative information from the UNABOM case\dots{} Unauthorized disclosure of investigative information orother confidential material will lead to immediate firing from the FBI and possible prosecution.”\footnote{(Pb) Government’s oppontion to Oonaboe’s motion. .ExhJhit C.}


By that time, my attorney Michael Donahoe had already filed a motion co dismiss the charges against me on the grounds that the publicity had irrevocably destroyed my right ro a fair trial.\footnote{(Pa) Oonahoe’s motion co dismiss.} In denying this motion. Judge Charles C. Lovell relied in part on the statement of Louis Freeh that we have just quoted: ‘Judge Freeh [Lovell wrote] has ordered an investigation, and he has promised dismissals and prosecution for any government officials releasing confidential information.”\footnote{(Pc) Denial of Oonahoe’s motion, pp. 71 8,}


On August 29, 1996, my attorney Quin Denvir wrote to Robert Cleary. Special Attorney to the U.S. Attorney General and chief prosecutor in my case:


Dear Mr. Cleary:


On April 4. 1996 [sic: should be April 17], FBI Director Louis J. Freeh issued a directive stating. inrcr al, that the FBrs Office of ProfessionalResponsibility was conducting an investigation into the leakage of information regarding the Unabom case and that ‘unauthorized disclosure of investigative information or other confidential information will lead to immediate firing from the FBI and possible prosecution.In denying Mr. Kaczynski’s Montana motion regarding the leakage ofinformation, the district court relied upon that statement of Director Frech. (RT. p. 13.) I am writing to inquire as to whether the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility has conducted its investigation in this regard and whether any FBI personnel have been fired or otherwise disciplined as a result of that invcstigation.”“\footnote{(Cc) Letter from Quin Oenvirto Robert Cleary.}


Mr. Denvir has told me that as of mid-October 1997, he has received no answer to chis letter. It’s obviow thatJanet Reno and Louis Freeh neverseriously intended to prevent the unauthorized disclosures or punish the agents responsible for them. The disclosures were made with the acquiescence (if not the covert encouragement) of Reno and Frech, because theJustice Department knew that the warrant for the search of my cabin had been issued without probable cause. By trying me in the media and creating a public presumption of my guilt they hoped to make it difficult for a judge to suppress the alleged evidence seized from my cabin on the grounds that the warrant was invalid.



\bigskip


As long as we are on the subject of the FBI, I can’t resist passing along an anecdote that was recounted to me by a police officer whom I believe to be intelligent and reliable. and who told me he was an eyewitness of the events.


A local police agency located a drugdealer in whom the FBI was particularly interested and passed the information on to the Feds. The FBI and the local agency then set up a stake-out around the hotel where the suspect was living and waited for him to come out. After they’d waited for several hours, one of the FBI cars pulled away and drove off. Then another FBI car left and then another. The local police lieutenant who was in charge of the stake-out wondered what was happening. so he took off after the FBI cars, pulled one of them over, and asked what was going on. The FBI agents answered that it was five o’clock and they weren’t allowed to work overtime without permission from their supervisoi: So they had just taken off without bothering to notify the local police involved in the stake-out.


I am not, of course. in a position to vouch for the accuracy of this account, but I find it easy to believe in view of other evidence rvc seen of the incompetence of the FBL rm told that most local police forces that have worked with the Feds are contemptuous of them. It seems that the FBI is good at just one thing. namely. propaganda. It has succeeded in acating an image of itself as the world’s most effi:ctm: law-enforcement organization, and. considering the difference between the image and the reality. this constitutes a truly brilliant demonstration of the propagandist’s arc.\footnote{Anyone who would like to know more about the dishonesty and incompetence ofthe FBI is invitedto readJohn P Kdly and Phillip K. Weame, Tawmg CYidt:na: Insidt w SC41!4Als ofw PBl Crime Lab, Free Press, 1998.}



\bigskip

\chapter{Notes on the Referenced Documents}


Notes and Documents ITHE oocuMENTs on which this book relies will be stored in a suitable place and filed in an orderly way so that it will be possible to verify that I have cited them accurately when itis legally appropriate to do so. Each set of documents will be placed in an envelope bearing a letter designation: Aa. Ab, \dots{} Ba, Ca, \dots{} , etc. To make it easy to locate the documents referred to in footnotes. I give references in the form.


(Letter designation of envelope)+ name of document (often abbreviated) + page number or other information indicating the. relevant part of the document.


For example, “(Ab) Autobiog of 1JK 1959, p. 44” means page 44] of the autobiography that adore J. Kaczynski wrote in 1959, which is located in envelope Ab. Again. “(Fd) School Records of TJK, U. Mich., p. 52” means page 52,of TheodorcJ. Kaczynski’s academic records from the University of Michigan, which are located in envelope Fd. The family letters are not in envelopes at all. butarc filed in a large cardboard bm. which bears the letter designation Ca.


Here follows a list of the letter designations, with a description of the documents filed under each, and remarks on the reliability of the information given in the documents.


Aa. Autobiog of1JK1958. This is a very brief autobiographical sketch that I wrote as part of my application for admission to Harvard. Its trustworthiness is impaired by the fact that it was written under the close supervision of my mother, and some of the language may even be hers.


Ab. Autobiog of 1JK1959. This is a brief autobiographical sketch that I wrote. probably in the fall of 1959, for Professor Henry A. Murray as part of a psychological study in which I participated. Its trustWorrhiness is impaired by the fact that I resented having been talked into participating in Murray’s study and therefore aied to avoid revealing too much about my inner self. I tended to downplay problems rather than speaking about them frankly; specifically. I understated the problems I had during adolescence with my parents and my schoolmates. Also, sec Chapter 2, pp. 34. 3S,


Ac. Autobiog of TJK 1979. This is a long autobiography that I wrote ‘ in the early months of 1979. It is a first draft that was never revised; as a result it is rather disorganized and the language is often rough. It should be quite trustworthy, as I was completely honest in writing it, and, while errors of memory arc always possible, I believe that any such errors are inconsequential.


Ad. Autobiog of TJK 1988. In 1988 I consulted a psychotherapist in Helena. Montana, not with the intention of taking therapy, burin search of practical advice and encouragement in an effort to find a woman for mysc1£ In preparation for the one interview I had with her, I sent her an autobiographical sketch that covered mainly my (always unsuccessful) relations with women. This autobiography is inaccurate to the extent that it omits certain facts that ought to have been included in order to give a balanced picture (e.g.my behavior on breaking off with Ellen Tarmichael), and it misrepresents the feelings I had during a certain period in my life. Bur statements of concrete facts in the 1988] autobiography arc rrustWOrthy excepts for orie error that I am about to mention.


The document exists in two versions. The first is a carbon copy of what I sent the therapist; the second is a version that I prepared a few months later. The second version differs from the first only in that certain details of language have been improved, and an error of memory ( concerning something I had once read) has been corrected. In this book, the version that we cite is always the second.


The 1958 autobiography was sent to Harvard and I did nor see it again until after my arrest; the 1959 autobiographywas given to Professor Murray and I did not see it agam. until after my arrest; the 1979 autobiography was hidden away around 1980] or 1981] and I did not see it again until a few months before my arrest. Thus my four autobiographies arc completely independent of one another.


Ae. Autobiog of Wanda. This is an account of the first ten years of my mother’s life that she wrote in 1986. Its reliability is very questionable, because my mother is a person who often exaggerates and occasionally lies outright: and her memory of events is often garbled. But I have no doubt that this autobiography was truthful in portraying my mother’s mother as alcoholic and abusive. This is confirmed by a letter from my mother’s sister Preda (Cb) PL Supplementary Item \#4-Also, on several occasions many years ago I heard my mother’s brother. Benny Dombek. speak of their mother’s alcoholism and abusiveness.


Ba. Baby Book. This is a journal kept by my mother, of the first nineteen months of my life. I think it is reasonably reliable. In the first place, the entries were all made soon after the events. In the second place, the Baby Book contains no indication of my mother’s characteristic cnggerations. In the third place. my mother seems to have been tryingto be objective and “scientific” in recording her observations. And in the fourth place. something happened to my mother when I was about eight years old. I thinkthat before that time she had better control over herself and would have been more careful to be truthful than she was later.


Ca. Family letters. These arc labeled FL \#I through FL \#483, in chronological order. The chronological ordering is not perfect, however, because many of the letters are undated. and in a few cases it has not been possible to determine their cnct position in the chronological sequence.


The Family Letters are those between me. my brother, my parents, and my mother’s sister Freda Tuomincn. Together with the ramily Letters, Supplementary Items,” they include all of the letters between these parties that to my knowledge have survived.


The Family Letters comprise:


14 letters between some member of my immediate family and some unrelated party


4 letters between me and relatives outside my immediate family


I letter from my father to my mother


70 letters from one or both of my parents to me


77 letters from my brother to me


104 letters from me to my brother


213 letters from me addressed to one or both of my parents. or to my parents and my brother


2 letters from my brother to my parents


0 letters from my parents to my brother


(Though the letters are numbered I through 483, there are altogether


485 letters, because there are letters FL \#45A. \#458. \#396A. \#396B.)


Of the 317 surviving letters from me to members of my immediate fatnily; six or eight have been preserved only because I kept copies of them. Thus, significantly, my parcnrs and my brother saved about 3xo of my letters, but saved a total ofthree letters written by other members of the fatnily to one another. My parcnrs and my brother sent me about as many letters as I sent them, but only some 147] of them have been saved. I wish now that I’d saved them all. I saved the majority of the letters that my brother sent me during the 1980s and 9os, but I also threw many away. I saved practically all of the letters that my mother sent me between the fall of 1990] and July 1992; there were some 35] of these. Of the 35] other letters from my parents that have survived. I saved only a very intentionally. The others survived only by chance; mostly because I used to have a habit of answering my parcnrs’ letters by writingon the reverse side of them and sending them back. Thus, in saving my letters, my parcnrs also saved some of their own.


I kept copies of nineteen or (more likely) twenty-one letters that I sent to members of my immediate family. (The reason for the doubt about the number is that I have photocopies of twO documents that I think were copies that I saved ofletters I mailed to my brother and my mother respectively; but I am not absolutely certain of this. These may possibly be [photocopies of) the copies that were acrually mailed. For convenience, I will henceforth assume that these two documents. FL \#407] and FL \#408, were copies that I kept in my cabin.) In thirteen of the twenty-one cases my f.unily saved the copy that I sent them, so that tw0] copies of the letter are available. However, in several of these thirteen cases I kept a copy of only a part of the letter, and in three of these last instances the copy of the letter that was mailed also is incomplete because pages arc missing from it. Or, at least, pages are missing from the photocopies that I have been given. In preparing this book I have not had access to the original letters nor to the copies that I kept in my cabin, but have had co work with photocopies of them.


What about the accuracy of the copies from the cabin? The nineteen copies that t made between September 1989] (FL \#40I) and January 1995] (FL \#478) were what I call “proper” copies; that is, they were made with the intention of attaining word-for-word accuracy. These copies arc carbon copies, photocopies, or manual transaiptions, or else arc first drafts that were modified with the intention of bringing them into conformity with the mailed copy of the letter. The caibon copies and photocopies •can of course be assumed to be accurate. As for the manual cransaiptions and modified first drafts, rve compared the cabin copies with the mailed copies in all cases in which both copies of the letter have survived, and I’ve found only about ten discrepancies. Most of these arc inconsequential. For cumple, the cabin copy of FL \#423] has “except you felt” and “I do nor like receiving” where the mailed copy has “except that you felt” and “I do not like to receive.” I found just three substantial discrepancies. (In FL \#4-,S the mailed copy has ‘January 19, 1995” where the cabin copy has “January \_, 199;,” with an empty space where the day of month should be. The cabin copy of FL \#473] is the first draft of a note in which three dates are mentioned, and only one of the three dates has been corrected to bring it into conformity with the corresponding date on the mailed copy of the note; the other two dates are wrong.) rn the cases in which only the cabin copy of a letter has survived, I believe the manual transaiptions to be as accurate as in the other cases of “proper” copies.


As mentioned above, scvcral of the cabin copies are incomplete, but in these cases the omissions are always noted on the copies. There is only one exception to this. FL \#426] is a carbon copy. The mailed copy of the letter has a postscript that was added after the carbon copy was finished., and the omission of the postsaipr is not noted on the carbon copy.


Besides che nineteen “proper” copies of letters, there are-two “improper” copies that I never C\%pected to have word-for-word accuracy. But, forcunately. in boththese cases che mailed copy of the letter has been preserved. (The two cases are FL \#248, che cabin copy of which is an uncorrected first draft from t98t, and FL \#483, the cabin copy of which was written down from memory the day after the original was mailed. In che case of FL \#483, the copy differs somewhat from the original in language, but is practically identical to it in content. In the case of FL \#248, between che cabin copy and the mailed copy cherc arc about thirty inconsequential discrepancies and three substantial ones: The mailed copy contains a pair of sentences and an unimportant postscript that are omitted from the cabin copy. and the cabin copy contains a long. important paragraph that does not appear in the mailed copy.)


Many of the photocopies that I have are unsatisfactory in that they are partly illegible or some of the tat has been “cut off’ at the edge of the page. In some cases these copies have been doctored by the FBI in an cff’ort ro make them legible. With characteristic incompetence, the FBI has filled in many words incorreccly. When I cite the Family Letters in this book. the reference is always co (the photocopy of) the mailed copy of the letter unless otherwise noted.


Whenever ( make use of the cabin copy of a Family Letter, that fa.a is mentioned in a foomote, if not in the main text. Attention also is called to all cases in which the reading of a quoted passage is doubcful.


Cb. Family Letters, Supplementary Items. These are labeled FL Supplementary Item \#I through FL Supplementary Item \#I;. They comprise some letters that I would have included in the main series of family letters if I had received copies of them earlier, and others that do not fit very well into chc main series.


Cc. Notes on Family Letters. These are notes concerning certain letters that I sent to or received from members of my family. The notes were written at about the time the letters were sent or received, and were kept with the letters ( or copies thereof) in my cabin, where the FBf found them.


Cd. TJK-Juan Sanchez Correspondence. These letters are labeled TJK-JSA \#t through TJK-JSA \#;,. They include all of the letters that I received from Juan Sanchez Arreola. and copies of all the letters I sent to him with possibly one exception. A very few of the copies are incomplccc. and where this is the case the fact is noted on the copy. Some of the copies are cubon copies. some arc manual transcriptions, and some are first drafts modified to make them identical to the letter that was mailed. Because of my interest in the Spanish language, I made the manual transcriptions and modified the first drafts with greater care than in the case of the Family Letters, and I am confident that any errors are trivial and very few; except pos


Cc. Letter from Quin Demirto Robert Cleary.


C.t: Letter from Quin Dcnvir to Michael Donahoe.


Cg. Note from Quin Denvir to Ted Kaczynski.


Ch. Letter from Quin Denvir and Judy Clarlcc to Ted Kaczynski, September I, 1998.


Da. Ralph Meister’s Declaration. This is a declaration that my father’s close friend Dr. Ralph Meister signed at the behest of investigators working on my case. The investigators helped him prepare the declaration. It is mostly accurate except in that it describes me as sutfering from certain social and family problems throughout my childhood, whereas, in fact, these problems developed after age eight to eleven, roughly.


Db. Dave’s Deposition. This is a formally recorded conversation between my attorney Michael Donahoe and my brother David Kaczynski that took place on April a, 1996. Its reliability as to underlying facts is uncertain. since my brother often gets things gmblcd.


Ea. Med Records of TJK, U. Chi. I was born and grew up under the medical supervision of che University of Chicago teaching hospitals, and chcse are my medical records from those hospitals. [n many parts of these records there is a problem of illegibility.


Eb. Med Records of1JK. Dr. Coen. These are records ofmytwo visits to


Dr. Bruce Coen, of Helena Montana, an optometrist who enmined my eyes. Fa. School Records of1JK, E.P. Elementary. Fb. School Records of TJK, E.P. High School. Fe. School Records ofTJK, Harvard. Fd. School Records ofTJK, U. Mich. These are my records from Evergreen Park Central School, Evergreen Park Community High School (both in Evergreen Park, Dlinois), Harvard University. and the University of Michigan, respectively.


Fe. School Records of David Kaczynski. These are David Kaczynski’s records from Evergreen Park Community High School. Columbia University. and the College of Great Falls (Great Falls, Montana).


Ga. Deeds. These arc copies of deeds recanting tramfer of property to or from members of my immediate f.unily. They are numbered I through 6.


Gb. Employment-Related Records.


Ge. Marriage\Slash{}Divorce Records.


Gd. Birth Records.


Ge. Death Records.


G£ Mixed Personal Records.


H. Media Articles and Transaipts. All information from the popular news media has to be considered highly unreliable. Ha. New Yorie Times, National Edition, April 26, 1995; May 26, 1996. Hb. Washington Post.June 16, 1996. He. Sacramatto Bu.January19, 1997. Hd. Missmdian, April 3, 1997. The Missmdian is the newspaper of Missoula, Montana.


He. 60 Mintttts. This is a cransaipt of the September 15, 1996] program of 60 Mintttts. My lawyers obtained both a tape of the program and a transaipt of it from the producers. The transaipt failed to include remarks by Leslie Stahl introducing Part Two. My lawyers’ assistants reviewed the tape and added Ms. Stahl’s remarks to the copy of the tran.saipt that is included with these documents.


H£ Newswedc;June 13, 1994; April 15, 1996; April 22, 1996; June3, 1996; March 3, 1997.


Hg. Time Magazine; August 28, 1995; April 15, 1996; April 2.[2, 1996.


Hh. Peop Magazine; April 15, 1996; April 2.[2, 1996.


Hi. U.S. N,:ws and World Report: April 15, 1996; April 2.[2, 1996.


Hj. BlacJcfoot Valley Dispatch;January 29, 1998; February;, 1998; February 12, 1998. The Bliidcfooc Valley Dispacdi. is the newspaper of Lincoln, Montana. Hk. Scientific Ammcan. May 1997. Hm. San Francisco Chronicle, April 2.[9, 1996. Hn. Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1996; April 16, 1996. Hp. Daily Oklahoman,June n, 1995. Hq. Boston Globe, April 4, 1996. Hr. Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee), April II, 1996. Ja. Mad Genius. This is a book by Nancy Gibbs, Richard Lacayo, Lance Morrow, Jill Smolowc, and David Van BiCina, with the editorial staff of Time Magazine, Warner Books, 1996. This book is highly unreliable.


Jb. Unabomber. This is a book by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, 1996. This bookis not only highly unreliable as to facts, it is the cheapest of the cheap; and I’m not referring to the price.


Jc. L’Affaire Una.bomber. This is a book by Professor J.M. Apostolidcs, Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1996. This book is bigb1y unreliable. At the moment (March II, 1998) I do not have a copy of it.


Jd. English Translation of Uc) L’Affaire Unabomber. This translation, by Brian E. Hollis, was kindly provided to me by Professor Apostolidcs. As far as I know, it is unpublished. As a source of information, highly unreliable.


Ka. Interview of Wanda by Investigator \#I. This is an account of an interview with my mother, Wanda Kaczynski, on April n, 1996, by an investigator employed by the Federal Defender’s Office in Montana. I’ve been told by a very experienced investigator (Investigator \#2.) that Investigator \#1] is quite reliable. It can be assumed that this report gives a reasonably accurate account of what my mother said. and I have quoted only what I believe has been accurately reported. My mother, however, gives an cmemclyinaccurate account of my life.


Kb. Lincoln Interviews. These are reports of interviews of residents of the Lincoln. Montana area during June 1996, by investigators attached to my defense team. Information reported by a great many of the informants was highly unreliable.


La. H.R. Schaffer and W. M. Callender, nPsychologic Bffects of Hospitalization in Infancy,u published in the Paliatrics, Oaober 19S9, pp. s,.S-539.


Ma. Translations by 1JK. These are translations of Spanish-language stories that I made as birthday and Christmas presents for my brother.


Mb. ‘Harold Snilly’. This is a humorous account that I wrote, probably between 1975 and 1977, of an explosion in my high-school chemistry class for which I had some small share of responsibility. It gives an accurate account of what happened. but the name “HaroldSnilly” is fictitious.


Mc. Stories by David Kaczynski. These are stories written by my brother. Two of the three are unpublished. The third. ‘El Cibolo’, was published in the Writu’s Forum of the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Volume 16, Fall, 1990, pp. 172-189.


Na. FBI forms 302. In conducting interviews, FBI agents take notes. Within a few days thereafter, these notes are used to prepare a report that is written up on a form called a “[302.”. These reports are by no means mere verbatim transcripts ofthe notes, and they are notoriously unreliable.. both becawc they contain many unintentional errors and because agents will often distort the information to make it suit their own purposes. A good enmple of this lase occucrcd in my case. However, as far as r can judge \&om the dozen or so forms that I’ve bad occasion to study. where the FBI has no motive for distortion their 302. forms seem to be considerably less unreliable than media reports. Except where noted otherwise, I quote only portions of the 302. forms that I believe accurately report the substance of the interview in question.


After the 302. forms are prepared. the original notes often arc destroyed. The various 302. forms used in preparing this book will be cited as “FBI


302] number 1,” “FBI 302. number2.” etc.


FBI 302] number I reports interview with David It Kaczynski on 2\Slash{}r,-18\Slash{} 96, date of transcription il,:s.\Slash{}96. interviewing agents Leroy W. Stark. Jr., Mary A. Flynn. James D. Willson, Jr.rtle \#I49A-sF-1062.o4] SUB S-2416.


FBI 302] number 2. reports interview with David Kaczynski on 2\Slash{}18\Slash{}96, date of transcription 2,\Slash{}2:1\Slash{}96, interviewing agents Kathleen M. Puckett, LeroyW. Stark. MaryA. Flynn.James D. Willson, File \#I49A-SF-106204(+?).


FBI 302] number 3] reports interview with David Kaczymki on 2\Slash{}242.[5\Slash{}96, date of transcription 2.\Slash{}28\Slash{}96, incerviewing agents Kathleen M. Puckett. Leroy W. Stark.Jr.TonyHenry, rtle \#I49A-sF-1062o4-(illegible).


FBI 302] number 4] reports interview with David Kaczynski on 2.\Slash{}25\Slash{}96, date of transcription 2.\Slash{}28\Slash{}96. interviewing agents Leroy W. Stark. Jr., Kathleen M. Puckett. Ftle \#I49A-SF-Io62.o4] SUB S-2416-(illegible).


FBI 302] numbers reports incerview with David Kaczynski on 3\Slash{}10\Slash{}96, date oftranscription 3\Slash{}13\Slash{}96, interviewing agent Kathleen M. Puckett, Ftle \#I49A-SF-106204] (+?).


FB[ 302] number 6] reports interview with David R. Kaczynski on 3\Slash{} 12J96, date of transcription 3\Slash{} r2\Slash{} 96, interviewing agents Leroy W. Stark. Jr., Kathleen M. Puckett, Mary A. Flynn. File \#t49A-SF-1062o4] SUB S-2,[416.


FBI 302] number 7] reports interview with David R. Kaczynski on 3\Slash{} 12\Slash{} 96, date of cranscription 3] \Slash{} 13] 196, interviewing agents Kathleen M. Puckett, Leroy W. Stark. Jr.Mary A. Flynn, File \#I49A.sF-1062.o4(+?).


FBI 302. number 8] reports interview with David Kaczynski on 3\Slash{}24\Slash{}96, date of transcription 3\Slash{}27\Slash{} 96, interviewing agents Kathleen M. Puckett, Leroy W. Stark.Jr., File \#I49A-SF-106204-(illcgible) 84.


FBI 302. number 9] reports interview with David Kaczynski on 3\Slash{}’Jfl\Slash{}96, date of transcription 3\Slash{}27] \Slash{} 96, interviewing agent Kacb.lcen M. Puckett, File \#t49A-SF-106204(+?).


FBI 302] number 10] reports interview with Wanda T. Kaczynski on 3\Slash{}23\Slash{}96, date of cransaiption 3] \Slash{} ‘Jfl 196, interviewing agents Leroy W. Stark. Jr., Kathleen M. Puckett, File \#I49A-SF-106204] SUB S-2416.


FBI 302. number II rcporcs interview with Theodore J. Kaczynski on 4\Slash{}3\Slash{}96, dace of transcription 4\Slash{}16\Slash{}96, interviewing agents Paul Wtlhemus (Postal Inspector), Donald M. Noel, File \#I49A-SF-1062a4(+?).


FBI 302. number 12] reports interview with Tammy Pluche on u.\Slash{}18\Slash{} 93, date of transcription u\Slash{}24\Slash{} 93, intcrVicwing agents Donald M. Noel, Thomas G. Atteberry (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fm:arms), Fde \#I49A-SF106204] Sub-o-7.


Nb. ‘IJK’s comments on FBI 302. II. These comments were written by me about the end ofJuly 1996, and they point out errors in the FBI 302. number II. They arc reliable.


Ne. Police-FBI interview ofTammara Fluehe. This is an account of an interview of Tammara Dawn Fluche by FBI agent James D. Downey, Detective Ken C. Farnsworth of the Salt Lake City Police Department, and Postal Inspector Howard]. Matthews, on February 22, x987.


Nd. Memorandur!l of interview with Tammara Pluehc. This is a memorandum. bearing •FBI insignia and dated a\Slash{}20\Slash{}93. that reports an interview with Tammara Dawn Pluehe on December 16, 1993] by Postal Inspector Robin Shipman and Alcohol. Tobacco, and Firearms Special Agent Nina Delgadillo. The memorandum is addressed to (Postal?) Inspector George B. Clow, m.


Pa. Donahoe’s motion to dismiss; and Donahoe’s memorandum in support of motion to dismiss. These are: United States of America v. Theodore John Kaczynski, Crim No. MCR 96-6-H-CCL. Motion to Return Property. Dismiss Complaint, Stay Grand Jury Proceedings and Prohibit


Further Prosecution; and Memorandum in Support of Motion co Return Property. to Dismiss Complaint and to Prohibit Further Prosecution, both filed April I5, 1996] in the United States Distriet Court for the Distriet of Montana. Helena Division.


Pb. Government’s opposition to Donahoe’s motion. This is: United States of America v. TheodoreJohn Kaczynski. MCR 96-6-H-CCL, Opposition of the United States to Motion to Return Property. Dismiss Complaint, Stay Grand Jury Proceedings, and Prohibit Further Prosecution, filed on April 18, 1996] in the United States District Court for the District of Montana. Helena Division.


Pc. Denial of Donahoe’s motion. This is: United States of America v. TheodoreJohn Kaczynski. MCR 96-6-H-CCL. Opinion and Ordcrissuedby Judge Charles C. Lovell. filed on April n. 1996 in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Helena Division.


Pd. Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant. This is the Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant filed on April 3, 1996] by FBI agent Terry Turchie in the United States District Court, Helena Division, District of Montana.


Pe. Motion to suppress evidence. This is: United States of America v. Theodore John Kaczynski, CR-S-96.59 GEB, Notice of Motion and Motion co Suppress Evidence; and Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Defendant’s Motion co Suppress. filed on or about March 3, 1997, in the United States District Court for the Ea.stem District of California. Includes Declarations and Appendices in Support of Defendant’s Motion co Suppress.


p£ Government’s opposition to motion to suppress. This is: United States of America v. Theodore John Kaczynski, CR No. S-96-o1.59 GEB. Government’s Opposition co Defendant’s Motion to Suppress, filed on or about April 14, 1997] in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.


Pg. Reply to cot’sopposition. This is: United States of America v. Theodore John Kaczynski, CR-5-96-02,59 GEB, Defendant’s Reply to the Government’s Opposition to the Motion to Suppress; and Motion to Strike, filed on or about May u, 19w in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.


Qa. Oral Reports From Investigators. These are transaibed from disorderly notes that I have on assorted sheets of paper (which are to be found in Envelope X). The transcriptions are euct, word•for,word; and in most cases the original notes also have been preserved (Envelope X). Usually, but not always, I tookthese notes as I was receiving the oral information. Occasionally C jotted the information down later, from memory. If the information was not written down on the day that I received it, I indicated that facr on the note. I am confident chat my notes accurately record the information that I was given. but whether the information was given to me accurately is another matter. Sec the Introduction, p. 5 and Appendix 9.


These remarks apply also to the oral reports that I received from Or. K. See Ra. below.


Qb. Written Investigator Reports. These are written reports of interviews conducted by investigators working for my defense team. They were prepared for the use of my lawyers. and were provided to me after my abortive trial by Investigator \#2., who supervised most of the other investigators. It can be assumed that these reports give a reasonably accurate account of what the informants told the investigators, and unless specifically noted otherwise, I have quoted only wliat I believe has been accurately reported by the investigator. The information provided to the investigators by the informants, however, tended to be highly unreliable. A significant part of it is sheer fantasy. For evaluation of these reports sec the Introduction and Appendix 9.


Some informants were interviewed two or more times. In such cases the investigator report on the informant consists of two or more sections, each of which is labeled with the date on which the interview occurred. The sections arc paginated independently. so that, in order to refer to a spcdfic place in the report on the informant, it is necessary to cite the date of the interview. Thus, references to reports are given in the following form: “(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#172,John Doe, Oanuary32, t999] p. 63( the dace being included only ifJohn Doc was interviewed on more than one date.


Qc:. Written Reporcs by Investigator\#,.. (With list of items to be confirmed by Investigator \#2.) These arc written responses (prepared by Invcstigator \#2] after the end of my abortive trial) to questions I’d asked or to my requests for confirmatin of items of information. Many of the statements in these reports refer coa list of items that I’d asked to have confirmed; a copy of this list is included. For evaluation see Appendix 9.


Qd. Note from Investigator\#5. I believe these to be accurate.


Qe. Investigator Notes (Numbers I, 2, 3, 4, s). On September 3, 1996, between about 4] PM and 6] PM, Investigator \#2] gave me orally a good deal of information. The following morning I wrote down the most important part of this information: this is Investigator Note \#2..


On September 13, 1996. in the early afternoon. I again spoke with Investigator \#2., and he\Slash{}she made two statements that I wrote down late in the afternoon of September14. 1996; this is Investigator Note \#4]


On September 25, 1997, I manually cransaibed Investigator Notes \#2. and \#4-I sent the cransaiption co Investigator \#2] with a request that he\Slash{}she confirm the information itcontained.


On October 8, 1997, Investigator \#2] came co see me. bringing a photocopy of my manual cransaiption of Investigator Notes \#2] and \#4-We went over the copy of Investigator Note \#2, and Investigator \#2] confirmed all of the information in it that I asked him\Slash{}her about, except for one word that he\Slash{}she asked me co change for clarification and one passage of which the meaning was questionable. H there was some information in Investigator Note \#7. about which I did not ask Investigator\#2.


On the photocopy of my manual transaiption of Investigator Note \#2.. the passages that were not confirmed because I did not ask Investigator \#2] about them. and the passage of questionable meaning. arc marked in black ink; I made these markings immediately after the October 8] meeting with lnvestigator \#2. The one word that Investigator \#2] asked me to change is marked in blue ink. I circled in blue inkcertain passages that lnvestigator \#’J. confirmed but asked me not to use publicly, and which I have not. because he\Slash{}she had been given that information under promise of confidentiality. The markings in blue inkwere all made at the October 8] meeting under the instruction of Investigator \#2. I did not ask Investigator \#7. to confirm the information in Investigator Note \#4] at the October 8] meeting. At some later time I noted on the photocopy of Investigator Note \#4] that it had not been confirmed because I didn’t ask.


The photocopy of my manual transaiption of fnvcstigator Notes \#7. and \#4. together with the markings on it. constitutes Investigator Note \#I.


Investigator Note \#J is a photocopy of a note that I sent to Investigator \#7. asking him\Slash{}her for the place and the date on which the information in Investigator Note \#’J. was obtained. with a saibbled note by tor\#2] indicating the date in question.


For evaluation. see Appendix 9.


Ra. Oral Reports from Dr. K. See Qa above for explanatory notes.


Rb. Written Information Confirmed by Dr. K. On February r,, 1998. I sent Dr. K. via the Federal Defenders a letter in which I asked her to confirm certain information that she had earlier given me orally. The information consisted of three items that I had written down. and I told Dr. K. that she could confirm the respective iccms by simply initialing them. On April 2.. 1998. I got the information back with all three items initialed by Dt:. K.


Envelope X. This Cimlope contains the originals of the notes in which I recorded information given to me orallyby the investigators and by


Dr. K. It also contains a list giving the real names of the investigators whom I identify in this book as Investigator \#t, \#2. etc., and the real name of Dr. K. Also a list giving the real names of people whom I have identified in this book by first names, initials, fictitious names (initially accompanied by a dagger symbol) or abbreviations.



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 1. Further examples of my mother’s unreliability}


Further examples of my mother’s unreliability.


In (Ca) FL \#,.[97, letter from my mother to me. December 24. 1984. my mother states that I screamed ..Mommy, Mommy” during .. that hospical experience.” In (Ka) lnterview of Wanda by Investigator \#I. p. I, my mother said that “Ted started screaming and crying. calling nonstop for his mother.” This on March I, 1943, when I was about nine months old. certainly not capable of screaming “Mommy, Mommy,.. and only doubtfully able to associate the word “ma-ma” with my mother. Herc are the relevant passages from (Be) Baby Book (pp. 99, 106, m., ILi. ll5, w):



\begin{quote}


THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK. Daus, from ]AN. 8. To JAN. 15 (1943]


Baby says Ma-ma c;,nly to mother and sometimes to aunt. Usually says this when mother appears after not being seen for sometime [sic], or when child is sleeply (sic] or hungry. Will also say it when playing with mother. We think he associates ‘Ma-ma’ now with the proper object. \dots{}


[From nine-month inventory of the baby’s development:] Does he use any wont ar sarmdfor a d411ik prposd Yes Desc:ribc: Some. times says Ma-Ma and sometimes goes uh-uh. \dots{} ““FORTY-THIRD WEEK [the week after my rcrum from the hospital]. Daus,fromJ\Slash{}o. ta 3h9] (1943] \dots{}. When asked, ‘Where’s Ma-Mat baby looks around at mother. \dots{}”


FIFI7ETH WEEK. Dara,from 4-30 to 5-7 1943


\dots{} Repeated ma-ma, bye-bye after his mother \dots{}”


FIFTY-SECOND WEEK. Dara,from 5•14 to 5-:u 1943


\dots{} He understands: just a minute; come here; how pretty; milk ni, ni; don’t do that; look; show ma-ma: nice; no, no \dots{}”


[From the one-year inventory of the baby’s development:]


Li.stthewonis ustdbythechildatoyearof age Ma-Ma, Da-da; We’re not sure he understands their meaning. tho (sic] when aying he often says mama and we think he’s calling bis mother. Now, was I really screaming ““Mommy. Monuny”“ at the age of nine months. or has my mother’s overactive imagination run away with her” again?


From (Hb) Washington Post,June 16, 1996, pp. Ax, A2o:



\end{quote}


The image still haunts Wanda Kaczyns
ki. She can still sec the photograph of her baby son, pinned down on bis hospital bed. \dots{}


He was terrified, spread-eagled \dots{} His eyes. usually normal. were , crossed in fear.”


A few years later, the family pediatrician showed her and Ted, then 4, the awful photograph the hospital had left in his record. Ted was pinned down so the physicians could photograph his hivc.[1. ‘Ted glanced at it and looked away.she recalled. ‘He rcfuscd to look at it any more. •\dots{}.


My mother gave a similar story in (Ra) Oral report from Dr. K., February n and 27, 1997.


I do not remember having seen the photograph. at age 4-When I was perhaps about ten years old my regular pediatrician, Or. Francis Wright (whom I remember with respect and affection), showed me the photograph (not in the presence of my mother) and remarked with a chuckle that I was quite a sight. And so I was. I clearly remember that in the piccure I was puffy-looking and blotched with hives, and that the expression of my face was glum and not tcrtjfied\dots{} I felt no particular emotional response and did not find the picture difficult to look at. I recall no indication that I was ““pinned down, .. but I do not remember enough to assert that there was no such indication. The photograph apparently has not survived, so there is no way of resolving the question now.”


As for the claim that my eyes were “crossed in fear,.. Or. K. told me that my mother told her ((Ra), Oral Report from Dr. K., February I2. and 27, 1997) that my were crossed in the photograph and thatwere iu:va c:roswl at “[1lY otltatime. On February a. 1998, I asked Dr. K. to confirm this, and she said she did not remember it and could not find it in her notes. On February rs, 1998, I asked Investigator \#2. whether he\Slash{}she remembered Dr. K.’s statement. Investigator \#2. respondedaffirmatively and putitin writing for me: “Wanda reporred that Ted’s eyes were never crossed otherthan in a photo of him taken during the hospitalization as a nine month old.” (Qc) Written Reports by Investigator \#7., p. 6.


Characteristically. my mother is remembering here only what it is convenient for her to remember. [f my eyes were crossed in the photograph there is no particular reason to believe that fear had anything to do with it, since from earliest infancy I had a tendencyto aosscd eyes that I evencually outgrew, but not until I was at least six years old. Herc are the relevant passages from the Baby Bookand the medical records.


May 1942,: “.’slight strabismus (aosscd eyes] \dots{}. (Ea) Med Records of TJK. U. Chi., p. 6.) (This entry is undated, but its contentmakes clearthat it refers to an examination made shortly after mybirth.)


THIRD WEEK. Data, frr,mJune 5] (1942,] toJune [illegible]


Eyes cross as he stares hard at lights or bright objects \dots{} ((Be) Baby Book. p. 73.)


FOURTH WE.EK. Data,.framJune [illegible] to June 19 1942]”


\dots{} His eyes seemed to jirk[sic] uncertainlyin the direction ofthe pencil. at the same time crossing and uncrossing\dots{}.. ((Be) Baby Book, p. 7,[4.) TWENTY-SIXTH WEElC. Dates,Jram Nov. 13 to Nov. 20 [1942] “ \dots{} Neither we nor doctor can quite decide whetherornotbaby’s eyes are slightly crossed.” ((Be) Baby Book. p. 88.) “Dec r, 1948] ..Eyes tum in? .•. Teacher has noted that his eyes cum in occasionally when he is reading. Motherhas not noted any such thing \dots{}.. ((Ea) Med Records of1jK, U. Chi., p. 46.)



\bigskip


In addition to my allergic reaction to eggs, I had two other medical emergencies in infancy: I fell with my tongue between my teeth. so that the tip of it was split;. and I pulled a pot of boiling water or coffee onto myself so that I was scalded. My mother always dcsaibed these injuries to me in such melodramatic terms that I assumed I had been hospitalized for them. At the age ofseventeen I wrote:


While Iwas still a baby. rve been told, Iwas hospitalized3.times. Once I pulled a kettle ofboiling waterovermyself. Another time I fell onmy chin with my tongue between my teeth, splitting it. \dots{} At one time I became covered all over with swelling \dots{} it was due to an allergy to eggs\dots{} (Ab) Autobiogof1JK.[1959, p. 1.


In reality. the tongue injury and the scalding must have been much less serious than my mother represented them to be, since I was hospitalized for neither of them. For the tongue injury sec (Ea) Med Records of TJK. U. Chi. April 29, 1944, p. 25: Time ofarrivlll x:oo p.m. Seen by M.D. x:15] Sent home”


As for the scalding, (Be) Baby Book. p. u3, has: “FORTY-FIFTH WEEK. Daus, [ram 3\Slash{}26] to 4\Slash{} 2] (1943]



\begin{quote}


\dots{} Teddy was scalded with hot coffee. After the physicians trcaanent baby quieted down \& apparently felt no pain but during the next three or four days he showed signs of having had a shock. He slept a great deal Be was quieter than usual.



\end{quote}


That is all that the Baby Book says about the scalding incident. I’ve been able to find no mention of it in the surviving medical records, so I was probably created not at the University of Chicago hospitals but by a neigh-borhood physician (possibly a Dr. Polk whom I remember from my earliest childhood).


The following week, on April 6, 1943, I was taken to the University of Chicago hospitals for a diphtheria-tetanw injection. This could not have been more than eleven days after the scalding. yet the medical record ofthis visit makes no mention of the scalding or of any apparent injury co the skin. So the bums were probably only first degree. This shows how wildly my mother will cnggcrate and dramatize. (See (Ea) Med Records of 1JK,


U. Chi, April 6, 1943, p. c..)



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 2. Francis E. X. Murphy, PhD, and his recent statements about me}


Francis E. X. Murphy was a kindly and very intelligent man, but he was unusually prissy. even by Harvard standards. He was always meticulously groomed, and was so fastidiow that he asked each first-floor srudent individually to please flush the toilet while: urinating rather than afterward. The bathroom was separated from Murphy’s sitting-room by only a thin wall. the coilet was against the wall. and the sound of urine tinkling into the bowl made Murphy feel squeamish. The flwhing was intended to cover the tickling.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog ofTJK 1979, p.6S,}


Gerald Burns was one of the two srudcnts who occupied the room next to mine at 8 Prescott Street, and he has told my investigators that Murphy was “an extremely feminine man” and a little strange”.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#f4t Gerald Bums. p.2} I would agree chat Murphy was noticeably feminine, and a little cccenaic.


The New York Timu stated that Murphy described me as Ha lonely boy with poor hygiene who befriended no one,” and reported nothing else that he may have said about me.\footnote{(Ha) NY Times, Nat., May 26, 1996, ?,al, column 1.}


According to my investigators, Murphy told them the following:


In 1958, the dean of freshmen, Dean [Skiddy] Von Stade, decided chat as an experiment, all of the underage freshmen who were entering Harvard after only three years of high-school, in addition to any freshmen who were noted as being particularly gifted. should be housed by themselves in 8 Prescott, away from all of the normal freshmen. [!?] The house was made up of 15 boys. including Ted, and the dorm proctor, Dr. Murphy.


Dr. Murphy had formerly been srudying to be a Jesuit priest. Dean Von Stade chose Dr. Murphy to be the dorm proctor for 8 Prescott because he wanted the house to be run like a monastery. \dots{} [!!??]


Most of the boys living in 8 Prescott were fairly serious about their academics. They were generally young, bright and eccenttic. Despite the fact that many of the boys had unusual qualities, they got along with each other and made friends easily. \dots{} Ted was the one boy in 8 Prescott who did not have any friends\dots{}”


All of the boys from 8 Prescott ate in the Harvard Union along with all of the other Harvard freshmen. In the beginning of the spring semest someone who worlc.cd in the kitchen alerted Dean Von Stade that Ted always ate at a table by himself Dean Von Stade then asked some of the other boys why they did not cat with Ted\dots{}\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#88, Frmal Murphy. Ph.D., pp. I•J.}


At this point I find myself obliged to confess to a degree of skepticism. It hardly seems likely that the kitchen help would go to the dean about a srudcnt who usually ate by himself. And I doubt that Von Stade would personally have asked the boys about me; instead, he would have requested Murphy to ask them. Harvard deans in 1958] were not in the habit of fratcmizing with freshmen. If this talc has any truth in it at all, it’s more probable that Murphy himself ta1k.cd about me to Von Stade and also to the boys. Why he tells the story in the form he docs is anybody’s guess.


To continue with the investigator’s report:


Theboys responded (to Dean Von Stade] that Ted was unkempt. They complained that Ted never changed his clothingor showered. The boys said that Ted smelled bad and they did not want to sit near him\dots{}\footnote{Same, p.3.}


This is implausible. My mother•had trained me thoroughly in certain simple principles of cleanliness: brushing my teeth and washing my face every day and showering or bathing perhaps two or three times a week. At the end of the two weeks that I spent at summer camp at the age of thirteen, the counselors toia my father that I was the only kid in my group of maybe eight boys who consistently brushed his teeth and washed his face daily. While r was at Harvard I was still firmly under the sway of my mother’s principles and abided by them strictly. I must have showered at least three times a week. because physical training was required that often for freshmen. For much of my first semester I took swimming. and, as if swimming itself wasn’t enough of a wash, showering was •mi before entering and after leaving the pool Later I switched to wrestling and after that toa ..conditioning class\dots{} Though showering was not enforced. as \&ras


I can remember I always did shower in the locker room after these activities, throughout my freshman year.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of 1JK 1979, p.99, mentions die swimming. wresding, and conditioning classes but says nothing about the showering. I don’t wam to gm: the impression thatI’ve showered ufrequcndyas mis tbrougbcut mylifi:.AiierJeav. ing Harvard I tended to shower u iaiequendy u t thought I CDUld get any with. which meant about once a week. This wu motivated partly by my problem with semitiw skin (a dcrnwologisc once told me mat I shouJd shower not more than twice a week), but mosdy by rd,ellion against modem middJe-dats values. For the latterreason. throughout mylife I have scead\&sdy refused to use deodorants. \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf When living alone in the woods, l’ve sometimes passed an entire winter without a bath. Years ago, in some newspaper or magazine. I found a list. published for readers’ amusement. of obsolete laws that were still on the books in various states. I clipped out one of the items and pasted it on the wall of my cabin, above the table. It read: “Taking a bath in the winter breaks an Indiana law.” rn those days. I suppose, theywere more concerned about pneumonia than about smelly armpits.}


During my senioryear I got co showering so often-almost every daychat I broke out with red blotches on my skin. Not knowing what caused chem I went to the Health Service, where a dermatologist diagnosed the condition as eczema”“ and said it was caused by my ““allergic capabilities”“ and by ““ovcr•use of soap and water.”“ (An entry in my Harvard medical record for January ::u. 1962 states chat the. condition was ““eczema on a dry skin basis,”“ and seems to refer co allergic capabilities, though chis last is doubtful due to poor legibility. It does not mention ovcr•use of soap and water.\footnote{(Fe) School Records ofTJK, Harvard. p.66.})


My investigators’ report on the interview with Murphy continues:



\begin{quote}


“Dean Von Stade was concerned thatTed was not takingproper care of himself and as a result, was becoming socially isolated.”\footnote{Same, p.3.}



\end{quote}


The implication, that my classmates were isolating me because of my “poor hygiene,” is inconsistcrit with the evaluation of me that Murphy wrote on March r,, 1959, which we quoted in Chapter s: “although not unsocial. or unpleasant, [Ted] isolates himselfcompletely from all his classmates.”\footnote{Same, p.39.} (emphasis added) The evaluation makes no mention of a “bad smell” or anythingofthe sort.


To remm to the investigators’ report:


(Dean Von Stade] told Dr. Murphy that he mustspeak with Ted about the problem, and tell Ted to dean himself: . . De Murphy wcit and knocked on Ted’s door. Ted opened the door and when Or. Murphy entered, he was appalledbywhathe saw. Ted’s clothes were filthy and there were no sheets on Ted’s bed. \dots{}


Dr. Murphy told Ted that he had to shower and change his clothing regularly. Or. Murphy said Ted should change his shirt everyday. \dots{} After Dr. Murphy confronted Ted, he appeared to dean himself up slighdy.”“\footnote{Qb) Written Investigator Report \#88, Francis Murphy, PhD, pp. 3, 4}


I do not recall any such incident. In any case, my clothes were not filthy. It is recorded in my 1979 autobiography that as a Harvard \&e,bman I washed my pants every weck.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of1JK1979, pp. 64. 65,} The washing was done in coin-operated machines that were available in the basement of the house oen door (which was also used as a Harvard dormitory). and since I could wash sc:vcral pieces of clothingjust as easily as I could wash one, it is hardly likely that I would have failed to do so. (Though I do noc actually remember whether I did so or not.) •


It’s crue that I did not change my shirtday. At a guess fd say I changed it two or three times a week. It’s cruc that I wore the same pants for six days in a row and that I often negleaed to put the sheets on the bed (see Chapter5), It’s true that I was negligent about clothes. (“I dressed sloppily \dots{}”\footnote{(Ac)AutobiogofT]K1979, p.65,}) Bue my clothes stayed pretty clean, since I didnothing rough or dirty in them, and by the standards of the background that I came from chey ccrcainly could nor have been desaibed as filthy.


Would they have been filthy according to Murphy’s exceptionally prissy standard? It’s easy to imagine that they might have been. But if the reader will refer to Murphy’s Resident Freshman Advisor Report,\footnote{Same, p.39.} which was reproduced in its entirety in Chapter 5, he will see that it contains not one word about “poor hygiene,” dirty clothes, a bad smell, or anything of the sorr. IfMurphy had really ought that.I was as filthy and smelly as he now says I was. it seems incredible that he would make no mention of it in his report. (Note that he cold my investigators that the discussion with Von Stade about my isolation took place “in the beginning of the spring semester,” that is, about the beginning of February, so that Murphy would have entered my room and been “appalled” by my “filthy” clothes well before the March r, date ofhis rcporr. Also note that the two evaluations of me by John Finley. written near the end of my sophomore and junior years rcspecy-and reproduced in Chapter s-make no mention of “poor hygiene.”)


The only sense I can make of this is as follows. My dress no doubt was shabby by Harvard standards, and especially by Murphy’s personal standard. Bue, at the time, Murphy probably did not regard my “hygiene” as bad enough to be a major issue or the principal cause of my social isolation. After my arrest he saw pictures of me in the filthy rag., Iwas accustomed to wear when alone in the woods; and he may have been ezposcd, for aampie, to Pat Mcintosh’s tale of my “filthy” room at Eliot House. These acted through the phenomenon of “media planting” to exaggerate vastly his memory of me as rather shabby-looking. until he began to imagine that I was as filthy and smelly as he now says I was. Mistaken identity may be involved here too. In Chapter S, I mentioned a kid at 8 Prescott Street whose hands were always visibly filthy. and they could hardly have remained that way if he ever showered or bathed. This kid may well have had an aroma thac in Murphy’s recollection has now become associated with me:


That Murphy’s memory is in error here is rendered more plausible by the faa that the information he gave my investigators contains several other errors, one of which, at lease, can be clearly documented.


Murphy seated: inthose days scudcnts usually sent their clothing home in boxes to be laundered.”\footnote{(Qb) Writtm Investigator Rcport\#88. .Francis Mmphy. Pb. O., p.+} False. I never heard of anyone sending his clothes home. Students used either coin-operated machines or the student laundry service. Murphy told my investigators that “Gerald Burns was probably the closest to Ted. Gerald was outgoing and he tried the hard.est to include Ted.”ll False. Titis is probably a case of media planting. In Chapter 6 we saw that Bums described to the media his supposed acquaintance with me; but he had me confused with someone else.


We find the following in the investigators’ report:


Dr. Murphy remembers that Ted received a couple of C’s during his first year. Ted’s grades were lower than most of the other students in 8 Prescott. and given the large amount of time Ted spentscudying. his grades seemed unusual. Dr. Murphy met with Ted to discuss the grades. Ted did. notseem concernedby the C’s and consideringth.atTed was young and his math and science courses were difficult, 0\& Murphy let the issue drop.\footnote{Same, P,5,}


In assessing my Harvard grades one bas to take into account “grade inflation.\footnote{Hf) Ncw.nwdc,June 13, 1994, p.63; March 3. IW1, p.64.} Over the years, grading has become more and more lenient in our universities.u Porty years ago an A meant a good deal more than it docs today. and a C was an acceptable grade.


As I remember it, shortly after the fall semester grades were released, Murphy complimented me on the fact that rd gotten two Ks. I grumbled that I was dissatisfied with the two C’s th.at rd also gotten. (See the Introduction. p. 8.) Murphy replied, “Two Ks and two C’s at Harvard, that’s nothingto sniff at!” I partic:ulariyrememberthis incident because ofhis use of the old-fashioned C1’plession. .. nothing to sniff” at. .. And that was all that Murphy ever said to me about my grades. (For those readers who are unfamiliar with the expression .. nothing to sniff at”: it is complimentary. Also: Besides Ks in math and German and C’sin two “soft” courses, I got a B-in Gen Ed A; butgrades in Gen EdA were scarcely regarded.)


Whose memory is correct here, mine or Murphy’s? Fortunately, the documents enable us to give a dear answer. In the first place, Master Finley ofEliot House rcferrc to my “fairly good record ofan A, two B’s and a C” for the first semesterof my sophomore year.\footnote{(Fe) School Records ofT]K. Harvard. pp. 40, 4L} Ifa record of an A. two B’s, and a C was considered “fairlygood,” then two .Ks and two C’s should have been so also, since the average is the samein both cases.


More important: Murphy’s Resident Freshman Advisor Report on me was written on a form that included the following item: “Is his academic record so far about right, below expectation. above expectation? (CirdJ! 01te)” None of the three alternatives were circled, but “above expectation” was underlined.\footnote{Same, p.39.} Thus, at the time, Murphy felt my grades were better than he would have expected, which disproves his present claim that he discussed my grades with me because he thought they were lower than they should have been. Tilis shows the value of his recollections about me.


One other error can be documented, though in this case it is not certain that the error is Murphy’s. Murphy told the investigators that there were fif. teen boys at 8 Prescott Street, and that most of the boys shared a room.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#88. Fr.mcis Murphy, Ph. 0., pp. 1, 3.} But Phil Alman, who lived at 8 Prescott in 1958, stated that there were thirteen rooms.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\#n, Phil Alman. p.I.} With fifteen boys disaibuted among thirteen rooms, only two rooms would have been shared, and eleven boys would have had rooms to themselves, which contradicts Murphy’s statement that most of the boys shared a room. Murphy and Alman can’t both be right. My guessis that Murphy is wrong. since thirteen sounds like a plausible estimate for the number of rooms at 8 Prescott. The question could be resolved by finding out how many rooms 8 Prescott hadin 1958.


Ifit wasn’t because of a ‘“bad smell .. and ..filthy” clothes, why were the other boys cool to my initial efforts to make friends? Some probable factors can be identified.


There is, of course, the fact that I was shy and socially awkward, and my attempts at friendliness must have been the less convincing because they were insincere: “I tried to be friendly with the fellows in my dormitory as a matter of duty. not because I liked them.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK1979, p,64..} I always felt that most of the people at Harvard were just not my kind of people. and I tried to make friends with chem mostly because my parents had made me feel guilty about not being more social.


Probably I was one or two years younger than most of the boys at 8 Prescott Street, and I looked even younger than I really was: ..when I was a Freshman at Harvard, the cop who stood outside the door of the Union once told me I looked 14 years old.”\footnote{Same, p.104,}


I presumably was not made more attractive by the fact that I had a bad case of acne at the time.\footnote{(Ac) Autobiog of TJK 1979, pp. 65, 104-In April of 1958 a.adSeptember of1959 my acne was described by doaors as “mild.and in September of 1958 a doaor called my skin “dear.” (Ea) Med Records of1JK, U Chi., April 2.t, 1958, p.74 and September 10, 1959, p.78; (Fe) School Records of 1JK, Harvard, p.45, September 19, 1959, But my acne worsened rapidly early in my freshman year. Toward the end of my freshman year it began to improve steadily because I began following a treabnent that a barber had recommended to me: washing my \&cc: daily in water thatwas as hot as I could stand it.}


I made no attempt t(? change my dress ormanners so as to fit in with the Harvard environment; f wore my working-class origin on my sleeve. as it were. “I never had the slightest interest in fine clothes or anything of that sort.”\footnote{Same, p.104,} I think the boys at 8 Prescott Street felt that I wu not their kind of people just as much as I felt that they were not my kind of people. This may have been as true of those who were of working-class orlower middle-class origin as it was of the others. It seems to me that most such people at Harvard were trying co move into a higher social class. For CDD1ple, I was amazed to learn from my investigators that Gerald Burns said he was of working-class immigrant background. with a Polish father and a Dutch mother.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#14. Gerald Bums, p.I. u} From his speech, manners, and clothes I had always assumed he was an upper middle-class “prcppie.” And “Bums” is obviously not a Polish name. Probably it is a shortened and angliazed version of something like “Burruck.i” or “Burynski.” All of which suggests that Burns and his family may have wanted to detach themselves from their ethnic and working-class origin.


There may well have been additional factors that contributed to my cool reception by the others at 8 Prescott Street, but for the present I will refrain from speculating about them.


N.B. In case the question should arise whether Murphy’s opinion on March r:,, 1959] that my academic record was “above expectation” was based on my midyear grades of two sand two C’s or on the spring midtermgrades: In the first place, the spring midterm grades were not given out until March 27.\footnote{(Fc) School Records of1JK. Harvard. p.28.} In the second place, it would have made little difference at what point during my freshman year Murphy evaluated my grades. since they scarcely changed prior co the release of the final grades at the end of the year. My freshman grades were:\footnote{Same, pp. 37, JS.}

\bigskip
\noindent
 \begin{minipage}[t]{\textwidth}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{|X|X|X|X|X|X|}
\hline
\relax   &  Math 1a  &  German R  &  Hum 5  &  Soc Sci 7  &  Gen Ed (half credit)   \\
\relax  Fall Midterm  &  A  &  A  &  C  &  C-  &  Not Reported   \\
\relax  Mid Year  &  A  &  A  &  C  &  C  &  B-   \\
\relax   &  Math 1b  &  Pyshics 12a  &  Hum 5  &  Soc Sci 7 A Gen Ed A (half credit) &    \\
\relax  Spring Midterm  &  A  &  Not Reported  &  C  &  C+  &  C+   \\
\relax  Final  &  A  &  A  &  C+  &  B-  &  C   \\
\hline
\end{tabularx}
\end{minipage}
\bigskip



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 3. The N–43 clique}


After writing the first draft of Chapter 6, I learned that two of Mcintosh’s buddies in N-43, John Masters and Robert Applethwaite, in their interviews with investigators, supported his claim that my room was filthy and contained “rotting.. or “stale.. fcod.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#77, John Masr.ers, Robert Applethwaite, -\#98, p.2,. An interview with Masten was repented in (Hr) TM Tautarlllft, April u, 1996; Masters was quoted as saying in refereace to my room: ‘i’here were kind of sandwiches under the bed and milk cartom lying around \dots{} It just smelled of rotting mod.”} Phil Almansaid the floor was covered with piles of trash. but he was doubtful about the food: he said that there ..may have \dots{} been old food and dirty dishcs.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Inwstigamr Report\#n, Phil Alman, p.J.} Mcintosh’s a-girlfriend LK.Va. said that some of the suitematcs told her my room was “knee-deep” in ttash. with rotting food.\footnote{(Qb) Wricren Inwstigamr Report \#147, LK. Va., p. 4,} But it just isn’t true. I lived in that room day in and day out, and I know what was in it. There were never any dirty dishes or food remains left lying around, and the floor was never cdwith crash c±ceptfor the crumpled paper inone comer, as dcsaibed in •Chapter 6, p. 94. In this Appendix I will give the reader evidence that I hope will make him view the account of Mcintosh and company with a degree of skepticism.


The acdibility of Mcintosh and his buddies is undercut by the face that the accounts they gave the investigators and the media contain gross inaccuracies. Some of Mcintosh’s errors were dealt with inChapter 6. Herc we lista few more of his and his buddies’ mistakes.


(i) Mdncosh. while whming about how tough Harvard was academically. cold the investigators: ‘t Harvard the classes were graded on a curve, which meant that half the students failed.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\#79, PalrickMdmosh, p.7.} Harvard did not fail half its students. and the suggestion that it did so is so implausible that we needn’t worry about documentation.


(ii) Mcintosh portrays me as playing the trombone during my senior year: “Senior year, Ted lived in the room next to Paaick and [Phil Alman]\dots{} Ted’s room and Paaick and [Phil’s] room shared a common wall Paaick often heard Ted playinghis trombone. . . . Sometimes Patrick just banged on the wall of Ted’s room to get Ted to quiet down. Ted never complained or protested when Paaick made such a request. and Ted usually stopped playing his trombone.”\footnote{Same. P.l}


Unfortunately for Mcintosh’s credibili I sroppcd playing the crom-bone altothcr after my sophomore year. From John F’mley’s evaluation of me written at the end of my junior year. ‘“For some reason one no longer hears chis year the strains of bis trumphct [sic; trombone is meant] from our top floor\dots{}”\footnote{(Fe) School Records of1JK. Harvard. pp. 40, 4L}


(ill) Mcintosh. Masters, Phil Alman. and Robert Applethwaitc throughout their interviews with the investigators depicted me as living in vimwly complete social isolation.\footnote{(Qb) Written lnvestigator Reports \#n, 77, 79, 98.} But in Chapter 6, pp. 92, 93, I showed that I did have some social interaction: pickup basketball is documented; so is socialization with two suitcmatcs (not belonging to Mcintosh’s clique). Also note that Finley wrote at the endof myjunioryear: “He is still pn:tty lonely but less friendless than he was a year ago,”\footnote{(Fe) School Records of1JK. Harvard. pp. 40, 4L} which implies that F”mley had observed some signifiant degree ofsocial interaction on my part. probably with Fred Ha. and B. Cr.


(iv) Mcintosh’s girlfriend L.K.Va. stated that I always wore a suit and tie.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#147. L.K. Va., p.r.} The reader will not find it difficult to believe me when I say that I almost never wore a suit and tic except when visiting the dining hall. where such dress was required. L.K.Va. certainly saw me without a suit and tie on various occasions. For example, I clearly remember one evening during my senioryear when I left my room naked from the waist up, walked down the hall of the suite, and unexpectedly encountered L.K.Va. She sarted visibly at the sight of my bare chest.


Incidentally. the man whom I referred to in Chapter 6 as “the oddball.. did always wear a coat and tie. Mistaken identity?


(v) Phil Alman stated that Radcllife women were not allowed in “the Harvard library.”\footnote{(Qb) Written lnwstigator Report \#n, Phil Alman, p.s. ro.} In fact. they were allowed in Harvud’s main library; Widener Ubrary. Anyone who wants to take the trouble should be able to verify chis. As far as Iknow, the only orie of Harvud’s sevual libraries from which women were excluded was the undergraduate men’s library. Lamont Library.


(vi) In Appendix I we saw that there was an inconsistency between Phil Alman’s scaccmcm: that there were thirteen rooms at 8 Prescott\footnote{Same, p.1.} and certain statements of F.E.X. Murphy. Herc, though. Alman was probably right and Murphy wrong.


Mcintosh and company made many other errors, but since these rest only on my word against that of one or another member of Mcintosh’s clique, I won’t take the trouble to review them.


(b) There is evidence of “media planting” of memories in the suitemates.


(i) According to the investigators, “When Ted was arrestedJohn [Ma.seers] did notrememberwho he was even after he learned thatTed hadgone to Harvard and lived at Eliot House. Fmally [presumably after considerable exposure to the media]. John remembered that Ted was his former suite mate\dots{}\footnote{(Qb) Written lnvestig?.tor Report \#77,John Masten, p.2.} And, lo and behold, he remembered me just as I had been porcraycdby the media! Not exactlysurprising.


(li) This one is fun, because. we get co play Sherlock Holmesjust a little. Mcintosh. Phil Alman, and Robert Applethwaitc (but not Masters) all refer to my habit of tilting my chair back, and, as they call it, “rocking\dots{} (Sec Chapter 6, p. 96.) All three of them say that as ( “rocked.. my chair ( would make noise by knocking against the wallnow and agam.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#n, Phil Alman, \#79, Patrick Mcintosh. p.3; ‘\#98, Robert Applethwaite, p.3. Mcinrosb. mentioned the “rocking (but not 1cnockinginto the wall) in(Hh) April rs,1996, p.6].}


But I did not knock into the wall. Whathappened was that I wouldlose my balance and the chair would fall forward so that its front legs dunked against the floor. The reader doesn’t have to rely on my word for this. Just stop and think. In a small room, maybe ten feet by ten feet, will the occupant place his desk out in the middle of the floor, where it will be an obstruction? Obviously nor. He will place it against a wall; probably under the window, where the lightingis best. That. in face. is just where my desk was. and my suitematcs musthave known it; because ifthey hadn’tseen the interior of my room then how would they know that it was-as they claim-a foot deep in trash? Everyone agrees that I spent my evenings at Harvard studying. Phil Alman states explicitly that I was “studying and reading” while I “rocked” my chairin the evenings, and “The few times that [Phil] ventured into Ted’s room, Ted was always sitting at his desk holding a book in his hands.”\footnote{(Qb) Wricren lnvestiguor Report ‘\#73, PhilAlman, pp. J,} Robert Applethwaite says that I studied late into the nightand that it was at night that I knocked my chair into the wan.\footnote{(Qb) Written InvestigatorReport ‘\#98, Rebert Applediwaite, P.J.} From chis we deduce what was accually the case, that my chair was in front of the desk when I .. rocked” it. Ergo, the desk was between my chair and the nearest wall.


Manifestly. therefore. the chair could not have knocked against the wall. and my suitematcs ( except possibly Mcintosh, on account of his limitacions) must have realized this at the time.


It can hardly be coincidence that aU thru of these gentlemen make the same obvious mistake of thinking that my chair knocked against the wall rather than the floor. One can only conclude that their respective accounts arc not independent of one anoth Presumably Phil Alman and Robert Applcthwaite were exposed to Mcintosh’s story in the media and subsequently imagined that they themselves remembered what they bad really heard from Mcintosh. Elementary, Warson.


(Added March 25, 1998: I had already written this appendix when. on or about March r998, I learned that Mcintosh and Phil Alman had both been quoted in the media on April 4. 1996, the day after my arresc.\footnote{(Hq) Bo.rron Globe. City Bdidon. April 4, 1996.} The account amibuted to Alman is interesting for twO reasons. F”irst, the article quotes Mcintosh about the allegedly filthy condition of my room, but does not quote Alman as saying anything at all about the condition of my room. Second and more important, the article quotes Alman as saying that I would ‘bang the legs of [my] desk chair on the floor,” is which is correct. Yee several months later, in December 1996, Phil Alman cold my investigators chat it was against the wall that I banged my chair,\footnote{(Qb) Written lmatigacor Report \#73, PhilAlman, p.r (fordate) andp..a. r,.} which, as we’ve just shown, is obviously improbable. One can attribute this change in Ahnan’s story only to his exposure to Mcintosh’s version in the media. This is an interesting testimony to the power of media-planting. It can not only insert a new memory where no conscious memory was present. but replace an accurate. conscious memory with a new. false one that is intrinsically improbable.)


(c) Mcintosh claims Master Finley came to the suite and cold me co clean up my room;\footnote{(Qb) Written Imacigator Report \#79, PatrickMdntosb, p.4} according to Time, Mcintosh said F”mley was “aghast” at the sight of the mcss.\footnote{(Hg) Time, April 15, 1996, p.45. Mcintosh is similarly quoted in (Ja) MAil Gomu,p.33.} John Masters mentions that F’mley told me to clean up my room but says nothing about his being agbast.\footnote{(Qb) Written lnvestig?.tor Report \#77,John Masten, p.2.} As we pointed out in Chapter 6, in the evaluations that he wrote of me at the end of my sophomore and junior years, respeaivcly. F”mley made no mention of the condition of my room. No evaluation was written for the senior year, butif my roommates did not contact Finley until I was a senior, one wonders why they waited two years. I think. anyone who understood F”mley’s role at Eliot House would agree that it is very unlikely that he would ever personally have come to inspect a student’s room or told him to clean it up. He would have left that task to the chief janitor.


As a matter of fact, Finley never said anything to me about my room. What did happen was that on two occasions I found a note from the chief janitor asking me politely to clean up the pile of aumplcd paperin the corner because it wu a “fire ha.zam\dots{} I promptly complied in both cases, and after the second instance I did not again allow the paper to accumulate. I don’t know whether my roommates had said something to the chiefjanitor, or whether they had said something to Finley and he had passed it on to the chief janitor. or whether the pile of paper had been noticed during a routine inspection.


(d) Pat Mcintosh. John Masters, Phil Alman, and Robert Applcthwaite formed a clique within N•43. They hung together because of the similarity of their values. attitudes, and habits. All four were status-conscious. e:icessivcly neat, narrow-minded, conformist types. The investigators’ interviews of these people were not intended co explore this issue, but they nevertheless offer some indications:


Robert Applcthwaitc said he gave up the idea ofdoing graduate workin astronomy because he thought that many of Harvard’s graduate students in astronomy were “not well-adjusted.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator R.eport\#98, Robert Applethwaice, p.4,}


John Masters thought C. Po. was “strange,” in part because he studied insects.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report\#77. John Masters, p.,a.}


Pat Macintosh whined about the fact that the “cheap” rooms he lived in lee everyone know that his family didn’t have much money.\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Report \#79, PatricltMclntosh, pp. :i., 3, 9,} He also cold the investigators chat “Harvard was full of strange people,”\footnote{Same, p.s.} which I suppose means they were strange by the standards of Robinson, the small cown in southern Ulinois from which Mcintosh came.\footnote{Same, p.1.}


When Phil Alman worked on dorm crew. he “was always resentful that he had to clean rooms that were so much nicer than his own.”\footnote{(Qb) Written Investigator Rqtort\#n, PhilAlman. P.:2..}


I held a couple of brief temporary jobs deaning scudcncs’ room at Harvard, and it never bothered me to clean the rich kids’ rooms. If they could afford them they were welcome to them, as \&r as I was concerned. I wasn’t scarus-comcious, and my own room was good enough for me. The reader will not find it hard to understand why I didn’t care co socialize with the members of the clique.



\bigskip


So here is my guess as to how the clique came to portray me as completely isolated and my room as a garbage dump.


We showed in Chapter 6 chat Mcintosh had me mixed up with the gentleman whom I’ve called “the oddball.” who truly was as unsocial as I’ve been portrayed. Once Mcintosh had told his tale to the.media, the \&ct that I actually was relatively solitary (and had a particular distaste for the clique) would have made it easier for the other members of the clique to believe, through the phenomenon of “media planting.” that I was as isolated as Mcintosh claimed.


Similarly with the condition of my room. Even though there was no “rottingfood” and the floor was clear of trash c:z:ccpc for the pile of paper in the comer, my room must have seemed distressingly messy by the narrowminded. status-conscious standards of the clique. This would have made ir easier for them to believe as a result of “media planting” (based on Mcintosh’s story) that my room was a veritable garbage-dump. How Mcintosh came by his story in the first place is another question. It may have been suggested to him by media photos of me in the filthy rags I wore when I was arrested; or it may be a case of mistaken identity: Mcintosh had me mixed up with the oddball. and for all I know the oddball’s room maybeen as filthy as Mcintosh says mine was.


In addition. the conformity of the clique-members would almost have compelled them to depict me in the same way that everyone else was depicting me; and according to the media everyone else was depicting me as a grotesque freak.



\bigskip


Whatever may be the explanation for the story told by Mcintosh and his buddies, I know chat there was no “rotting” or “ old” food or dirty dishes in my room at Harvard. and I know that most of the floor was clear of trash. I offer the reader the following additional reasons for taking my word over that of the clique.


First, the members of the clique can claim to have seen the interior of my room only occasionally. whereas I lived in it all the time, so I ought to know much better than they did what itwas like.


Second, in the Introduction (pp. 7-9) I provided evidence of the excellence of my long-term memory.


Third, my chief investigator, Investigator \#2. has attested in writing to my honesty in dcsaibing my past life. See Chapter u, Note 32.


N.B. Of the former occupants of N-43 locatcdby my investigators, apart from Mcintosh and his three buddies, only one was in the suite for more than one academic year of the time that I was there (he was there for three semesters), and none remembered enough to give any useful information (so far as I know). This doesn’t mean that their memories arc worse than those of the clique-members. They may simply be less suggestible or more honest with themselves.



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 4. “The Wild Colt”}


The following is my translation of ‘El Potro Salvaje’ by the Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga. with comments. Isentit to Dave as a birthday present in1985.



\begin{center}

THE WILD COLT


Horacio Quiroga


\end{center}


He was a colt, an ardent younghorse, who came from the back-country to the city to make his livingby ahibiting his speed.


To sec that animal run was indeed a spectacle. He ran with his mane flying in the wind and with the wind in his dilated nostrils. He ran, he stretched himself out, \_he stretched himself still more, and the thunder in his hooves was beyond measuring. He ran without rules or limits in any direction over the wild plains and at any hour of the day. There were no tracks laid out for the freedom of his run, nor was his display of energy constrainedby any norms. He pcssed extraordinary speed and an ardent desire to run. Thus he puthis whole selfinto his wild dashes-and this was the strength of that horse.


As is usual with very swift creatures. the young horse was not much good as a draft-animal. He pulled badly, without heart or energy. with no taste for the work. And since in the back-country there was barely enough grass ro support the heavy draft-horses, the swift animal went to rhe cicy to live by his running.


At first he showed the spectacle of his speed for nothing, for no one would have given a wisp of straW to see it-no one knew the kind of runner chat was in him. On fine afternoons, when the people thronged the fields on the outskirts of the city, and especially on Sundays. the young horse would trot out where everyone could see him. would take otf suddenly. stop, trot forward again sniffing the wind, and finally throw himself forward at full speed, stretched out in a mad run that seemed impossible to surpass, and that he kept surpassing every moment, for that young horse. as we have said, put into his nostrils. into his hooves and into his run the whole ofhis ardent heart.


People were astonished by that spectacle that departed from everything chat they were accustomed to see, and they left without having appreciated the beauty of that run.


No matter, said the horse cheerfully. “I will go to sec an impresario of spectacles. and meanwhile I will earn enough to live on.”


What he had lived on until then in the city he himself would hardly have been able to say. On his own hunger, certainly. and on waste thrown out at the gates of the stockyards. He went, therefore. to sec an organizer of festivals.


I an run before the public,,. said the horse. if I am paid for it. I don’t know how much I may cam, but my way of running has pleased some men.”


No doubt. no doubt. they answered. “There is always someone who takes an interest in such things \dots{} But one must have no illusions. \dots{} We may be able to otfcr you a little something as a sacrifice on our part \dots{}”


The horse lowered his eyes to the man’s hand and saw what he offered: It was a heap of scraw, a little dry. scorched grass.


It’s the most we can do \dots{} and besides \dots{}


The young animal considered the handful of grass thac was the reward for his emaordinary gift of speed, and he remembered the faces that men made at the freedom of his run that cut zigzags across the beaten paths. “No matter.” he told himself cheerfully. ..Some day I will catch their attention.\footnote{The following footnotes were attached to my translation of the Quiroga story as sent to Dave in 1985, \protect\endgraf \protect\endgraf 1. Some day I will catch their attention. The original has “A.lgun dfa sc divertiran. The usual meaning of diwmir is •ro entertain,-so that a possible translationis, “Some day they will be entertained[by me]. -But the diaionary also gi9es as a mcanmg of divmir. “to divert. distract (me attention of)•, and this is the basis for the translation I have given abo,,e, which I think makes better sense in the comext.} Meanwhile I will be able to gee along on this scorched grass.”


And he accepted, satisfied, because what he wanted was to run.


He ran, therefore. that Sunday and on Sundays thereafter. for the same handful of grass. each time throwing himself heart and soul into bis running. Not for a single moment didhe thinkof holding back. of pretending, or of following ornamental conventions to gratify the spectators, who didn’t understand his freedom. He began his trot, as always, with his noscrils on fire and his tail arched; he made the earth resound with his sudden dashes, to finally take off cross-country at full speed in a veritable whirlwind of desire, dust, and thundering hooves. And his reward was a handful of dry grass that he ate happy and rested after the bath.


Sometimes, nevertheless, as he chewed the hard stalks with his young teeth. he thought of the bulging bags of oats that he saw in the shop windows, of the feast of maize and of fragrant alfalfa that overflowed from the mangers.


No matter he said to himself cheerfully. “I can content myself with this rich grass.” And he kept on running with his belly pinched by hunger, as he had always run.


But gradually the Sunday strollers became accustomed to his free way of running. and they began to tell each. other that that spectacle of wild speed without rules or limits gave an impression of beauty.


He does not run along the tracks. as is customary. they said. “but he is very fast. Perhaps he has that acceleration because he feels freer off the beaten paths. And he uses every ounce of his strength\dots{}


In fact, the young horse, whose hunger was never satisfied and who barely obtained enough to liw on with his burning speed. gave every ounce of his strength for a handful of grass. as if each run wcxe the one that was to make his reputation. And after the bath he contentedly ate his rationthe coarse, minimal ration of the obscurest of the most anonymous horses.


No matter. he said cheerfully. “The day will soon come when l will catch their attention \dots{}


Meanwhile, time passed. The words exchanged among the spectators spread through and beyond the city. and at last the day arrived when men’s admiration was fixed blindly and trustingly on that running horse. The organizers of spectacles came in mobs to offi:r him contraas, and the horse, now of a mature age, who had run all his life for a handful of grass, now saw competing offers of bulging bundles of alfal\&. massive sacks of oats and maize-all in incalculable quantity-for the mere spectacle of a single run.


Then for the first time a feeling ofbitterness passed through the horse’s mind as he thought how happy he would have been in his youth if he had been offered the thousandth part of what they were now pouring gloriously down his gullet.


In chose days,•he said to himself sadly, a single handful of alfalfa as a stimulis [sic] when my heart was pounding with the desire to run would have made me the happiest ofbeings. Now I am tired.”


He was in fact tired. Undoubtedly his speed was the same as ever, and so was the spectacle of his wild freedom. But he no longer possessed the will to run that he had had in earlier days. That vibrant desire to cxrend himself to the limit as he had once done cheeifully for a heap of srraw now was awakened only by tons of exquisite fodder. The victorious horse gave long thought to the various offers, calculated, engaged in fine speculations concerning his rest periods.\footnote{2. Engaged in 6nc speculations concerning bis rest periods. -I’m unsure of this amslation. The original has: Especulaba finame:nte con sus descamos.} And only when the organizers bad given in co his demands did he feel the urge to run. He ran then as only he was able; and came back to gloat over the magnificence of the fodder be bad earned.


But the horse became more and more difficult to satisfy. though the organizers made real sacrifices to adte, to flatter, to purchase that desire to run that was dyingunder the weight ofsuccess. And the horse began to fear for his prodigious speed. to worry that he might lose it if he put his full strength into every run. Then, for the first time in his life, he held back as he ran. cautiously taking advantage of the wind and of the long, regularpaths. No one noticed-or perhaps he was acclaimed more than ever for it-for there was blind belief in the wild freedom of his run.


Freedom . . . No, he no longer bad it. He had lost it from the first moment that he reserved his strength so as not to weaken on the nett run. He no longer ran cross-country. nor against the wind. He ran overthe easiest ofhis own tracks, following those zigzags that had aroused the greatestovations. And in the -growingfear of wearing himself•out, the hone arrived at a point where he learned to run with style, cheating. prancing foam-covcrcd over the most beaten paths. And he was deified in a clamor of glory.


But two men who were contemplating that lamentable spectacle exchanged a few melancholy words seen him run in his youth,” said the first, “and if one could cry for an animal. one would do so in memory of what this same horse did when he had nothing tcieat.” it is not surprising that he used to do such things, .. said the second. ..Youth and hunger arc the most precious gifts that life can give to a strong heart.”


Young horse: Stretch yourself to the limit in your run even if you hmlly get enough to eat. For if you arrive worthless at glory and acquire style in order to trade it fraudulently for succulent fodder, you will be saved by having once given your whole self for a handful of grass.



\bigskip

\section{Comments}


The idea of this story is not very original, but I think that Quiroga expresses it beautifully.


Somerset Maugham seems co have held a contrary pointofview to that of Quiroga’s story. [n Of Human Bonditgt he has the experienced painter Foinet advise an aspiring young artist: “You will hear people say that . poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh.” With a lot more in the same vein; and this seems to have represented Maugham’s own attitude. Apparently Maugham hadsome disagreeable apcricnccs with poverty in his youth. But Quiroga coo seems to have known poverty. [n the introduction to the collection of his stories chat I have, one of the many occupations ascribed co him is chat of “penniless globetrotter,” and he is quoted as having said in Paris: “I would ttade [literary] giory for the security ofbeing able to catthree days in succession\dots{}


I suppose there’s no way of definitively resolving the conflict. What leads to creativity in one person is not necessarily whatleads to creativityin another.



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 5. Interviews with Joel Schwartz}


lows in Ga) Mad Gfflius. pp. 124•125.


re was bis (Dave’s] feeling that his brother mentally went over the edge,’ said Schwartz, who even went with David to visit Ted in Montana in x974-David had warned that he might be a little ornery. But Joel didn’t sec the rough edges. ‘Ted seemed at case; Dave had warned me he might not be. My memory of him did not quite fit what we all came co see. He was very orderly, meticulous. He was ecccnaic. but he was engaging at the same time. We had some lively discussions. He was very much into ecology and very angry at the y the world was going.’ But over the years, Joel said. David had come t-o realize something else. ‘There was a madness there. His isolation opened him to madness. This is why Dave. I believe. felt chat Ted had to finally be brought back to the human community. It was his hope anyway.’


Schwartz knew David had aicd to keep reaching out co bis brother even as Ted slipped further away. Yet the relationship between the brothers grew more strained. particularly after David got married. ‘I know Dave wrote many letters that were rebuffed in later years; Joel said. ‘Sometimes. with family members. there can be a kind of distance you can’t quite get ovu;’“


The following arc excerpts from (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#rrz.. Joel Schwartz.


[One and a half pages redacted] TED


Joel heard about Ted before he met him. When Joel and Dave were in college, Dave talked reverently about Ted, who was at Michigan. Dave worshiped Ted and idealized him as the smart, gifted older brother. After Dave and Joel graduated in 1970, Dave kept Joel posted on Ted’s progress. Joel knew about Ted’s leaving Berkeley in 1972] and how Ted’s family reacted to it. Although they were deeply troubled by Ted’s behavior, they told everyone that Ted was just going to the wilderness for a short time to regroup before returning to Berkeley. On one hand, Dave painted a Thoreau-like . picrure of a strong figure who had the courage to abandon the trappings of civilization and retire to the wilderness. On the other band, Dave hoped Ted might return to civilization. ln the abstract. Dave admired Ted’s courage and philosophy. The reality of Ted living in the wilderness made Dave uneasy. When Ted moved to Montana. where Dave was already living. Dave told his parents that he would look after Ted.


Joel and Dave visited Ted in 1974. soon after Dave moved from Montana. They were driving across the country together. Joel and Dave began their trip in Oregon and camped out along the way. They stayed at Ted’s house one night and two days.


At that time, Dave still hoped Ted would return to civilization but he bad begun to have doubts. Dave warned Joel about Ted before Joel met him. He told Joel that Ted was afraid of people. He advised Joel that Ted rigidly defended his point of view during a debate and sharply ended the conversation when he did not agree with another person’s point. Dave desaibed Ted as quirky and idiosyncratic. Dave told Joel not to talk about Berkeley because Ted was sensitive about the subject. Lastly, he advised Joel to give Ted space when Ted became agitated orfrustrated.


Although Joel could tell Ted was very strange, Ted was cordial. He did not get angry at Joel when he disagreed with him. For instance, Joel and Ted debated about the aistence of God. Ted argued God did not exist in a more atheist than agnostic way.Joel argued that God did exist as evincedby the existence of order and balance in nature. Ted told Joel that while he did not believe in Joel’s premise. he thought Joel made a strong. logical argument. Joel liked Ted. Ted treated him with respect. Ted was pleasant. Although Ted did not engage superficial discourse, he did talk.Joel rem.cmhers being impn:3.[1Cd with how well read Ted was.


Ted’s cabin was small. but very neat. Joel thought Ted had meticulous control over the contents of his cabin. Ted was very proud that he was selfsufficient. He showed Dave and Joel his vegetable garden and talked about his growing techniques. He was protective of his land and pointed out the boundaries of his property. Ted told Dave and Joel that he liked Lincoln residenrs. but he liked to be left alone.


Ted was thin. and his beard was shorter than it was when he was arrested and neatly groomed. Joel and Dave hiked with Ted during the cwo days they were there. Ted pointed out plants and other natural phenomena. Joel and Dave slept outside, on Ted’s property. in a tent. Joel and Dave had a bottle ofJim Beam bourbon with them. Ted didnot drink any.


Joel told Ted that he was undergoing ac:upuncrurc to relieve the pain caused by his head injury. Ted thought Joel was crazy. AfterJoel and Dave left Ted’s cabin. Ted wrote Dave letters about Joel. He said Joel was schizophrenic. Ted told Dave to contact Joel’s father so that Joel could get the psychological help he needed. At the time, Dave and Joel laughed about these letters. Joel was not offended by Ted’s comments. In fact, he thought Ted was being very caring. To Joel, Ted’s opinion, though misguided and illfounded, was indicative of warm feelings and genuine concern. Since Ted’s arrest, Joel and Dave have talked about those letters. In hindsight. Joel bTed’s comments on Joel’s mental health were really cries for help. Joel believes Ted projected his own mental illness onto Joel.


Ted began to unravel in the late 197QS. Dave became distressed thatTed was breaking down. He described Ted’s-letters to Joel. Ted’s letters sent warning bells off in Joel’s head. Ted’s mac.ion on wrongs he believed his parents perpetrated against him reminded Joel of his mother. I\dots{}ikc Joel’s mother, Ted Sneed on an act or event and saw it as all-threatening. When Joel was four years old, Joel’s mother repeatedly came into Joel’s room, turned off all the lights, closed the shades and told Joel that the nuclear holocaust was coming. She obsessed about the threat of nuclearwaruntil it was like a black. hole inside her. It controlled how she perceived the world and she could not stop it or appreciate it. Her delusions ate at her. Ted was the same way. Tedwrotea letter to his parents describing in detail how they had permanently scarred him when they called him stupid as a youngsta. Most people could have forgotten such a comment. but Ted was not able to. It ate at him until ic represented everything that was wrong withhis life and the world. Joel realized that Ted was mentally ill.


Around the time Dave got married, Dave consulted Joel about how to getpsychological orpsyclliatric.hclp for Ted. Dave, TedSr. and Wanda were thinking about writing Ted’s physician. They knew Ted was seeing a doctor rcganling heart problems he was having.



\bigskip

\section{DAVE}


Joel has known Dave for over 30 years. Dave is Joel’s best friend. In college. Dave was less outgoing than Joel. Jed was the head of the debate ccam, belonged to the chess club and was active in the student government. Dave did not participate in extra curricular activities except for the srudent newspaper. Dave was quiet and shy and liked to be alone. He was frugal. He saved his money and spent time alone reading. Dave is neater thanJod, bur Joel is not a neat person at all.


Dave talked a great deal about his ex-girlfriend, Linda Patrik. Dave never really got over Linda. He was prepared never to be married after breaking up with Linda. Joel was not surprised they got married given the way Dave had pined for her.


Dave called Joel when he bought the property in Terlingua. Dave told Joel he was going to become a hermit in the outback and write a book. Joel did not think this was strange. Dave had always liked to be alone. Dave also liked the outdoon. Joel understood why Dave wanted to live in Texas because he too found the stark beauty of the desert enticing.



\bigskip

\section{Wanda and Ted Senior}


Joel knows Wanda and knew Ted Sr. Ted Sr. was pleasant. He and Wanda both spoke about the importance of education. It was dear they valued education above all else. Wanda and Ted Sr. used to invite him to stay at their house in Lombard when, and if, he ever came through town. He stayed at their house a couple of times. Ted Sr. and Wanda were of a generation that held a prejudice against mental illness. Wanda has talked with Joel about Ted’s psychological problems. Since Ted’s arrest, she has asked Joel why he was able to survive his mother’s attack while the hospitalization Ted underwent at 9 months permanently scarred him. She thanked Joel for being Dave’s mend. Wanda told him that he was like the big brother Dave never had.


He was sorry when Ted Sr. killed himself. He re.members that Ted Sr. had specifically invited Dave back home the weekend he killed himself.


[six pages redacted]


David’s time living in the desert in Texas had a special effect on David. David was different when he was in Texas. David kept tcllingJoel that when he was in Texas the world felt pure and uncontaminated. David felt like he was part of the environment and at one with the earth.


[three lines redacted] \dots{} David strictly avoided using and [sic] drugs, including alcohol Drugs were not something Wanda and Ted Sr. approved ofand David ttied to live in strict accordance with his parenrs’ beliefs. Although Wanda and Ted Sr. were politically progressive. they were very conservative socially. Likewise. in college. David had liberal political beliefs but he rarely went out with friends. never dated and never drank or experimented with drugs.


From the first day Joel met David. David was obsessed with Linda Patrik. David told Joel that he had gone out with Linda in high-school, chat he was in love withher, and that she was the only woman he was ever going to love. David talked toJoel endlessly about Linda’s virtues. David said she was different from any other woman. Linda was special and brilliant. David wrote her letters and much of David’s time was consumedby thinking and talking about her.


David also idolized Ted. When David entered Columbia in 1966, Ted was studying mathematics at the University of Michigan. David was very proud of Ted and often told Joel that Ted was a genius. Joel found David’s worship of Ted strange and inappropriate. David also warned Joel that Ted was different and-did not relate to people well socially.


Since Joel had known David. David had always been extremely concerned about money. He is frugal and avoids spending money on anything he docs not deem absolutely necessary. When David was in college. he often avoided participating in social cvcnrs that cost money. He did not eat in restaurants orgo to shows.


The day that Joel and David moved into their freshman dorm at Columbia. Joel’s father, Simon. invited David to come to lunch with him and Joel. They ate lunch at a moderately priced restaunnt and when the bill came, Simon paid. Later in the afternoon after Simon had left. David began obsessing over whether it was appropriate for Simon to have paid for his lunch. David kept tcllingjoel that he felt guilty. Joel did not. understand why David was so concerned with the matter and finally told David to stop worrying.


David was willing to go to one diner near Columbia because the food was cmcmely cheap. Frequently when they went out, David proposed a topic for discussion and Joel and David discussed the subject while they ate. David has always approached conversation in this manner. He likes to presenta topic and ifthe topic is agi:ecable to everyone present, it becomes the subject of conversation. David has six or seven conversation topics which he likes to recycle. David’s topics include the question ofwhetheran artist’s personal life affects his or her art, baseball, writers (specifically Cormac McCarthy). music. Heidegger. and Third World F’U’St World issues. When they were not togetb David and Joel spend a lot of time in collcge along[sic], rhinking and writing.


David came from a different background than Joel Joel grew up in a fairly affluent area of New Jersey. in a community that was conservative and religious. The Kaczynski family was lower middle class, intellectual and devout atheists. David seemed to embrace his parents’ values fully.


[three paragraphs redacted]


David does not express C\%tl’Cme emotion. When Ted Sr. committedsuicide, David did not seem to be greatly affected. There was Vet’\Slash{} little change in David’s demeanor. David said that he regretted what his father had done, but he understood him.


[one paragraph redacted]



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 6. Books about the Unabom case}


Very soon after my arrest, two quickie books about my case appeared: Ga) Mad GffliKS, by the staff of Time Magine, and (Jb) Unabomber, by John Douglas and Mark QI.shaker. Everything that I’ve said about the news media applies to these two books, which are riddled with errors. To cake just a few enmples at random from Mad Gffliw: “He came into town \dots{} to stock up on flour and spam.. (p. 8). I bought spam maybe once in all my years in Lincoln, and hadn’t bought any at all for several years prior to my arrest. “He walked with his head down. \dots{} He didn’t say \dots{} ‘yeah, right’; he’d say ‘quite correct’ .. (p. 8). I did not habitually walk with my head down; I often use expressions similar to “yeah, right,” and I doubt chat I have ever in my life answered a question with “quite correct.” “A Census worker \dots{} actually got inside [Kaczynski’s cabin]” (p. 8). No Census worker ever entered my cabin. “VLSitors knew better than to knock” (p. 9). I did not often have visitors, but when I did have them they commonly knocked (unless I was outdoors when they arrived), and I always greeted them courteously. On p. 9 the book refers to my “saddlebags\dots{} I had no saddlebags of any kind. “But days passed. and there was no sign of [Kaczynski] C\%Cept an occasional foray to tend his garden” (p. 9). Are the authors stupid, or what? This was Mardt in the Northern Rockies. The ground was still frozen, and it was decidedly not the season for tending a garden. Besides, if it was from the FBI that the authors got the (mis)information that there “was no sign” of me “except for an occasional foray;” then the statements on p. 7, co the effea that the FBr had the area of the cabin bugged and watched by “ snipers” must be a lot of crap. On most days during March. and up to and including April 3, the day of my arrest, I spent several hours outdoors cutting firewood, hunting rabbits, doing other chores. or just enjoying the fresh air, so that if the FBI had had the area closely watched they would have seen plenty of “sign” of me. P. xo: The account of my arrest is badly garbled.


The errors and distortions just go on and on throughout the book. Some of them are of no significance, but others combine to create a false idea of the kind of person that I am.


The Douglas and Olshakcr book is even worse:.


L’Affaire Unabomba, by Professor Jean-Marie Aposcolides, Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1996, also is riddled with errors, but at least Professor Apostolides is honest enough to W3J’Il the reader in the first section of Chapter 4 that the book is based on unreliable material: “The reader is advised \dots{} to consider the hypotheses I advance as based on information from limited or biased sources” (p. 65). I think, however, chat Professor Apostolides will be embarrassed when he learns just how wildly inaccurate his book really is. To take just a few examples of his errors: On p. 66 he states that my father occupied “by the end of his career, a position almost equivalent to that of an engine” In reality my father never occupied any such position. Professor A. States that my father taught my brother and me “wilderness survival skills\dots{} My father could not have done this, because he knew almost nothing about ..wilderness survival skills” bimself. Contrary to what Professor A. states, my mother was not ..very active in the neighborhood.” On p. 68, Professor A. states that my parents “never stopped working co help the poor.” In reality. my parents never lifted a finger to help the poor. at least not from the time I was old enough to be aware of their activities. I recall a discussion I had with chem in 1979. They claimed that they would be willing to sacrifice the “high standatd of living” chat we have here in America in order to spread the wealth around and help the poor people of the ThirdWorld. I didn’t doubt chat they believed this, but I knew my parents too well to believe it mysel£ With a sneer I told them that if it ever came down to making such a choice, they would find some excuse co oppose the sacrifice. By 1982, when they visited me in Montana, they apparently had become sufficiently concerned about illegal immigration from Mexico to feel it was a threat to their own security. and they expressed their indignation to me in quite self-righteous terms: “What right do these people think they have to come into someone else’s country without pennission?” or words to that effect. Evidently my parents were no longer willing to share America’s wealth with the Third World.


On p. 69] Professor A. states that my parents “never hesitated to make their ideas known publicly, even when they knew themselves to be in the minority.” ActUaily, my father was usually careful to express his socialistic opinions only to his best friends, at least during the years when I was close enough to my parents to have knowledge on this subject; and when I was a kid my mother was so fearful that people might find out we were atheists, that she repeatedly told me to say we were Unitarians whenever anyone might ask what our religion was. On p. 70, Professor A. writes: “Even though they themselves had no education past high-school. cbe older Kaczynskis were ambitious for their children\dots{} Actually my mother bad \_ rwo years of college before I was born ((Be) Baby Book. p. 33). On p. 71, Professor A. states: “Very early, in elementary school, [Ted] skipped a grade. He skipped another grade injunior high-school The teachers . . . proposed that he be allowed to skip a third grade-level . \dots{} The truth is that I skipped sixth grade, my junior year in high-school. and no other grade. No proposal was ever made that I should skip a third grade. Such a proposal would have made no sense, because after: the second time I skipped a grade I was already a high-school senior and there were no grades left for me to skip. On pp. 73•74. most of the (mis)information provided is fantasy. The errors go on and on. and more important than the individual errors is the fact that the overall piccure of me and my family that Professor A. draws is grossly distorted.


The page citations given above refer not to the book as published in French, but to an unpublished English translation of which Professor Apostolides has kindly provided me with a copy, Ud) English Translation of L’Ajfaire Unabmnber.


Graysmith and the authors of MJJd. Gffliiu and Unabonther WCt”e opportunists who justwanted to make a fast buckoutofother people’s tragedies. Professor Apostolides was not an opportunist but was motivated by sincere interest in the case.


With the single ezception of Professor Michael Mcllo’s recent book about my trial, not one of the published books about the Unabom case of which I have any knowledge even comes close to being accurate enough to serve as an acceptable source ofinformation.



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 7. My high–school teachers’ reports on my personality}


On April 3, 1998, after the final draft of this book was finished. I came into possession of reports by three of my higb’school teachers that were part of my application for dmission to Harvard. These rcportS were part of my Harvard record and copies were in the possession of the government. but. despite at least two subpoenas by my defense team. Harvard failed to send us copies of them. and we didn’t even know of their CJ:i.stence until late March 1998.


To save space I will omit the questions printed on the forms. but I reproduce here in full all of the teachers’ comments about me.


(Fe) School Records of TJK, Harvard. pp. 82. 83; report by R.M.R.:


I have known Ted for tw0 years and have had him in classes in Trigonometry. Physics.:.and Advanced Mathematics.


Ted has a sincere interest in his work. Ted needs no prodding. Ted’s main concern is that his program and his work be challenging enough. His family are behind him. but do not push him. He is his own best pusher. He not only spends time onhis own doing ema class-related work, but intcrcts [sic] other students in making nips to nearby museums. He has organized several surveying parties in connections [sic] withTrigonometry. They have spent several whole days making rather encnsivc surveys of areas in some forest preserves nearby.”““


I think that R.M.R. was trying much coo hard co get me into Harvard. I made exactly one surveying trip co the forest preserves with some other kids from the trigonometry class. I have only a vague memory of how the crip was organized. The teacher (R.M.R.) may have bestowed on me the (nominal) role of organizer, but I know for certain that I had in practice very little influence over the way the trip was conducted. We spent a few hours on one day surveying the boundary of one small pond. and that was all. rdidn’t even participate in doing the calculations and drawing the map of the pond. All that was carried out by Terry L.


To continue with R.M.R.’s report:


[In intclleccual achievement and promise Ted is in the] Top ; of 950] [legibility doubtful] Could be the highest. Its (sic] a close race at the top.


Ted’s performance in activities indicates a rapid comprehension of principles. a readiness to apply them, occasional impatience with details and a small degree of inflilitywhen under cmcme pressure. He is usually poised and has an cmcmely stable personality. Evidence of leadership is indicated in item 2.”


Ted is mature and is a scudcnt who can take responsibilities. I would feel confident that he would carry out any reasonable taskhe was assigned. I know of no difficulties he is eq,eriendng. His main strength is cmcme intelligence. He has completed four years of high-school in three. His main weakness is that he is advanced for bis age although he fits in well with bis classmates . ..October 18, 1957. [signed] R-M. R-..


(Fe) School Records of ‘TJK. Harvard. pp. 84. s;; Report by R. Kn.: I have known Ted for two years. and taught himin English IL ““Ted’s parents have never evidenced undue concern about grades, only” concern over whether he was working up to capacity. When he was in my class, which was supposd to include the superior students of bis age group, he did extra work of two kinds: an extemporaneous speech once a week on world problems, and a research paper on archaeology. His speeches showed a thorough grasp of the subject, but the vocabulary he used was over the heads of the other students and he was more interested in abstract principles than in dramatizing his introduction to hold the attention of the other students. This intCICSC in pursuing a question into its inaicate depths showed a less emoverccd personality than those of the boys who scatter their energies among many extra--curricular activities. Ted’s ema-curricular work is in music,. where skill is required. His mind is original and independent, so far ahead and afield that he simply wasn’t present mcnrally when we repeated routine material. Seating him by the magazine shelves enabled him to go on with his reading aboutworld affairs, and while he was absent due to illness or injury he asked for a book “The Bible as History” which he readbecawe he was interestedin archaeology.


His intellectual capacity was first among the 900] students in this school.


Ted’s vocabulary is extensive; his mwical ability is high and he has taken college-level workin mwic although his schedule is already over-burdened. This class in composition meets after school and in addition he has sufficient leadership to give free lessons on the trombone to a younger member of the band, on Saturdays. He has a laboratory in the basement of\_ his home where he, with other boys. ezperiments with ‘missiles’ to his mother’s horror. Som,e of the bandmembers felt last year thatif’first ch.air’ in band had not been elective he would have had it. He did well in his contest solo, but had to saaificc band for science this [year].”


Ted is persistent; when his schedule ruled out band he made arrangemeru[s] to comein part-time in order to continue playing at public appearances. I thinkthat his veryheavyschedule, combining two yearsin one, has solved all the difficulties he ever had, which involved inattention during reviewworkwith other students.


One of his fine qualities might be mentioned: intc:rcst in detail and abstraction, in the perfection of skills and the pursuit of questions. His grandfather was called in to plan picture frames for Chicago’s artists; his aunt and uncle were acellcnt mwidans whose careers were cut short by tragedy. His parents arc alert and responsible members of this newcommunity. His mother has hung a pegboard in the livingroom. where she places interesting objects and modem art, changing the picrures often so that her boys can become familiar with many.


Ted is a pleasant sort, not eccentric in his appearance or mannerisms.


In a school where most srudencs are the children of factory foremen, his vocabulary is his most identifyingcharacteristic.


Harvardor any other school will gain an e:teellent srudent in Ted; he is potentially an outstandingscientist and citizen.”


“I believe that his willingness to study extemporaneous speaking in my class, when his first interest is science, shows that he has broad interest (sic] and the qualities of a goodworld citizen.



\begin{quote}


“Oct. 28, 1957 [signed] R-Kn-..”



\end{quote}


I won’t bother to identify all the errors in these two reports. Sufficeit to Paga )fl



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 8. The Tarmichael letters}


The following letter from me to Ellen Tarmichael constitutes (Cb) FL Supplementary Item \#2.


Sept. 2, 1978


Dear Ellen,


I want to offer you my unqualified apology. I am no longer interested in deciding whether you were or were not insincere with me. Either way. I deeply regret that I insulted you, and I am emcmely sorry that I took an unpleasant tone in the first letter I sent you.


My only excuse for becoming so e:cssivdy upset is that, foolishly. I had come to feel much more strongly about you than I had any right to do. There is something in you to which I respond powerfully. in spite of all our differences. To me you were a ray of sunshine. I didn’t realize myself how badly C wanted you until I was forced to abandon all hope in that direction; C find it much more difficult to get over than I had imagined I would.


If I still thought there were any chance that you could ever care for me, I would do almost anything to win your esteem. But you have made it clear that there is no such chance. To my sorrow. I apparently have nothing to offer that is of interest to you.


I hope that you find your new duties at Foam-Cutting more congenial now, and I wish you the best of luck generally. Again. I offer you my regretful apology.


Ted J. Kaczynski



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 9. Reliability of investigators’ reports}


As to the reliability of information provided by investigators: Investigators working for my defense team interviewed many people who had known me at various times in my life. Information reported to the investigators by the interviewees tended to be highly unreliable. But how reliable have the investigators been in reporting what the interviewees told them? Investigator \#t is an investigator for the Federal Defenders in Montana. My guess is that her reports arc reasonably accurate. For what it may be worth. Investigator \#2] told me that Investigator \#1] was “an excellent investigator,” and that her reports could be assumed accurate. In this book I have used only written reports from lnvestigator \#1. I have no way ofjudging the reliability of lnvestigator \#4] or \#7, but, as far as I know, only a minimal amount of the information I’ve used was obtained through them. Investigator \#3] was not really an investigator but an attorney who worked with Investigator \#2] and interviewed a few people. All other investigators (that I know of) were young people who worked under the supervision of Investigator \#2. The chief of my defense team, Quin Denvir, gave me this opinion of Investigator \#2: “In response to your inquiry. the mitigation investigator whom we retained for your case [Investigator \#2], bas a very good reputation as an investigator, and Judy [Clarke] and I consider [his\Slash{}her] work to be very reliable.” (Cg) Nore from Quin Denvir to Ted Kaczynski, April 10, 1998.


I’m not completely convinced by Mr. Denvir’s assurance. In general, I was nor terribly impressed with the investigators who worked under Investigator \#2. The majority of them did not seem to be the kind of people who couldbe relied on for consistent accuracy. For example, a few of them were assigned the task of collating three versions of a document; ir was a straightforward and purely mechanical task, yet they made a hash of it. Investigator \#2] him\Slash{}herself seemed less reliable than the young investigators who worked under him\Slash{} her. In several cases he\Slash{}she gave me orally items of information that later turned out to be wrong. To take the worst example, Investigator \#2] told me on September3, 1996, that Linda Patrik . had had at least two husbands before she married my brother. On October 8, 1997, Investigator \#2] and I went over my written notes of this information, and he\Slash{}she confirmed orally that Linda P. had had at least two husbands before she married Dave. See (Qe) Investigator Note \#2.


Later I asked Investigator \#2] to give me written confirmation of this item, andwhat he\Slash{}she gave me was: “Since college, Linda bas been married once before her marriage with Dave\dots{}” (Qc) Written Reports by Investigator \#2, pp. I, 2. That Linda was married only once before her marriage to Dave is supportedby their marriage certificate: (Ge) Marriage Certificate of David Kaczynski and Linda Pattik.


I assume that Investigator \#2’s written reports were prepared much more carefully than the oral ones, so they no doubt arc more reliable. I’ve found no errors in them.


I’m quite confident that Investigator \#2’s written reports are vastly more accurate and reliable than information from the media. At a guess, I’d say they are significantly more reliable than the FBI’s 302’s, but I doubt that they approach the standard of reliability that would be expected from workers in the hard sciences. This applies also to reports from the young people who worked under Investigator \#2.


I’m sorry I can’t tell the reader anything more definite about the accuracy of these reports, but that’s the best I can do.


Investigator \#3 seemed to me to be much like Investigator \#2] as far as reliability of oral reports is concerned. For example, he\Slash{}she told me during March 1997, thar on February 27, 1997] my brother asked him\Slash{}her the following question:


Do our public comments hurt Ted even though he knows we know they arc not true [and] we arc doingit to help him? (Qa) Oral Report from Investigator \#3, March[?], 1997.


I wrote this down at Investigator \#fs dictation, and there can be no doubt that I recorded it with close to word-for-word accuracy.


The investigators knew since some time in 1996] that I was planning to write a book like the present one, and that I wanted their information for use in such a book. For some technical legal reason, they insisted that they could give me no information in writing until my trial was over. When I expressed misgiving at the fact that I was getting only oral information with nothing in writing to confirm it, Investigator \#3] told me at least twice, ‘We will backyou up” with regard to the oral information.


My brother’s question that I quoted above was obviously important from my point of view, since it contained an explicit admission that my brother and my mother had lied about me. Yet, when I asked Investigator \#3] after the trial to give me written confirmation of this item, he\Slash{} she gave me only a watered-down version that omitted the crucial words, “we know they are not true,” which he\Slash{}she claimed were not in his\Slash{}her notes. One concludes either that Investigator \#3’s original report to me was wrong. or else that he\Slash{}she neglected to record in his\Slash{}her notes the most important part of Dave’s question.


The very few reports from [nvestigator \#3] that I use in this book are noted as coming from Investigator \#3. Unless otherwise noted in the book, materials used that arc based on investigator reports arc materials in whose accuracy I have confidence.



\bigskip


Added April 28, 1998; modified July 19, 1998:


But the question of investigator reliability has another dimension entirely different from the one we’ve been considering. At a time (April 1998) when I had finished writing this b!)Ok except for minor revisions and the present appendix, I received information that gave me a much fuller picture of Investigator \#2] than I’d had previously. It appears that he\Slash{}she is an anti-death penalty zealot who has no sauplcs about manipulating clients and deceiving them in ‘order to “save” them whether they like it or not. He\Slash{}she is regarded as an expert in “managing” (i.e. manipulating) clients, and specializes in “proving” that they are mentally ill Before receiving this information I had of course realized that Investigator \#2] had been less than honest with me, but I had not fully understood the extent to which he\Slash{}she had deceived me orhow dishonest he\Slash{}she was.


How docs Investigator \#2’s character affect the reliability of his\Slash{}her reports? I can only guess. Since he\Slash{}she has a very good reputation among lawyers (as is indicated by Quin Denvir’s statement quoted earlier), he\Slash{}she probably tries to make sure that the faces he\Slash{}she reports to them arc accurate. But I would expect that he\Slash{}she slants his\Slash{}her reports: When I orally discussed Investigator \#2.’s reliability with Quin Denvir, he told me that he was confident that the facts that Investigator \#2] reported were accurate, but he added that possibly Investigator \#2] might omit facts that would hurt the case he\Slash{}she was trying to build.


In any event, given Investigator \#1.’s agenda, it is certain that any slanting of the reports that he\Slash{}she prepared for my lawyers must be in a direction that would tend to exaggerate any indications of mental illness on my part. Anything in those reports (i.e., in (Qb) Written Investigator Reports) that argues for my sanity (such as self-discrediting information from “witnesses” to my “insanity”‘) can presumably be accepted at face value.


What about the accuracy of the oral and written reports that lnvestiga. tor \#2] prepared for me personally? (I.e., (Qa) Oral Reports from Investigators, (Qc) Written Reports by Investigator \#2., (Qe) Investigator Notes.) Those that deal with concrete facts arc probably honest, since Investigator \#2] would not endanger his\Slash{}her reputation by knowingly reporting facts incorrectly.


Investigator \#2. played a double game with me, leading me to believe that he\Slash{}she was going to help me to refute my brother’s portrait of me as a madman, when in reality he\Slash{}she was working to collect the tools that would enable my lawyers to represent me as insane-the crazier the better -inorder to ..save” me from the death penalty.


After I plead guilty. Investigator \#2 continued to misrepresent to me his\Slash{}her role, downplaying the part that he\Slash{}she had played in the effort to portray me as severely mentally-ill, so that I never realized the extent to which he\Slash{}she had helped to manipulate me until I received information from an outside source.


Let me repeat here what I have indicated elsewhere with regard to material in this book that were drawn from the investigator reports, I have used only those portions that I believe were accurately transcribed by the investigators.



\bigskip


Early in February 1998 I asked Investigator \#2 whether he\Slash{}she could find out if my brother had been in contact with his friends between the time of my arrest (April 3, 1996) and the time when they were interviewed by the investigators (December 7-10, 1996; May u.June 10, andJune 25, 199;. see (Qb) Written Investigator Reports \#32, Dirk West, \#33, Bill Wadham and Sally Baker, \#122., Joel Schwartz). In reply. Investigator \#2] sent me a note that said, “Dave did not call\dots{} That was the entire note. Sec (Qe) Investigator Note \#s.


At the time, I had plenty of other things on my mind, so I just assumed that my brother had not been in contact with his mends before they were interviewed, and filed that information in the back of my mind. But after learning how dishonest Investigator \#2] had been with me I took the trouble to reflect on this matter, and it seemed to me implausible that eight months or more could have passed without any written communication between my brother and these people who had been his close mends for many years. I would have expected them to contact him soon after they had learned of my arrest, and then certainly they would have talked about me with him.


Subsequently I noticed solid evidence that at least one of these people did indeed talk with my brother about me after my arrest but before being interviewed by the investigators. (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#122, Joel Schwartz, May 11, 1997, p.4: “Ted wrote Dave letters about Joel. \dots{} Since Ted’s arrest.Joel and Dave have talked about those letters.”


Joel Schwartz, Dirk West, Bill Wadham and Sally Baker all gave the investigators wildly inaccurate reports in which they portrayed me as suffering from severe mental illness. When I wrote the Introduction to this book I attributed their errors to such factors as “media planting.” But another explanation now seems possible: My brother may have been in communication not only with Joel Schwartz but with the others as well, and may have asked them to help him “save” me by portraying me as mentally ill.


It’s also possible that Investigator \#2] and his\Slash{}her people may have used leading questions to elicit the kinds of answers they wanted from informants. This is perhaps suggested by informants’ responses that include the phrase “may have.” (E.g., (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#73, Phil . Alman, p.3): “There may have been times when Ted was unresponsive to questions.” It doesn’t seem likely that Phil Alman would have made this statement spontaneously. It’s more plausible to suppose that be was asked, “were there times when Ted was unresponsive to questions, and answered, “There may have been.”


Again, given the investigators’ bias, when the investigators record statements by informants that would undermine their credibility as witnesses to my “sanity.” those statements can be presumed to be accurately transcribed.



\bigskip

\chapter{Appendix 10. A note on my memory}


The following is (Cg) Note from Quin Dcnvir to Ted Kaczynski. April 30, 1998:


Dear Ted:


You have asked me my opinion regarding your long-term memory. We have been associated in the defense of your case for almost two years and have had many opportunities to discuss facts from the past. During that time I have been amazed by your long-term memory. I know no one who has a bettermemory for long-term details than you do. I discussed thiswith Judy Clarke, and she said that she thoroughly agrees with me.


Very truly yours, .



\begin{quote}


Quin Denvir



\end{quote}



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\chapter{Appendix 11. My Brother is prone to getting his facts garbled}


My Brother is prone to getting his facts garbled. Here are a few examples.


In one letter to Dave I mentioned Aztec poetry but did not quote any; I did quote some ancient Irish poetry. which I identified as Irish. But my brother got mixed up and thought I was quoting Aztec poetry. Sec (Ca) FL \#2’75, letter from me to David Kaczynski, August 27, 1983, p. 5.


My brother once told me-quite incorrectly-that Costa Rica was an English’speaking country. See (Ca) FL \#220, letter from me to David Kaczynski, August 28, 1979, p. 1.


Through misunderstanding of something he’d read in a book, my brother believed that baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) underwent a chemical change during cooking that rendered it harm.less as far as any effect on blood-pressure was concerned-which of course is false. He also confused baking powder with baking soda. Sec (Ca) FL \#288, letter from me to David Kaczynski, Summer 1984. p.3; FL \#289, letter from David Kaczynski to me, Summer 1984, pp. 1, 2.


Dave told the FBI that our paternal grandfather, Jakub Kaczynski, had been a woodcarver by trade. It’s possible that he may have done some wood-carving on the side, but he was by trade a gilder (a worker in gold leaf), not a woodcarver. See (Na) FBI 302] number 1, pp. 22; FBI 302] number 2. pp. 3, 4; (Be) Baby book, p. 35; (Qb) Written Investigator Report \#74, Josephine Kaczynski Manney, September 8-10, 1996, p. 2.



\bigskip



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\chapter{Archivists Note}


\textbf{Missing footnotes from the text body in the original}


Footnote \href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-copy\#fn\_back26}{25} from the Introduction.


Footnotes \href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-copy\#fn\_back423}{423}, \href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-copy\#fn\_back424}{424}, \href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-copy\#fn\_back425}{425}, \href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-copy\#fn\_back426}{426} from Chapter 7.


Footnote \href{https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-truth-versus-lies-context-books-copy\#fn\_back600}{600} from Chapter 12.









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The Ted K Archive





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Ted Kaczynski

Truth versus Lies (Context Books Copy)






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Ted Kaczynski. Truth versus Lies, Boxes 66 \& 67, Ted Kaczynski papers, University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Library).
   

       

       
         Contains lots of automatic photo scan reading errors
       

       

       

       

       

   



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