Fatal Vision

  "He can't tolerate that. So all these things are kept sealed over. I'm bringing them out from some of the test results but that doesn't mean he's consciously aware of them.

  "Now when a person is concerned about their adequacy, about how successful they are, and that person happens to be an American man, one of the ways that this gets expressed is in terms of heterosexual behavior. How do they make it with women. And obviously this is going to come up with Captain MacDonald.

  "But the problem is, he is confronted with not only his image of himself as a very adequate male, but his need to be socially conforming and get acceptance and approval.

  "So what does he do? He has a whole series of affairs with women but never with a lot of satisfaction or success. And he is always overcome afterwards not by any deep internalized sense of guilt, but a sort of a feeling of shame. The difference that you might see in a young kid who has done something wrong and is caught by their parent and feels ashamed and blushes and turns red as opposed to the idea of guilt, where somebody does something wrong—they know it is wrong and internally they're bothered by it. It doesn't matter that nobody knows about it. Internally, they've got a sense of guilt.

  "His behavior was more motivated out of this sort of shame because he was concerned about the approval of others.

  "So, although to listen to him, he might present himself as sort of a stud—a very successful male in having sexual encounters, in fact he really is not. He is not comfortable with himself in this image. So he's not free to go out and be consistently, sexually aggressive.

  "You know, a person who is completely liberated in this sense—although he might not approve of it—a person who is completely liberated in this sense might perfectly well be able to go out and have affairs and if the wife brought up any objection, you'd just say, 'If you don't like it, leave me.' You know, 'This is your problem. This is the way I run my life.'

  "Okay. He couldn't do that at all. Another person might be so bothered by guilt over having an affair that he might stop and not have any more. That would be another way of handling it. Instead, he had affairs but was never completely happy in having them and yet he couldn't completely stop them.

  "So there was this sort of continually wanting the approval and affection and love of the women but also wanting the approval and affection and love of society.

  "The fact is, he has a sort of unusual combination of defenses— unusual in the sense that psychologists like to type people into nice, neat little compartments. And that's great when we write textbooks, but unfortunately when we meet with a real person, they don't fit into such nice neat compartments.

  "He has this funny combination of, on one hand, an obsessive approach, an intellectualizing approach. That's a fairly unusual combination of defenses, and I think it makes him particularly difficult to understand.

  "Now, what does all this have to do with the actual crime that occurred? On the basis of a psychological examination, I don't think a psychologist can determine if a person is lying or not. I think I can with relative certainty describe his adjustment, describe what he was like, account for why he is reacting to what happened the way he did, but as to whether he could be lying about a specific detail or not, I can't read his mind.

  "And I think in general it's very difficult to say who, and under what circumstances, can commit a murder. Give me a group of one hundred people and let me examine the group and I might predict out of that hundred what proportion might be likely to commit violent behavior, but you give me one person and ask me to predict, and boy, I'm not going to make any money. I'd rather bet on the horses.

  "So, from my understanding of Captain MacDonald's adjustment, the two questions I would want to ask myself are, one, what sort of circumstances would be maximally stressful for him and might lead him to commit a violent crime, and, two, if he committed a violent crime, how would he go about it and how would he respond to it.

  "Now, on the basis of his adjustment, it is my feeling that the most stressful type of circumstance would be one where a person not in authority over him and not under him, but a person he hasn't clearly got a structured role with—like a wife or a peer— would say something that would directly challenge his basic area of conflict: his sense of adequacy and masculine autonomy.

  "So a taunt from his wife suggesting that he lacked confidence or he lacked virility, I think, would perhaps be the most upsetting thing to him—the thing that might lead him to become most angry, most likely to commit a violent act.

  "I cannot think of a basis that would provide sufficient stress for him to commit a violent act against someone who was not in this clearly unstructured role to him. In other words, people way in authority over him, he would have no trouble submitting. That was his style of life. People way in authority under him, they're clearly under him, they wouldn't provide as much stress.

  "Therefore, based on my knowledge of him, I could not conceive of emotionally stressful circumstances that would be such that would lead him to kill his children. But I could think of some that might lead him to be angry enough to do something to his wife.

  "I have seen murderers who were essentially cold-blooded, psychopathic killers who killed without any particular concern for what they've done and maintained a perfect calm—not because they were defending against anything but just because they didn't care, and coldly and calculatedly went about their business and afterwards tried to handle and conceal evidence and save themselves.

  "And I've seen people who have committed a murder in the midst of a psychotic episode. And I've seen people who were basically rather passive, dependent individuals that held their feelings inside of them, with adjustments like Captain MacDonald's—and like probably some of you—who have indeed committed a murder.

  "Usually, the murder is of a spouse. The great majority of murders are the murders of spouses. But the way this sort of individual typically responds is immediately afterwards they break down.

  "They frequently become amnesic for the whole event and pick up the phone and calmly say, ‘I don't know what's happened. There's a knife in my hand. I think my wife, or husband, is dead. You'd better come quick and bring the police. And you come in and the children are sitting there crying and there's just one big mess. And then you go to interview them and they say, 'I don't know what happened.' They have blocked it completely from their minds. One study done in England estimated that in approximately 60 percent of the murders they studied, the person who was accused was amnesic for the event.

  "Now, Dr. MacDonald is a person who does repress and deny and compartmentalize, and it's my feeling that were he to have committed such a crime, his response afterwards would most likely be that type of response."

  "Can you generalize," Victor Woerheide asked, "about how long such an amnesic episode might last?"

  "Sometimes they last indefinitely. Most of them persist for some time. It depends on the way you handle them, and of course it's always confused because some people that are apparently amnesic are actually concealing details of the crime.

  "Incidentally, I want to make clear that when I use the words denial and repression, I do not mean a conscious attempt to, like, say, 'Oh, I'm not going to tell this.' It means that it is completely blocked out of the conscious mind: that the person does not have that information available to himself.

  "And I am saying that in this case it is quite likely that had Captain MacDonald committed such a violent crime, he would have completely blocked the whole episode from his mind. In other words, he would not know how it happened and he would have run around trying to be the doctor and save everybody."

  "But is it also likely," Woerheide asked, "that if he did block it out, let's say temporarily, that he might some moments afterwards become aware of the fact that there were dead people in the house and he is involved in their deaths, and being aware of that and being a highly intelligent man with quick responses, and being mindful from conversations he had in the recent past concerning the Sharon Tate case i
n a magazine article that was in his house, that he might be capable of creating a scene that might have some semblance of a similar crime being committed in his house by certain unknown intruders?"

  "No, it doesn't make sense to me that if he had blocked it out of his mind by the unconscious motives we are talking about that he would then—having blocked it out—think, 'Oh, I must have blocked it out unconsciously and really I've done it, and therefore I've got to conceal the evidence.' Usually, people's minds don't work that way. I mean, that would be pretty strange—to act upon the basis of something you're not consciously aware of and then go ahead and try to conceal it.

  "Also, in regard to what had happened to him, he was by no means totally unaware of the loss that he suffered, even though he was emotionally constricted in his expression of his sense of loss. He had begun, in talking with me, to verbalize some awareness of how little he had communicated his feelings to his wife and family. And, furthermore, he began to verbalize some of the feelings that he had had of feeling trapped in marriage and caught up in responsibilities he had assumed.

  "And he was aware of the ironic quality that ""something that had happened—the loss of his wife and family—had both made him realize how little he had communicated to them of his feelings, and at the same time gave him a sense of shame because he was aware in some sense that what happened provided him with relief. And the most ironic aspect of all, from his point of view, was that his life was saved and his family was killed—from his expression of it—because he had failed to react aggressively. If he had been the man that he thought he was, the whole thing wouldn't have happened. The fact that he was alive was due to the fact that he was not the man he says he is. If he had been what he says he was, he would be dead because he would have withstood them, and either chased them away or been killed himself."

  "Do I understand you to say," Victor Woerheide asked, "that with the death of his wife and children there was a sense of, let's say, release, a sense of liberation, a sense of relief?"

  "Yes. That was part of his reaction to what had happened. I might add that the fact that he could reveal this to me was one of the things that impressed me with his relative sincerity and frankness."

  When the psychologist resumed the stand after lunch, Victor Woerheide said to him, "The man you examined, Dr. MacDonald, testified for a period of five days before this grand jury. I want to outline some of the things that came out during his testimony and ask you how they fit within the framework of your conclusions with respect to his personality adjustment.

  "During the Article 32 proceeding, and prior thereto, and for a period of time thereafter, Dr. MacDonald received very strong support from his in-laws, Colette's mother and stepfather, people by the name of Kassab.

  "At the conclusion of the Article 32 proceeding, MacDonald made a number of statements to the press. He also appeared on TV. Among other things, he said he was going to conduct an independent investigation because he was not satisfied with the job the Army had done. They were bunglers arid incompetents. He was going to find the people who committed this offense and he was going to get revenge.

  "Later, in a telephone conversation with his father-in-law, he stated in substance: 'I've been conducting my investigation in the bars and hippie hangouts of Fayetteville. I have found one of the persons who was an intruder into my home. I took him out. I, in effect, beat him up. When I was through with him, he would have told on his own mother. Then I killed him. He's six foot under.'

  "When MacDonald testified, he said, yes, I did tell this story to Kassab. On subsequent occasions, extending for a period of over a year, he wrote letters to the Kassabs saying that he was pursuing the investigation further, He already had gotten one of them. He still had at least three to go. He was making transcontinental trips. He broke his arm. It cost him four thousand dollars.

  "Then, when he testified before the grand jury, he said, 'Yes, it's true. I wrote these letters. I had this telephone conversation. I said these things to Kassab. I used these terms. It was all a lie. But I was forced to do it. I was forced to do it by Kassab, by his pressing me to go forward.'

  "Now, how does this fit into your analysis of Dr. MacDonald as a man?"

  "I can answer some of that," the psychologist said. "I can't answer all of it. It would not be at all surprising for him to respond to what had happened with quick, impulsive, angry, vindictive outbursts, like, 'Those idiots, those imbeciles, those nincompoops.' And he might do this without thinking of the consequences for himself.

  "In a way, if I were an attorney, I would hate to defend a guy like this because I would never be sure but what the minute he got out of my sight he was going to do something on his own that blows the whole defense, because he was convinced that, by God, he knew what to do and he knew it was the right thing.

  "He's a very opinionated guy. So that's perfectly consistent. He's right and everybody else is an idiot: that's him all over.

  "It might also be perfectly consistent for him to say, I’ll get revenge. I'll work this out, those guys don't know how to do it. I can solve this.' But it would be very inconsistent for him to in fact conduct an investigation over the next couple of years and do it.

  "I would expect he would make the quick, impulsive outburst and then quickly seal over all his feelings and go on to something else."

  "But would he lie about it?" Woerheide asked. "And lie about it to the extent of saying, 'I found one of them. I tortured him. I killed him'?"

  "That certainly sounds like a strange sort of lie to make up. I'd have to look at it from this point of view: what would be the sort of thing that could make a person like Captain MacDonald lie? If he perceived he was being forced into something by somebody that he had respect for, and he saw as a stronger authority figure, he might go along superficially with things.

  "In other words, I don't know his relationship with his father-in-law, but if his father-in-law was perceived as a strong, secure, authority figure, it might be that Captain MacDonald might have lied to go along with that, even though he himself was trying to put these things out of his mind and go about his business in his bland, denying way. That might provide some of the motivation.

  "That is a rather grisly story to make up, however, and my explanation doesn't really do it justice. That's just one thing that comes to mind.

  "Another is that MacDonald is a guy who likes to be right. He wants to be the authority himself, and it may be that if somebody were bugging him and trying to tell him that he wasn't doing the right thing, conceivably that might provide a motivation, where he in effect might just be saying, 'Get off, buddy,' telling him where to get off by making up something bizarre.

  "For example, on some of the tests he did with me, he would occasionally make a remark interspersed in the test that really was sort of putting me down. You know, he would say, i guess that sounds a little hysterical.' Or, i see this area as a breast, but I'm a breast man. That's the reason I see breasts. I know you psychologists make a lot of things out of this,' which was sort of saying, i understand everything that you do, and it's a bunch of nonsense.' "

  "All right," Woerheide said. "He gave an extensive interview to a newspaper reporter. This was taped and was published in serialized form over a period of days, setting forth verbatim questions and answers. When asked about this, he said he really didn't want to do it but he was forced to do it, he was compelled to do it by his lawyers."

  "That may be the truth," the psychologist replied, "but regardless of what his lawyers told him, it's certainly true that Captain MacDonald would have gotten quite a charge out of trying to make the Army look stupid. To show that he was right and they were wrong. He would get a lot of enjoyment out of that, no question in my mind."

  "Now, after the Article 32, he appeared on the Dick Cavett show. He was on Walter Cronkite's news program. And he gave a number of interviews. He called his sister, who lived out of town, and asked her to get everybody they knew to tune in the Dick Cavett show on the night he appe
ared.

  "When asked about it here, he said, 'Well, I really didn't want to. I was forced to do it. This was because certain congressmen and Kassab were pushing me. I had to do it because they made me."

  'My inclination, again, I think, is that probably he would get a great deal of enjoyment out of doing that. This is another example of his tendency to do things regardless of the effect on him when he thinks he is right.

  "In other words, if a person wanted to act in the manner most helpful to himself, having gone through the Article 32 proceedings as he did, it seems to me there would be a couple of options.

  "One, you might really have a firm, idealistic belief that you had been mistreated by the Army and that there's something wrong with the whole system and you're going to set out in a sort of messianic way to change the system.

  "I don't see MacDonald as having that type of motivation. I don't think he is the type that would maintain a long-term, idealistically oriented campaign. I think he is too much concerned with his own gratification and sealing all of this over and getting out of it.

  "Now, if you were going to be mature and responsible about this, and you were not so oriented, your next step would probably be to think, ‘I'm out of this, by God, I'm going to get as far away from this and lay as low as possible.' You know, not to stir up the hornet's nest again.

  "Well, here's an example, I think, where instead of behaving in his own best interests, he impulsively sounded off in a way that was neither dedicated towards idealistically reforming the situation nor towards keeping attention away from himself and letting things calm down.

  "It is simply an index of his self-righteousness, and his need to appear strong and assertive, that would lead him to do things that actually work against him.

  "You know, I can't think of anything better calculated to get the Army or somebody else back down on his back again, trying to hurt him."