Fatal Vision (73 page)

"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 perfect
ly consistent for him to say, I’l
l 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 appeared.

"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."

"Just one final point, Doctor. His current lifestyle apparently involves working in an emergency room on the West Coast, he has a very nice apartment, he associates with attractive people, attractive girlfriends. He has an expensive sports car, he has a large boat. And he apparently is leading a lifestyle entirely different from the kind of life he had when he was married. Do you have any comment?"

"It strikes me," the psychologist said, "that the style of life you're describing is perhaps one of the few viable alternatives left for him, given his adjustment.

"That is to say, Captain MacDonald wanted to go into a residency in surgery. In view of what he went through, it seems to me very unlikely that he could be accepted for a residency in surgery. So his professional goals—the thing he had planned for a long time—were undoubtedly quite upset.

"Now, there are some people who would react to that in one way and others who would react in another. Again, from what I've said about Captain MacDonald, I would expect him to react to that by denying that it was an upsetting thing. To quickly reconstitute his defenses and set up a life where he was perfectly happy, content, relaxed, and appeared to be an adequate, competent man.

"What's available to him? To retreat to the golden-boy style of life he led in school? Now you can't be a golden boy by getting good grades or that sort of thing when you're not in school. But you can live in an open, relaxed, Southern California style: nice cars, women.

"That doesn't surprise me. It seems to me that's quite consistent with the way he might be expected to react to it."

"And by being a single swinger—"

"I don't think he would be a terribly effective swinger, by the way."

"Ostensibly the swinger, let's say."

"Yes. I think, again, it's quite superficial."

"But without a wife who would make demands on him?"

"Right."

"And without children who would make demands?"

"Exactly. I think, in fact, it's probably a very adaptive response for him. He's probably a lot better off living that style of life for the time being than trying to get married again."

When Freddy Kassab was called to testify, he said, "Jeff was a nice boy from all I ever saw. He used to come over on the weekends and cut the lawn. When he and Colette started going again, Mildred and I were very pleased. We liked Jeff. When Colette told us she was pregnant and that they wanted to get married, we tried to talk her out of it only because Jeff was going to medical school and she had only put in two years of college. But when Mrs. MacDonald came in and talked to us, we said,
^‘
We don't have anything against it. They should go ahead and get married if that's what they want.' Which they did.

"My belief in his innocence was based on the fact that I knew the boy. However, I knew nothing about what occurred that night, nor did my wife. Nobody told us a thing. We were just going on the assumption that how could a man such as we knew do such a thing to his wife and baby children.

"And of course the worst thing of all, in a way, was to turn around and write in blood on the headboard of the bed. This is something that is just inconceivable. But when you sit down with the facts and you analyze them and you see that his whole story is a fabrication, you are left with only one conclusion.

"We knew prior to this of what we considered a failing he had, but we didn't put too much stock in it. But the fact is that Jeff has complete disdain for anyone and everyone that I have ever known him to know. He has contempt for everybody. Out of their sight, though. His disdain is not in their presence. In other words, the minute somebody walked out the door that's who he talked about. Jeff had a habit of doing this at all times. He is mentally, in
his
mind, superior to most people. This, you know, was the only thing we ever knew about him that we didn't care for. But what the heck. You know, we've all got our faults, so we just overlooked this.

"But he would never criticize anybody to their face. He never had the guts to do it. He never fought me to my face. He never came back when I started accusing him of all this stuff and confronted me with anything. Never. Never. And he knew about it, because I got to the point where I sat his mother down in my kitchen after he moved to California and I said, 'I think there are a few things you ought to know.' So he knew about my thoughts. But he never called me and said, 'What's this all about?' He just wrote me a couple of letters and said, you know, 'I'm out here doing fairly good.' "