by Herman Wouk
“Describe the background of your colleagues.”
“Bird has special training in Freudian technique. He’s a recent honor graduate of Harvard Medical School. Manella is one of the best-known psychosomatic men on the West Coast.”
“State their present whereabouts.”
“Bird is still on my staff. Manella was detached last week and is en route to the Philippines.”
“We will place your report in evidence and hear Dr. Bird. Thank you, Doctor.”
The judge advocate allowed himself a direct glance into Greenwald’s eyes, and a thin cold grin. Greenwald came shuffling toward the witness platform, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, looking down at his feet, and presenting a general picture of flustered embarrassment. “Dr. Lundeen, my background is legal, not medical. I hope you will bear with me if I try to clarify technical terms. I’ll probably ask some elementary questions.”
“Perfectly all right.”
“You said Commander Queeg, like all adults, had problems, to which he was adjusted. Can you describe the problems?”
“Well, most of that information comes under the heading of clinical confidences.”
“Yes, sir. Suppressing all confidential information, can you still describe in general the problems?”
Challee called out, “I object. Commander Queeg is not on trial. Lieutenant Maryk is. The question constitutes irrelevant probing of medical confidences.”
Blakely looked to Greenwald. The pilot shrugged. “I rely on the judgment of the court. Evidence regarding disturbing factors in Commander Queeg’s mental make-up is of the utmost importance to the issue, obviously.”
With an annoyed glance at the judge advocate, Blakely ordered the court cleared. The parties were summoned back in less than a minute. Blakely said, “The question is material. Objection overruled. The doctor has the privilege of medical discretion in answering.” Challee flushed, and slouched in his chair. The stenographer repeated the question.
“Well, you might say the over-all problem is one of inferiority feelings,” said Lundeen, “generated by an unfavorable childhood and aggravated by some adult experiences.”
“Unfavorable childhood in what way?”
“Disturbed background. Divorced parents, financial trouble, schooling problems.”
“And the aggravating factors in adult life?”
“Well, I can’t go into those too much. In general, the commander is rather troubled by his short stature, his low standing in his class, and such factors. Apparently the hazing at the Academy was a scarring experience.” Lundeen paused. “That’s about what I can say.”
“How about his present family life?”
The doctor said reluctantly, “Well, you begin to tread on clinical ground there.”
“But there are tensions, without describing them?”
“I won’t answer further questions in that direction. As I say, the commander is well adjusted to all these things.”
“Can you describe the nature of the adjustment?”
“Yes, I can. His identity as a naval officer is the essential balancing factor. It’s the key to his personal security and therefore he’s excessively zealous to protect his standing. That would account for the harshness and ill temper I spoke about before.”
“Would he be disinclined to admit to mistakes?”
“Well, there’s a tendency that way. The commander has a fixed anxiety about protecting his standing. Of course there’s nothing unbalanced in that.”
“Would he be a perfectionist?”
“Such a personality would be.”
“Inclined to hound subordinates about small details?”
“He prides himself on meticulousness. Any mistake of a subordinate is intolerable because it might endanger him.”
“Is such a personality, with such a zeal for perfection, likely to avoid all mistakes?”
“Well, we all know that reality is beyond the hundred-percent control of any human being-”
“Yet he will not admit mistakes when made. Is he lying?”
“Definitely not! He-you might say be revises reality in his own mind so that he comes out blameless. There’s a tendency to blame others-”
“Doctor, isn’t distorting reality a symptom of mental illness?”
“Certainly not, in itself. It’s all’ a question of degree. None of us wholly faces reality.”
“But doesn’t the commander distort reality more than, say, you do, or any other person not under his tensions?”
“That’s his weakness. Other people have other weaknesses. It’s definitely not disabling.”
“Would such a personality be inclined to feel that people were against him, hostile to him?”
“It’s all part of it. Such a man by nature is constantly on the alert to defend his self-esteem.”
“Would he be suspicious of subordinates, and inclined to question their loyalty and competence?”
“Maybe somewhat. It’s all part of the anxiety for perfection.”
“If criticized from above, would he be inclined to think he was being unjustly persecuted?”
“Well, as I say, it’s all one pattern, all stemming from one basic premise, that he must try to be perfect.”
“Would he be inclined to stubbornness?”
“Well, you’ll have a certain rigidity of personality in such an individual. The inner insecurity checks him from admitting that those who differ with him may be right.”
Greenwald suddenly switched from his fumbling manner to clicking preciseness. “Doctor, you’ve testified that the following symptoms exist in the commander’s behavior: rigidity of personality, feelings of persecution, unreasonable suspicion, withdrawal from reality, perfectionist anxiety, an unreal basic premise, and an obsessive sense of self-righteousness.”
Dr. Lundeen looked startled. “All mild, sir, all well compensated.”
“Yes, Doctor. Is there an inclusive psychiatric term-one label-for this syndrome?”
“Syndrome? Who said anything about a syndrome? You’re misusing a term. There’s no syndrome, because there’s no disease.”
“Thank you for the correction, Doctor. I’ll rephrase it. Do the symptoms fall into a single pattern of neurotic disturbance-a common psychiatric class?”
“I know what you’re driving at, of course. It’s a paranoid personality, of course, but that is not a disabling affliction.”
“What kind of personality, Doctor?”
“Paranoid.”
“Paranoid, Doctor?”
“Yes, paranoid.”
Greenwald glanced at Challee, then looked around slowly, one by one, at the faces of the court. He started back to his desk. Challee rose. The pilot said, “I haven’t finished cross-examination, I want to consult my notes.” Challee sank into his seat. There was a minute of silence. Greenwald shuffled papers at his desk. The word “paranoid” hung in the air.
“Doctor, in a paranoid personality like Commander Queeg’s, how do you distinguish between illness and adjustment?”
“As I’ve said repeatedly”-there was a tired, irritated note in Lundeen’s voice-“it’s a question of degree. Nobody’s absolutely normal. Perhaps you’re a mild manic-depressive. Perhaps I’m a mild schizoid. Millions of people live normal lives with these compensated conditions. Their physical analogues are a sway back, a heart murmur, something that is an individual weakness but not a disabling factor. You have to look for the disabling factor.”
“Is this disabling factor an absolute or a relative thing, Doctor?”
“How do you mean that?”
“Well, could a man have a paranoid personality which would not disable him for any subordinate duties, but would disable him for command?”
“Conceivably.”
“Then as a communications officer he would not be mentally ill-but as captain of the ship he would be mentally ill, isn’t that right?”
“You’re jumbling up a lot of medical language which you use very loosely,” Lundeen s
aid huffily.
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
“In the case of Captain Queeg my board did not find him disabled for command.
“I remember that testimony, sir. Can you describe, Doctor, the point at which the paranoid personality becomes disabling?”
“When the man loses control of himself and of the reality around him.”
“What are the symptoms of the disabled paranoid who finds reality too much for him?”
“Well, there can be various reactions. Withdrawal into torpor, or frenzy, or nervous collapse-it all depends on circumstances.”
“Is the disabling factor likely to show up in personal interviews?”
“With a skilled psychiatrist, yes.”
“You mean the patient would go into frenzy or torpor?”
“No. I mean the psychiatrist could detect the disabling mechanisms, the rigidity, persecution feelings, fixed ideas, and so forth.”
“Why is a psychiatrist needed, Doctor? Can’t an educated intelligent person, like myself, or the judge advocate, or the court, detect a paranoid?”
Dr. Lundeen said sarcastically, “You evidently are not too well acquainted with the pattern. The distinguishing mark of this neurosis is extreme plausibility and a most convincing normal manner on the surface. Particularly in self-justification.”
Greenwald looked at the floor for half a minute. There was a rustle at the bench as all the court members, by a common impulse, shifted in their chairs. “A hypothetical question, Doctor, about a commanding officer with a paranoid personality ... Assuming he does the following things: he becomes bewildered or frightened under fire, and runs away; he damages government property and denies it; he falsifies official records; he extorts money from his subordinates; he issues excessive punishments for small offenses. Is he disabled for command?”
After a long wait, with the court members staring hard at him, Lundeen said, “It’s an incomplete question. Does he perform his duties satisfactorily otherwise?”
“Hypothetically, let us say so.”
“Well, then, he-he is not necessarily disabled, no. He is obviously not very desirable. It’s a question of your level of officer procurement. If you have other men as qualified as him for command, well, they would be preferable. If you’re in a war and command personnel is stretched thin, well, you may have to use him. It’s another war risk.”
“Dr. Lundeen, would you, as an expert witness, say that Commander Queeg should be restored to command of a United States naval vessel?”
“Well, I- The question’s pointless. That’s the province of the Bureau of Personnel. The man is not mentally ill. I’ve repeatedly stated that a paranoid disturbance, however mild, is a distorting condition and exceedingly unpleasant for associates. In war you make do with what you have. He isn’t disabled.”
“Would you care to have your son under Captain Queeg in battle?”
Lundeen glanced unhappily at the judge advocate, who jumped to his feet. “Objection. It is a personal emotional reaction that is being asked for, not an expert opinion.”
“I withdraw the question,” said Greenwald. “Thank you, Dr. Lundeen. Defense is finished.”
Captain Blakely said, “The court wishes to clear up one point.” The other court members looked tensely at the president. “Doctor, is such a thing possible-a temporary disability under stress, not amounting to a full collapse? Or-well, let me put it this way. Let’s say a man with a mild condition is not disabled for all the usual stresses of command. Now let’s say the stresses are multiplied manifold by a most extreme emergency. Would there be a loss in efficiency? A tendency to get confused and rattled, to make erroneous judgments?”
“Well, there might be. Extreme stress does that to almost anybody, sir.”
“It’s not supposed to do it to commanding officers.”
“No, but practically speaking, sir, they’re human, too.”
“Very well, Doctor, thank you.”
Challee resumed direct examination, and led Lundeen to assert several times, in different ways, that Queeg was not and had never been disabled. The doctor made these statements with aggrieved emphasis, occasionally looking sidewise at the defense lawyer.
“Dr. Bird will be my last witness, sir,” Challee said to the court, as the orderly went out to call the second psychiatrist. “Very well,” said Blakely, glancing at the clock. It was five minutes past two. The lieutenant who came in was an extremely slender, youthful-looking man with dark hair, sallow skin, and sharp sensitive features. His eyes were brown, deep-set, large, and penetrating. There was something of the fanatic in his look. He was quite handsome.
Under Challee’s questioning he confirmed everything that Dr. Lundeen had said about Queeg. In crisp, clear, yet gentle tones, he asserted that Queeg was fit for command now and had never been unfit. Challee said, “Did Dr. Manella concur with you and Dr. Lundeen in this opinion?”
“He did.”
Challee paused, then said, “Did you find any indication that the commander had what is known as a paranoid personality?”
“Well, I would prefer to call it an obsessive personality with paranoid features.”
“But this did not indicate mental unfitness?”
“No, it did not.”
“Do the terms ‘paranoid personality’ or ‘obsessive personality’ occur in your board’s report?”
“No.”
“Why not, Doctor?”
“Well, terminology is far from exact in psychiatry. The same terms may mean different things even to men of the same school. ‘Paranoid personality’ sounds disabling and really isn’t, at least not for me or Dr. Lundeen or Dr. Manella.”
“Then Commander Queeg was pronounced fit from three different psychiatric viewpoints?”
“Yes.”
“You unanimously agreed, Doctor, that Commander Queeg is mentally fit now and must have been mentally fit on 18 December, when he was summarily relieved on the grounds of mental illness?”
“That was our unanimous conclusion.”
“No further questions.”
Greenwald approached the witness. “Doctor, in the Freudian analysis is there such a thing as mental illness?”
“Well, there are disturbed people and adjusted people.”
“But disturbed and adjusted correspond roughly, don’t they, to the terms sick and well as laymen use them?”
“Very roughly, yes.”
“Would you say Commander Queeg suffers from inferiority feelings?”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
“Very severe childhood trauma. But they are well compensated.”
“Is there a difference between compensated and adjusted?”
“Most definitely.”
“Can you explain it?”
“Well-” Bird smiled and settled back in his chair. “Let’s say a man has some deep-seated psychological disturbance buried in his unconscious. It will drive him to do strange things and will keep him in a constant state of tension, but he’ll never know why. He can compensate by finding outlets for his peculiar drives, by will power, by daydreams, by any one of a thousand conscious devices. He can never adjust without undergoing psychoanalysis and bringing the disturbance up from the unconscious to the light of day.”
“Has Commander Queeg ever been psychoanalyzed?”
“No.”
“He is, then, a disturbed person?”
“Yes, he is. Not disabled, however, by the disturbance.”
“Dr. Lundeen testified that he was adjusted.”
Bird smiled. “Well, you’re in terminology again. Adjustment has a special meaning in Freudian technique. Dr. Lundeen used it roughly to mean that the patient has compensated for his disturbance.”
“Can you describe the commander’s disturbance?”
“Without an extensive analysis I could not describe it accurately.”
“You have no idea of what it is?”
“Of course the surface picture is clear. Commande
r Queeg subconsciously feels that he is disliked because he is wicked, stupid, and personally insignificant. This guilt and hostility trace back to infancy.”
“How has he compensated?”
“In two ways, mainly. The paranoid pattern, which is useless and not desirable, and his naval career, which is extremely useful and desirable.”
“You say his military career is a result of his disturbance?”
“Most military careers are.”
Greenwald glanced up surreptitiously at Blakely. “Would you explain that, Doctor?”
“I simply mean that it represents an escape, a chance to return to the womb and be reborn with a synthetic blameless self.”
Challee stood. “How far is this totally irrelevant technical discussion going to be pushed?”
“Are you objecting to the question?” Blakely said, scowling. “I am requesting the court to set limits to time-wasting by the defense in confusing irrelevancies.”
“Request noted. Proceed with cross-examination.”
Greenwald resumed, “Doctor, did you note any peculiar habit Commander Queeg had? Something he did with his hands?”
“Do you mean rolling the marbles?”
“Yes, did he do that in your presence?”
“Not for the first week or so. Then he told me about it and I recommended that he resume the habit if it made him more comfortable. And he did so.”
“Describe the habit, please.”
“Well, it’s an incessant rolling or rattling of two marbles in his hand-either hand.”
“Did he say why he did it?”
“His hands tremble. He does it to steady his hands and conceal the trembling.”
“Why do his hands tremble?”
“The inner tension. It’s one of the surface symptoms.”
“Does the rolling of balls have significance in the Freudian analysis?”
Bird glanced at the court uneasily. “Well, you go into technical jargon there.”
“Please make it as non-technical as possible.”
“Well, without analysis of the person you can only guess at the symbolism. It might be suppressed masturbation. It might be fondling poisonous pellets of feces. It all depends on-”