The 60s

by The New Yorker Magazine

  Another aspect of the matter was at once more delicate and more relevant to the political situation in Germany. It was one thing to ferret out mass murderers and other criminals from their hiding places, and it was another thing to find them prominent and active in the public realm—to encounter innumerable men in the federal and state administrations whose careers had bloomed under the Hitler regime. To be sure, if the Adenauer administration had been too sensitive in employing officials with a compromising Nazi past, there might have been no administration at all. For the truth is, of course, the exact opposite of what Dr. Adenauer asserted it to be when he said that only “a relatively small percentage” of Germans had been Nazis, and that “a great majority were happy to help their Jewish fellow-citizens when they could.” (At least one West German newspaper, the Frankfurter Rundschau, asked itself the obvious question, long overdue—why so many people who must have known, for instance, the record of Wolfgang Immerwahr Frankel had kept silent—and then came up with the even more obvious answer: “Because they themselves felt incriminated.”) The logic of the Eichmann trial, as Ben-Gurion conceived of it—a trial stressing general issues, to the detriment of legal niceties—would have demanded exposure of the complicity of all German bureaus and authorities in the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish question; of all civil servants in the state ministries; of the regular armed forces, with their General Staff; of the judiciary; and of the business world. But although the prosecution went as far afield as to put witness after witness on the stand who testified to things that, while gruesome and true enough, had only the slightest connection, or none, with the deeds of the accused, it carefully avoided touching upon this highly explosive matter—upon the almost ubiquitous complicity, stretching far beyond the ranks of the Party membership. (There were widespread rumors prior to the trial that Eichmann had named “several hundred prominent personalities of the Federal Republic as his accomplices,” but these rumors were not true. In his opening speech, Mr. Hausner still mentioned Eichmann’s “accomplices in the crime [who] were neither gangsters nor men of the underworld,” and promised that we should “encounter them—the doctors and lawyers, scholars, bankers, and economists—in those councils that resolved to exterminate the Jews.” This promise was not kept—nor could it have been kept in the form in which it was made, for in the Nazi regime there were no “councils that resolved” anything, and the “robed dignitaries with academic degrees” made no decision to exterminate the Jews; they came together only to plan the necessary steps in carrying out an order given by Hitler.) Still, one case of complicity was brought to the attention of the court—that of Dr. Hans Globke, who, more than twenty-five years ago, was co-author of an infamous commentary on the Nuremberg Laws and, somewhat later, author of the brilliant idea of compelling all German Jews to take “Israel” or “Sarah” as a middle name, and who is today one of Adenauer’s closest advisers. And Globke’s name—and only his name—was inserted into the proceedings by the defense, and probably only in the hope of “persuading” the Adenauer government to start proceedings to extradite Eichmann. Still, former Ministry Official and present Undersecretary of State Globke doubtless had more right than the former Mufti of Jerusalem to figure in the history of what the Jews had actually suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

  And it was history that, as far as the prosecution was concerned, stood at the center of the trial. “It is not an individual that is in the dock at this historic trial, and not the Nazi regime alone,” Ben-Gurion said, “but anti-Semitism throughout history.” The tone set by Ben-Gurion was faithfully followed by Hausner. He began his opening address (which lasted through three sessions) with Pharaoh In Egypt and Haman’s decree “to destroy, to slay, and to cause them [the Jews] to perish.” He then proceeded to quote from Ezekiel’s words “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee: ‘In thy blood, live!,’ ” explaining that they must be understood as “the imperative that has confronted this nation ever since its first appearance on the stage of history.” It was bad history and cheap rhetoric; worse, it was clearly at cross-purposes with putting Eichmann on trial at all, since it suggested that perhaps he was only an innocent executor of some mysteriously foreordained destiny, or even, for that matter, of anti-Semitism, which had been necessary to blaze the trail of “the bloodstained road travelled by this people” to fulfill its destiny. A few sessions later, after Salo W. Baron, Professor of Jewish History at Columbia University, had testified to the more recent history of Eastern European Jewry, Dr. Servatius could no longer resist temptation and asked the obvious questions: “Why did all this bad luck fall upon the Jewish people?” and “Don’t you think that irrational motives are at the basis of the fate of this people? Beyond the understanding of a human being?” Is not there perhaps something like “the spirit of history, which brings history forward…without the influence of men?” Is not Mr. Hausner basically in agreement with “the school of historical law”—an allusion to Hegel—and has he not shown that what “the leaders do will not always lead to the aim and destination they wanted?” And Dr. Servatius added, “Here the intention was to destroy the Jewish people and the objective was not reached and a new flourishing state came into being.” The argument of the defense had now come perilously close to the newest anti-Semitic theory about the Elders of Zion, which had been set forth in all seriousness a few weeks earlier in the old Egyptian National Assembly by Hussain Zulficar Sabri, Nasser’s Deputy Foreign Minister: Hitler was innocent of the slaughter of the Jews; he was a victim of the Zionists, who had compelled “Hitler to perpetrate crimes and to create the legend that would eventually enable them to achieve their aim—the creation of the State of Israel.” Except that Dr. Servatius, following the philosophy of history expounded by the prosecutor, had put History in the place of the Elders of Zion.

  Despite the intentions of Ben-Gurion and the efforts of the prosecution, there remained an individual in the dock, a person of flesh and blood, and even if Ben-Gurion, as he claimed, did not “care what verdict is delivered against Eichmann,” it was undeniably the sole task of the Jerusalem court to deliver one.

  Truman Capote

  OCTOBER 16, 1965

  INSTITUTIONAL DOURNESS AND cheerful domesticity coexist on the fourth floor of the Finney County Courthouse, in Garden City, Kansas. The presence of the county jail supplies the first quality, and the so-called Sheriff’s Residence, a pleasant apartment separated from the five cells that make up the jail proper by steel doors and a short corridor, accounts for the second. For the last three years, the Sheriff’s Residence has in fact been occupied not by the sheriff, Earl Robinson, but by the under-sheriff and his wife, Wendle and Josephine—or Josie—Meier. The Meiers have been married more than twenty years. They are much alike—tall people with weight and strength to spare, with wide hands, with square and calm faces, and a kindly look, the last being especially true of Mrs. Meier, a direct and practical woman who nevertheless seems illuminated by a quite mystical serenity. As the under-sheriff’s helpmate, she puts in long hours; between five in the morning, when she begins the day by reading a chapter in the Bible, and 10 P.M., her bedtime, she cooks for the prisoners, sews and darns for them, does their laundry, takes splendid care of her husband, and looks after the five-room Sheriff’s Residence, with its gemütlich mélange of plump hassocks and squashy chairs and cream-colored lace window curtains. The Meiers have one child, a daughter, who is married to a Kansas City policeman, so the couple live alone—or, as Mrs. Meier more correctly puts it, “alone except for whoever happens to be in the ladies’ cell.”

  The jail actually contains six cells. The sixth, the one reserved for female prisoners, is actually an isolated unit situated inside the Sheriff’s Residence; indeed, it adjoins the Meiers’ kitchen. “But that don’t worry me,” says Josie Meier. “I enjoy the company. Having somebody to talk to while I’m doing my kitchen work. Most of those women, you got to feel sorry for them. Just met up with Old Man
Trouble is all. Course, Smith and Hickock was a different matter. Far as I know, Perry Smith was the first man ever stayed in the ladies’ cell. The reason was the sheriff wanted to keep him and Hickock separated from each other until after their trial.” Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock were a young pair of ex-convicts who had confessed that in November of 1959 they murdered in his home a prominent Finney County farm rancher, Herbert W. Clutter, and three members of his family: his wife, Bonnie; their sixteen-year-old daughter, Nancy; and a son, Kenyon, fifteen. Smith and Hickock were arrested on December 30, 1959, in Las Vegas, Nevada; on January 6, 1960, they were returned to Garden City to await trial. Robbery and a desire to avoid the consequences of possible identification were the confessed motives for the crime.

  “The afternoon they brought them in, I made six apple pies and baked some bread and all the while kept track of the goings on down there on Courthouse Square,” Josie recalls. “My kitchen window overlooks the square; you couldn’t want a better view. I’m no judge of crowds, but I’d guess there were several hundred people waiting to see the boys that killed the Clutter family. I never met any of the Clutters myself, but from everything I’ve ever heard about them they must have been very fine people. What happened to them is hard to forgive, and I know Wendle was worried how the crowd might act when they caught sight of Smith and Hickock. He was afraid somebody might try to get at them. So I kind of had my heart in my mouth when I saw the cars arrive, saw the reporters—all the newspaper fellows running and pushing. But by then it was dark, after six, and bitter cold, and more than half the crowd had given up and gone home. The ones that stayed, they didn’t say boo. Only stared. Later, when they brought the boys upstairs, the first one I saw was Hickock. He had on light summer pants and just an old cloth shirt. Surprised he didn’t catch pneumonia, considering how cold it was. But he looked sick, all right. White as a ghost. Well, it must be a terrible experience—to be stared at by a horde of strangers, to have to walk among them, and them knowing who you are and what you did. Then they brought up Smith. I had some supper ready to serve them in their cells—hot soup and coffee and some sandwiches and pie. Ordinarily, we feed just twice a day—breakfast at seven-thirty, and at four-thirty we serve the main meal—but I didn’t want those fellows going to bed on an empty stomach; seemed to me they must be feeling bad enough without that. But when I took Smith his supper—carried it in on a tray—he said he wasn’t hungry. He was looking out the window of the ladies’ cell. Standing with his back to me. That window has the same view as my kitchen window—trees and the square and the tops of houses. I told him, ‘Just taste the soup—it’s vegetable, and not out of a can. I made it myself. The pie, too.’ In about an hour, I went back for the tray, and he hadn’t touched a crumb. He was still at the window. Like he hadn’t moved. It was snowing, and I remember saying it was the first snow of the year, and how we’d had such a beautiful long autumn right till then. And now the snow had come. And then I asked him if he had any special dish he liked—if he did, I’d try and fix it for him the next day. He turned round and looked at me. Suspicious. Like I might be mocking him. Then he said something about a movie; he had such a quiet way of speaking—almost a whisper. Wanted to know if I had seen a movie—I forget the name. Anyway, I hadn’t seen it; never have been much for picture shows. He said this show took place in Biblical times, and there was a scene where a man was flung off a balcony, thrown to a mob of men and women, who tore him to pieces. And he said that was what came to mind when he saw the crowd on the square. The man being torn apart. And the idea that maybe that was what they might do to him. Said it scared him so bad his stomach still hurt. Which was why he couldn’t eat. Course, he was wrong, and I told him so—nobody was going to harm him, regardless of what he’d done; folks around here aren’t like that. We talked some—he was very shy—but after a while he said, ‘One thing I really like is Spanish rice.’ So I promised to make him some, and he smiled, kind of, and I decided—well, he wasn’t the worst young man I ever saw. That night, after I’d gone to bed, I said as much to my husband. But Wendle snorted. Wendle was one of the first on the scene after the crime was discovered. He said he wished I’d been out at the Clutter place when they found the bodies. Then I could’ve judged for myself just how gentle Mr. Smith was. Him and his friend Hickock. He said they’d cut out your heart and never bat an eye. There was no denying it. Not with four people dead. And I lay awake wondering if either one was bothered by it—the thought of those four graves.”

  · · ·

  A month passed, and another, and it snowed some part of almost every day. Snow whitened the wheat-tawny countryside, heaped the streets of the town, hushed them. The topmost branches of a snow-laden elm touched the window of the ladies’ cell. Squirrels lived in the tree, and Perry, after weeks of tempting them with scraps left over from breakfast, lured one off a branch onto the window sill and through the bars. It was a male squirrel, with auburn fur. He named the squirrel Big Red, and Big Red soon settled down, apparently content to share his friend’s captivity. Perry taught him several tricks—to play with a paper ball, to beg, to perch on his shoulder. All this helped to pass time, but still there were many hours the prisoner had somehow to lose. He was not allowed to read newspapers, and he was bored by the magazines Mrs. Meier lent him—old issues of Good Housekeeping and McCall’s. But he found things to do: file his fingernails with an emery board and buff them to a silky pink sheen; comb and comb his lotion-soaked-and-scented hair; brush his teeth three and four times a day; shave and shower almost as often. And he kept the cell, which contained a toilet, a washbasin, a shower stall, a cot, a chair, and a table, as neat as his person. He was proud of a compliment Mrs. Meier had paid him. “Look!” she had said, pointing at his bunk. “Look at that blanket! You could bounce dimes.” But it was at the table that he spent most of his waking life. He ate his meals there; it was where he sat when he sketched portraits of Big Red and did drawings of flowers, and the face of Jesus, and the faces and torsos of imaginary women; and it was where, on cheap sheets of ruled paper, he made diarylike notes of day-to-day occurrences.

  “Thursday 7 January. Dewey here. Brought carton cigarettes. Also typed copies of Statement for my signature. I declined.” The “Statement,” a seventy-eight-page document he had dictated to the Finney County court stenographer, recounted admissions—including the murder of the Clutter father and son—that he had already made to Alvin Dewey and Clarence Duntz, Special Agents of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, who had questioned him in Las Vegas after his arrest. Dewey, speaking of his encounter with Perry Smith on January 7th, remembered that he had been “very surprised” when Perry refused to sign the statement. “It wasn’t important,” Dewey said. “I could always testify in court as to the oral confession he’d made to Duntz and myself. And, of course, Hickock had given us a signed confession while we were still in Las Vegas—in which he accused Smith of having committed all four murders. But I was curious. I asked Perry why he’d changed his mind. And he said, ‘Everything in my statement is accurate except for two details. If you’ll let me correct those items, then I’ll sign it.’ Well, I could guess the items he meant. Because the only serious difference between his story and Hickock’s was that he denied having murdered the Clutters singlehanded. Until now, he’d sworn Hickock killed Nancy and her mother. And I was right! That’s just what he wanted to do—admit that Hickock had been telling the truth, and that it was he, Perry Smith, who had shot and killed the whole family. He said he’d lied about it because, in his words, ‘I wanted to fix Dick. For being such a coward. Dropping his guts all over the goddam floor.’ And the reason he’d decided to set the record straight wasn’t that he suddenly felt any kinder toward Hickock. According to him, he was doing it out of consideration for Hickock’s parents—said he was sorry for Dick’s mother. Said, ‘She’s a real sweet person. It might be some comfort to her to know Dick never pulled the trigger. None of it would have happened without him—in a way, it was mostly
his fault—but the fact remains I’m the one who killed them.’ But I wasn’t certain I believed it. Not to the extent of letting him alter his statement. As I say, we weren’t dependent on a formal confession from Smith to prove any part of our case. With or without it, we had enough to hang them ten times over.” Among the elements contributing to Dewey’s confidence was the recovery of a radio and a pair of binoculars that the murderers had stolen from the Clutter house and eventually disposed of in Mexico City (where a K.B.I. agent named Harold Nye, having flown there for the purpose, traced them to a pawnshop). Moreover, Perry, while dictating his statement, had revealed the whereabouts of other potent evidence. “We hit the highway and drove east,” he’d said, in the process of describing what he and Dick had done after leaving Holcomb, the village where the murders took place. “Drove like hell, Dick driving. I think we both felt very high. I did. Very high, and very relieved at the same time. Couldn’t stop laughing, neither one of us. Suddenly it all seemed very funny—I don’t know why, it just did. But the gun was dripping blood, and my clothes were stained—there was even blood in my hair. So we turned off onto a country road, and drove maybe eight miles, till we were way out on the prairie. You could hear coyotes. We smoked a cigarette, and Dick went on making jokes. About what had happened back there. I got out of the car and siphoned some water out of the water tank and washed the blood off the gun barrel. Then I scraped a hole in the ground with Dick’s hunting knife—the one I used on Mr. Clutter—and buried in it the empty shells and all the leftover nylon cord and adhesive tape. After that, we drove till we came to U.S. 83, and headed east toward Kansas City and Olathe [Hickock’s home town]. Around dawn, Dick stopped at one of those picnic places—what they call rest areas—where they have open fireplaces. We built a fire and burned stuff. The gloves we’d worn, and my shirt. Dick said he wished we had an ox to roast; he said he’d never been so hungry. It was almost noon when we got to Olathe. Dick dropped me at my hotel, and went on home to have Sunday dinner with his family. Yes, he took the knife with him. The gun, too.” K.B.I. agents were dispatched to Hickock’s home, a four-room farmhouse near Olathe, and they found the knife inside a fishing-tackle box and the shotgun casually propped against a kitchen wall. (Hickock’s father, who refused to believe that his “boy” could have taken part in such a “horrible crime,” insisted that the gun hadn’t been out of the house since the first week in November, and therefore couldn’t be the death weapon.) As for the empty cartridge shells, the cord, and the tape, these were retrieved with the aid of Virgil Pietz, a county-road worker, who, using a road grader in the area pinpointed by Perry Smith, shaved away the earth inch by inch until the buried articles were uncovered. Thus the last loose strings were tied. The K.B.I. had now assembled an unshakable case, for the tests established that the shells had been discharged by Hickock’s shotgun, and the remnants of cord and tape were of a piece with the materials used to bind and silence the victims.