The Winston Affair

by Howard Fast

  “Your report, Major, runs to eleven typewritten pages. Surely a report of that length is unusual?”

  “Yes, sir—unusual but not unprecedented. I knew about the events at Bachree. Lieutenant Winston was a most unusual patient. He interested me, and I developed his case at some length. I also felt an obligation to my commanding officer to make his own position more tenable by supplying him with full and accurate medical data.”

  “More tenable? Did you suspect that his position might be untenable?”

  “I did.”

  Major Smith began to rise, but Wells held him back almost physically, whispering in his ear. Moscow noticed this and said softly to Bender, “They’re wrong. Adams won’t hang himself. But now they’re going to give him rope.”

  “Will you explain that?” Adams said to Kaufman.

  “I knew of the feeling against Winston, the hatred and the bitterness. I knew that there would be pressures upon Colonel Burton.”

  Thompson interrupted sharply, “You know, Captain Adams, that this whole line is most improper. The witness cannot testify to unfounded gossip. This court knows of no pressures. You will strike that out, Sergeant Debbs.”

  Adams just glanced at Mayburt, who made no response at all to this.

  “As the court pleases,” Adams said, and then to Kaufman, “In any case, Major Kaufman, you felt that the Winston case was of sufficient importance and interest for you to report it at length and in detail?”

  “That is so, Captain.”

  “And when you had completed this report, you took it to your commanding officer, Colonel Burton. Is that so?”

  “More accurately, it was sent to him through regular channels.”

  “And he read it, sir?”

  “I presume that he did.”

  “Then, concerning the report, Major, did Colonel Burton send for you?”

  “He did.”

  “And what took place at that meeting with him?”

  “We discussed the report, which he found unsatisfactory. He—”

  “Please, Major—we can’t take testimony as to what Colonel Burton said. However, with the court’s permission, I would like to read a few lines of Colonel Burton’s testimony to Major Kaufman, and then ask him whether this is to the best of his own recollection?”

  Thompson hesitated, and then whispered to Mayburt, who said, “Would you bring the testimony in question to the bench, Captain Adams?”

  Moscow was already underlining the passages in his notes, which he had typed out the evening before. He handed this to Adams, who took it to the bench. Mayburt and Thompson examined it, and then Mayburt said a few words, softly. Thompson shrugged. Mayburt gave the paper back to Adams and told him to proceed.

  “I read now from the record, Major,” Adams said, and read as follows:

  “‘Did Major Kaufman submit his report to you before or after he refused to discharge Lieutenant Winston?’

  “‘I believe it was before.’

  “‘Did you read the report?’

  “‘I did.’

  “‘Did you read all of it, Colonel?’

  “‘I read most of it’

  “‘Yet you saw fit to reject it?’

  “‘As I told you some days ago, Captain Adams, the report was not competent or scientific.’”

  Adams paused, and then added, “I read these few lines merely to fill in Colonel Burton’s reaction to your report, according to his own testimony. Now, Major, did Colonel Burton reject your report?”

  “He did.”

  “Were you instructed to prepare another report?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And did you agree?”

  “No, I refused.”

  “Why did you refuse, sir?”

  “I refused because my report was both accurate and reliable, insofar as any knowledge of my own could determine. If I had prepared a second report, I would have changed nothing. I’ve spent my entire adult life in training for my profession and in the practice of my profession. Colonel Burton, sir, is not a psychiatrist. I am.”

  “Would you tell the court exactly what your training and professional background consist of, Major Kaufman?”

  “I’ll be happy to. I was graduated with honors from Bellevue Medical School and I interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York. I had three years of psychiatric training, a year at the Phipps Clinic, a year and three months at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and nine months at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. I took three years of night courses in psychoanalytical training at the Institute in New York, and during this period I was on the staff at Bellevue Hospital, Staff Assistant and then Associate Attending Psychiatrist—in which position I continued after setting up in private practice of psychiatry. Two years before I enlisted in the armed services, I became an assistant professor in psychiatry at New York University Medical College. There is my training and my professional background, sir! Do you wonder that I refused to alter and falsify a report at the behest of Colonel Burton?” Kaufman finished hotly.

  Major Smith objected. “Colonel Burton testified under oath, may it please this court! I must object strenuously to this irresponsible accusation!”

  Colonel Mayburt took this in his own hands, and before Thompson could make any comment, he replied to Smith: “An objection in court is a legal procedure, Major. There is nothing in this testimony that calls for the court’s sustaining such an objection. If you are expressing your indignation at the charge laid against Colonel Burton, you have the right to recall Colonel Burton or to institute separate proceedings on a perjury count—if the court so agrees.”

  He turned to Adams then and said, “Meanwhile, Captain Adams, I would like to question the witness further on this point.”

  Adams nodded. Colonel Thompson scribbled a note to Mayburt, and Mayburt answered softly, “Of course, Colonel Thompson.” And then said to Kaufman: “You understand, Major Kaufman, that you have made a most serious accusation. I also feel that you have spoken in some heat—and that possibly a connotation is placed upon your statement that is not entirely warranted. Yesterday, in his cross-examination of Colonel Burton, Captain Adams asked him whether he had advised you to change your conclusions. Colonel Burton answered, and I quote him, ‘I advised him to restudy the case.’ Then Captain Adams asked Colonel Burton, I quote, ‘Did you advise him—Major Kaufman—to find Lieutenant Winston sane?’ Colonel Burton’s answer was the same as for the previous question. Now I am asking you, sir, did Colonel Burton instruct you to prepare a report which would find the prisoner sane? In other words, did he spell this out?”

  “No, sir, he did not,” Kaufman replied.

  “Did he instruct you to change your conclusions?”

  “He suggested that I change my conclusions.”

  “He refused to accept your report?”

  “That is right, he refused.”

  “Then you must realize that your charge of falsification is unsupported. I would suggest that you withdraw the remark and apologize to the court for its intemperance.”

  For a long moment Kaufman was grimly silent. Then he nodded. “I withdraw any suggestion of falsification and I apologize to the court.”

  “I think that is sufficient,” Mayburt said. “You may continue to question the witness, Captain Adams.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Adams agreed, drawing a long breath of relief. “Now Major, here is your report. Would you read from it the conclusions to which Colonel Burton objected.”

  He handed the report to Kaufman, who turned to the final page and read: “In the light of the above, certain diagnostic conclusions are unavoidable. Lieutenant Winston is a psychotic paranoiac in an advanced stage of acute depression and personality disintegration. Under present conditions, prognosis is entirely negative. Under conditions existing in the United States, he might be temporarily responsive to shock therapy, and the depression might be interrupted with recessive periods. In either case, it is my opinion that no recovery is possible.

  “In a medic
al-legal sense, Lieutenant Charles Winston is insane, and cannot be held legally responsible for his actions during a period of at least three weeks before the murder of Sergeant Quinn, during the act of murder, or since that time.

  “In a physical sense, he must be specified for hospital confinement; and under no circumstances could I discharge him except in transit to another hospital in the custody of the U.S. Medical Corps. He is a suicidal depressive who must be under observation at all times, and his personality disintegration is so rapid that total collapse may be expected in a matter of months.”

  Kaufman then handed the report back to Adams, who laid it on the court table and said to Kaufman, “Did Colonel Burton question your diagnosis and conclusions?”

  “He did.”

  “Did he refuse to accept your statements on Lieutenant Winston’s legal and medical sanity?”

  “Yes, sir, he refused.”

  “Were you advised to rewrite the report?”

  “Yes, I was so advised.”

  “Did he state that Lieutenant Winston was sane?”

  Major Smith rose and offered his objection on the grounds of hearsay. The court ordered the last two questions and answers to be stricken from the record.

  “Let me rephrase that question,” Adams said. “Did you refuse to rewrite the report, Major?”

  “I did.”

  “And did Colonel Burton order you to discharge the defendant, Lieutenant Winston?”

  Again Major Smith rose, but Mayburt shook his head and said pointedly, “This will be allowed, sir. We are not a civilian court. We are a court of the United States Army, and we must allow a certain flexibility on questions of discipline and authority.”

  “He did,” Major Kaufman answered.

  “And did you refuse to obey that order?”

  “I told Colonel Burton that he could not order me to discharge a patient who was seriously sick; that if I complied with such an order, I would be criminally negligent and that it would violate every ethic I held as a physician.”

  At this point Colonel Burnside leaned forward and said, “I’d like to ask the witness a question, Mr. President—by your leave, of course.”

  Thompson’s agreement was defensive, as it always was when confronted by a Regular Army man on the bench.

  Burnside asked, his voice lazy and curious at once, “Tell me now, Major Kaufman, just what are your own feelings toward the defendant?”

  “I hate his guts,” Kaufman answered, spacing each word and underlining it with deliberate emphasis.

  “Now that’s a strange answer for a psychiatrist, isn’t it, Major?”

  “Why, sir? Should I have charity, sympathy, love for a man who embodies all that is vile, outrageous and hateful to me?”

  “Yet, by your own testimony, sir, he is sick.”

  “Yes—physically sick. And as a physician I will give whatever strength and skill I have to cure his sickness. There is where my duty lies. I don’t have to love him.”

  “Then tell me, sir, why did you put yourself in the position you did and refuse to carry out the orders of your commanding officer?”

  “Because a physician has an obligation prior to his own emotions or needs.”

  “Obligation—to whom, sir?”

  “To his practice of medicine.”

  Tuesday 2.45 P.M.

  “I have no further questions,” Barney Adams said, and then told Major Smith, “You may cross-examine, sir.”

  Major Smith looked at him bleakly, rose, and said, “May it please the court— I have no questions.”

  “And I have no other witnesses, Mr. President,” Adams said. “The defense rests its case.”

  Colonel Thompson said, “You may have a few minutes to prepare your dosing remarks, Captain Adams.”

  Adams thanked the court and walked back to his table. The lights were on in the room, yet he felt a brooding and oppressive darkness. He felt tired and used up, and could not for the life of him anticipate what he would now say.

  He confided this to Moscow as he sat down.

  “Whatever you say, it will be all right,” Moscow replied.

  Tuesday 2.55 P.M.

  It was just a few minutes before three o’clock when Barney Adams rose to make his dosing remarks. It seemed to him then that while, in one sense, the case was finished, in another sense it was only beginning. It had happened too quickly. When he turned and met General Kempton’s eyes and saw the thin trace of a smile on the general’s face, he had the strange feeling that they had not yet met and not yet confronted each other.

  He would be confronting him now, he realized.

  He addressed the court and said, “May it please the court— I will try to make my summation as brief as possible, yet there are a number of things I feel that I must touch upon. I trust that the court will forgive my mentioning that this is the first case I have ever participated in as a trial counsel. For that reason, I have blundered here and there, and I have done poorly what could have been done well. I offer this as no excuse but only as an explanation. I was well trained for the courts of the United States Army. I have no excuses.

  “When I began to examine the case of Lieutenant Charles Winston, I was appalled at the thought of conducting any sincere defense—”

  He had to look at Winston now, but not at a man. The skinny, bent figure was motionless, eyes fixed upon the table that supported him.

  “—for there was no possible doubt as to who had committed the crime and how it was committed.

  “The crime was witnessed by men whose word could not be challenged. So far as I knew, there was no sufficient provocation, and the manner of the crime was brutal and shocking. Yet even in the very first description of the crime that I read, there was for me an implication of something unnatural, awful and insane. It was this suggestion of insanity that drew me along a certain path of investigation—until I decided to make it my only defense. I decided to prove that Lieutenant Winston was insane, and this I have attempted.”

  Adams shook his head, rubbed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

  “It hasn’t been a pleasant experience,” he said, “and I would not want to go through these seven days again. My war experience until now has consisted of infantry operations in Africa and in Italy, but I don’t think that any part of it affected me so profoundly as this attempt to defend Lieutenant Winston. For, like Major Kaufman, I hate the man I am defending. I have not said this to anyone until now. I did not want to say it—ever; yet here and now I know that I must say it. Otherwise, all else that I have said is meaningless and fraudulent.

  “I am being personal because this has been my connection with this case. I have lived through it personally and deeply. Time after time during this past week, I realized that Lieutenant Winston was the spiritual brother of what my country fights—in a life and death struggle. For, in Lieutenant Winston, there is that same composite that led the world to hell—ignorance, arrogance, hatred of all that is human, fear of all that is human, racism, a lust for power and a whimper of persecution.”

  Adams stopped for a moment, swallowed, and took hold of himself. His voice had been rising. He controlled it now. When he continued, his voice was even, his tone muted.

  “This was the man I had to defend. I have no doubt that he is insane. I have presented in this courtroom a witness I believe eminently qualified to pass judgment on such questions. I believe I have proven to the officers of this court-martial that Lieutenant Winston was and is insane and not responsible for his own actions. My experience with Lieutenant Winston, my conversation with him and with those who lived and worked with him, proved it to my own satisfaction. But there was something else that I could not explain or prove so easily—

  “That is, why I felt the compelling necessity to prevent the execution of a man so depraved, so lost, and so apparently worthless. I felt this need. I had to understand why I felt it. I had to understand why, when the whole world has been turned into a charnel house, when the best and finest of our you
ng men are being destroyed by the senseless, brutal savagery of a Hitler and a Hirohito—why, in these circumstances, a court must be convened and many hours of your time consumed in deciding whether or not a brutal murderer should be hanged. To a casual observer, it would make no sense—no, not simply to a casual observer, but to me it made no sense at first. None. It was a game we would play, without content or meaning.

  “Well, I am trying to say this—and it isn’t easy for me to say. I have been forced to try to understand a thing I know little of—very little indeed. But if the court will permit me and bear with me, I will tell it as best I may.

  “It began for me when I had my first interview with Major Kaufman. We had talked about paranoia, about the difference between a neurosis and a psychosis, about the meaning and implications of insanity when approached from a social and medical point of view. Then the major was called away for an hour to make his rounds in the hospital. I asked him whether he could give me something to read on the subject of paranoia while he was gone. He gave me some case histories he had and he also gave me a copy of Plutarch’s Lives. He suggested that I read the chapter on Alexander the Great, as a brilliant literary description of a paranoiac who influenced history.

  “I had read this in school; now I reread it with horror and amazement. It was not what I had read before. It was the case-history of a madman who, in his lust for power and his fear of man, had blazed a path of death and destruction across half the world. Plutarch knew nothing of mental disease, but his careful and meticulous description of the actions of this conqueror had survived with meaning and validity. All of the elements to which Major Kaufman gave testimony were present, the fear and mistrust of his closest friends, the insatiable drive for conquest and power, the depressions, the obscene whimpering with which this always ends—all of it was there.

  “I had to ask myself whether or not this was a poor comparison. It is hard for us to see Lieutenant Winston as an Alexander. It is less difficult to pass from him to Adolf Hitler. And it is utterly frightening even to suspect that millions of good, decent and innocent human beings must die because a Winston holds a club of ultimate power.