Bryce Zabel's INSTANT HISTORY

Sex, Lies & Politics: Thomas V. Hill

Instant History "Flashback" by Bryce Zabel

Just this month, the autobiography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, My Grandfather's Son, was published and set off a new round of "He Said, She Said" in the media. In the book, Thomas gives his side of the nomination hearings of 1991 which, of course, led to a rebuttal by Anita Hill in the Op-Ed page of the New York Times and on and on.

Discriminating readers and historians have ample evidence on both sides of the story to decide who they want to believe. In that respect, nothing at all has changed in the 16 years since October of 1991 when America had a normally not-so-compelling Supreme Court nomination hearing process hijacked into something that felt like it came out of the tabloids.

If you think the current nomination and confirmation process surrounding Supreme Court nominees was rough during the last few years, just remember that it's almost impossible for it to get as awful as the Clarence Thomas hearings. We will probably never see anything quite like this again.

Although it's more on the level of the O.J. Verdict and not JFK's murder or 9/11, for those who lived through it, the Thomas Hearings still have a "where were you?" quality to them. Where were you when Anita Hill went before the Senate Judiciary Committee and publicly claimed that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had compared the length of his penis to an actor in a pornographic film by the name of Long Dong Silver? I was in a hotel room in Hawaii -- there to research an NBC pilot I was writing -- and even though I was surrounded by paradise I spent two days glued to a TV set.

Time devoted a great deal of space to this controversy in its October 21, 1991 issue, starting with an opening essay titled, "An Ugly Circus" and moving into the main article, "She Said, He Said."

It was clear that the differences in the Hill and Thomas versions on what transpired a decade ago were not a simple matter of differing sensibilities -- oversqueamishness on her part vs. bad taste on his. If Hill's description of Thomas' words and actions was truthful, then the Supreme Court nominee was guilty of sexual harassment in the past and perjury in the present. If Hill's account was a flight of fantasy, then she was delusional and a candidate for medical attention.

Notice on the cover that Time sub-titled the issue: "America's watershed debate on sexual harassment." That's my main nitpick on this issue. If both parties had agreed on what was said and done but disagreed on whether or not it was sexual harassment, well, then we could have had a watershed debate. This wasn't a debate on the issue of sexual harassment. It was a public spectacle where two incredibly bright, articulate and seemingly honest people told starkly different stories. One of them was a complete liar of epic proportion and the other wasn't. Today, 14 years later, we still do not definitively know the answer.

Cool and unflappable, Hill looked the Senators in the eye and handled every question without hesitation...No less poignant, searing or believable, however, were Thomas' anguished statements and adamant denials.

The hearings gave up lots of memorable moments. One of the "oddest episodes", according to Hill, involved an exchange in Thomas' office when he reached for a can of Coke and asked, "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?" After Hill's testimony about this and numerous other incidents which included descriptions of Thomas discussing porno with women with large breasts engaged in a variety of sex acts with animals, Thomas came out swinging, calling the hearing "a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks." The article concluded:

...everyone who had witnessed Hill's and Thomas' dramatic testimony knew for certain only what they had known at the start: one was telling the truth, and the other was lying. There was no way to imagine a happy ending to this very sad confrontation. For both Hill and Thomas, it was the hardest ordeal of their lives. But one of them was shouldering the burden unfairly -- and it may never be known which one. While both had been sullied and injured by the proceedings, only one had been dragged through the mud on the strength of a very convincing lie.

So, who was telling the truth? Thomas had more to gain by lying -- a Supreme Court seat. But he also had excellent witnesses from his previous staffs who had worked with both of them saying that such behavior was never seen by them and would have been totally out of character. And it did appear that Hill initially thought her testimony to the FBI would be sufficient to derail his nomination without her having to speak to the committee. No one has definitively answered this question.

What do I think? First and foremost, I think that if Thomas did those things to Anita Hill then he's an asshole of extreme proportions (and I'm not talking about his Long Dong Silver either). And I also think that if it could be proved, even today, then he should be impeached and thrown off the court. But as I've pointed out earlier, this case isn't about sexual harassment, at least not until you can tell who's telling the truth.

I watched all the testimony on TV and whenever either Hill or Thomas was speaking, I believed them and knew the other was lying. It was maddening then, and it's maddening now. They were both brilliant witnesses. If I absolutely had to choose, I would take Thomas' denial to be the truth, but only by a very, very slim margin. Here's why. A tiny voice tells me that -- knowing know how high the stakes are over these nominations and how Democratic activists believe now (and believed then) that a woman's right to choose is literally at stake -- well, that voice tells me that it's possible Anita Hill was recruited to derail Clarence Thomas, things got out of hand, and she was basically told by a lawyer that she could either stick by her story or go to jail for perjury. But I wish I knew with more certainty...

State your own opinion in the comments. Who's the scummy liar and who's the victim? Tell it the way you feel it.

O.J. Simpson's First Jury Verdict (but probably not his last)

Instant History "Flashback" by Bryce Zabel

Now that O.J. Simpson has been arrested and facing jail time yet again, it seems like a good time to think back the moment when that first verdict came down in the O.J. Simpson double-murder case here in Los Angeles. As far as newsmagazine coverage of this case is concerned, it began with controversy, prompting the only pulled-back cover in Time's history, probably created more cover-stories than any other single news story short of 9/11 related coverage.

Time led its October 16, 1995 "O.J. Simpson Verdict: Special Report" with an extended essay from Roger Rosenblatt that was titled, perhaps way too optimistically, "A Nation of Pained Hearts: Americans, black and white, may be able to use the O.J. verdict as a chance to embark on a pilgrimage toward and candor and charity."

"At least there was one moment of visible black-and-white unity last week. It occurred on Tuesday, shortly after 10 a.m. Pacific time, when crowds of citizens, gathered together in the streets like extras in a War of the Worlds movie of the 1950s, stood staring up at outdoor television screens, waiting for the word. They were united, briefly, in an anxious silence of the heart. As soon as the verdict was read, however, they split apart; they could watch themselves do it on the split screens. On one side jubilation, on the other dismay. Afterward it was said that America should have seen it coming, that the division of the races cut so deep, it ought to have been obvious that two nations had always been hiding in one."

Like JFK's death, the moon landing and 9/11, many of us have a memory of how we heard the news and what it meant. I was in pre-production on the pilot for what would become an NBC TV series, Dark Skies, and we had offices at the Lantana business park in Santa Monica. When the word went out that they were about to read the verdict, people pored out of their offices into the building lobby where there was a big-screen television. I'm talking something like fifty people, probably a dozen of them African-American. When the words "not guilty" were read, I think everybody in the room was shocked and surprised. Without exception every white person recoiled and, simultaneously, every single African-American began to applaud and cheer. Keep in mind that we were all co-workers and that everybody was well-educated and employed. The difference between everybody in the room was race and nothing else.

Back to that issue of Time. The actual coverage began after the essay, and showed us that famous photo of O.J. with the very strange smile on his face being hugged by Johnnie Cochran as Kardashian and Bailey, his other (white) attorneys, continued to listen to the verdict.

"A mug shot, two gravestones, a smile. The trial can be reduced to these emblems. Or to entries in a specialized gazetteer: Rockingham, Bundy, Brentwood. A bestiary: barking dog, white Bronco, blond Kato. Names on a list: Marcia and Johnnie, Darden and Shapiro, Fung, Lee, Scheck, Ito, Fuhrman. A weird alphabet: DNA, O.J., A.C., LAPD, the N word. All were signposts to a greater geography, one uneasily contained on the premises of the California Superior Court. Television viewers saw the proceedings and were captured by the legal dramatics; and yet there were always hints of unseen details and untold tales."

One of the things I found most interesting in this coverage is how the defense felt about Judge Lance Ito. Apparently, they disliked him about as much as the prosecution did.

"Says defense attorney Peter Neufeld: 'I was very disappointed with Judge Ito, the fact that he was so concerned with his status as a celebrity, his willingness to entertain personalities in chambers, to show the lawyers little videotapes of skits on television.' One day, says Neufeld, Ito brought all the lawyers into chambers to show them a clip of the 'Dancing Itos' from Jay Leno's Tonight Show. 'You may find that amusing on a personal level, but I can assure that on a professional level it is so unacceptable, for a judge who is presiding over a murder where two people lost their lives in the most gruesome and horrible fashion, and where a third person has his life on the line, to bring the lawyers into chambers to show them comic revues.' Ito even told the lawyers Simpson jokes he had heard. Says Neufeld: 'As someone who has tried cases for twenty years, I found it deplorable and I was shocked.'"

So now O.J.is arrested again, this time on charges related to him using a gun trying to get back some sports memorabilia he says belonged to him. Were those buyers looking to own a souvenir from a sports hero or the murderer who got away? Maybe that depends on race, too. It's sad if it does because no race should have to bear the burden of defending a murderer. But that's America these days.

O.J., of course, has had over a decade to continue searching for "the real killer" as he so famously promised and, so far, has not turned anyone up. Maybe his break with reality has been so complete that he doesn't realize he's looking right at him every day he shaves.

OJ's Last Run: Time Covers It From All Angles

Instant History "Flashback" by Bryce Zabel

It's been over thirteen years now since that slow-speed chase in the white Bronco where we all held our breaths wondering if O.J. was going to blow his own brains out on live TV.  I remember watching it in the Calabasas Sagebrush Cantina -- the Bronco was on one screen, and the Lakers play-off was on the other.  Nobody could take their eyes off either.

The racial controversy over O.J. Simpson began, of course, with the murder of a white woman and white man by a black suspect, but it was seen visually the minute the issues of Time and Newsweek first came out.  It triggered a pull-back of a cover, an unprecedented action in the publishing history of news magazines.  Here's what their initial June 27, 1994 issues first looked like:

June 27, 1994

Here's where it got interesting.  Almost immediately after hitting the stands, Time was accused of racism by minority groups for its photographic alteration of the famous O.J. arrest photo.  The editors defended their choice by saying that they had taken that creative license to show the shadow that had descended on his reputation that week.  Illustrator Matt Mahurin was the one to altern the image, saying later that he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling."  Enough readers, however, said that they saw the white man stacking the deck by "demonizing" the black man, that Time did something it had never done before and has never done since.  They issued a second cover and pulled the first one.  Essentially this meant that only mail subscribers ever saw the first cover.  Here they are side-by-side for your own inspection.

Most of us are very familiar with the story of O.J. Simpson -- the famous athlete a criminal jury said didn't do it only to have a civil jury say he did just over a year later.  Like the Los Angeles riots which preceded the arrest of O.J. by two years, this story said as much about the state of race relations in America as they did about the guilt or innocence of the accused.  Before the racial overtone set in, however, coverage in these initial issues had a lot to do with the actual slow-speed chase.  Here's the way Time started in both versions:

When asked how they could have let one of the most famous double-murder suspects in history slip away under their noses, the angry police commander and the tight-faced lawyer and the whole choir of commentators all said the same thing, without a trace of irony:  "We never thought he would run."

Maybe people condense into their essential selves in crisis, and O.J. was one of the best runners in American football.  Here's how Newsweek began their story:

The end, last week, was off-camera.  After the bloody steps, the heart-rending funerals, the surreal chase through the twilight of Los Angeles, O.J. Simpson surrendered himself into the darkness his life has become.  He was in the back seat of his best friend's Bronco, communing quietly with his cellular phone, his blue steel revolver and a picture of his children.  As the police stood back, the shadows lengthened.

Now, of course, there's a new O.J. criminal saga starting in Las Vegas. More coverage to come, to be sure...

JFK's Reality Before Dallas

John F. Kennedy still has it, over forty years after his death. There are three books out in the last few months that take on the case. The new run started with LBJ finger-pointing in E. Howard Hunt's American Spy, followed by David Talbot's Brothers. The last one out is also the best from a research point-of-view, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History. I like Bugliosi's because of its attention to detail (it's 1612 pages!) which brings us to this post.

As readers of Instant History know, this site is dedicated to reading the words and thoughts of people at the time, not as history had modified them over the years. Here is a fascinating example that is not widely talked about, specifically because JFK was martyred, and that is that he had his share of political resistance before he ever got on the plane to Dallas.

Our case in point is this issue of Time magazine which was, ironically, just hitting the nation's newstands and mailboxes as the real events in Dallas unfolded. It's dated November 22, 1963.

The cover features Washington hostess Nicole Alphand, wife of then French ambassador to the U.S. Herve' Alphand. It details the capitol's social whirl, saying that from September to May there are roughly 200 official parties a month in Washington, perhaps 20 times as many private ones, and that Alphand was among the best of the dozens of hostesses keeping the champagne pouring and the canapes circulating. It's hard to imagine the French ambassador and his wife being the toast of Washington these days, isn't it?

What is arresting about this issue, however, is the political talk and the reporting that mentions President Kennedy. It's easy to look back now and think that Kennedy was a shoo-in for re-election but this issue starts out with its "Nation" section devoted to Republicans who seem to be falling over themselves for a chance to take him on.

In the late fall of 1963 the basic Republican Party facts are these: Only a year ago Nelson Rockefeller seemed to have his party nomination wrapped up, and only a month ago that same nomination appeared to be Goldwater's for the asking. But, unless it has an incumbent President seeking re-election, no party can afford to concede its highest prize so far in advance.

The big article, then, was about whether or not Richard Nixon is going to try to get the nomination from Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. But New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller is also a factor (and would have been the front-runner if he hadn't divorced his wife and gotten re-married a year earlier). Also honorably mentioned as possible candidates were Michigan Governor George Romney and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton. What's quite interesting, though, is the interview Time has with Nixon.

"...it's because there is a disillusionment with Kennedy. The election results in the major cities are a storm signal. So there is the possibility that Kennedy could be beaten, and this is an increasing possibility. As this possibility increases, so does the interest in getting a Republican who can win. I find there is a correlation between Kennedy's failures and interest in me. As he goes down, the stock of any potential Republican candidate goes up."

In that same interview, former vice-president Nixon (and 1960 nominee) speaks about Vietnam, especially the U.S. endorsed military coup in South Viet Nam that he thought could render Kennedy vulnerable.

"If this Viet war goes sour, Viet Nam could be a hot issue next year. If it goes well, it won't be. It's strange to me, when we are fawning over Tito, catering to Kadar, accommodating Khrushchev, we don't have the decency to express our sympathy to a family which was a real foe of Communism."

Next up in the magazine was their section called "The Presidency" which included a round-up of Kennedy's week. It starts by pointing out that the normally upbeat Kennedy had been in "ill humor" at his last press conference (the one that would be the last of his presidency) over the failure of Congress to move on his tax cut proposal (a reminder that George Bush wasn't the only tax-cutter) and his various civil rights bills. Kennedy, by the way, wanted to cut $11-billion in taxes in 1960 dollars.

Kennedy had also visited Arlington National Cemetery that week, the place that would become his final resting place, and had taken his 2 1/2 year old son, John Jr. or "John-John." The shocker in this article, however, detailed a trip to New York taken by Kennedy. Check this out.

Near week's end, Kennedy flew into Manhattan, aged his Secret Service detail ten years by forgoing the usual motorcycle escort into the city. At one of ten midtown traffic lights that stopped the presidential limousine, an ambitious female camera bug rushed up and fired a flashbulb at Kennedy's side of the car. Moaned a New York police official: "She might well have been an assassin." (italics mine) As for the purpose of the President's stop-and-go entrance into New York, the official explanation was that he wanted no "fuss and feathers."

Another item that goes against the post-assassination perception grain was later in the magazine, under the "Education" section in an article that tried to describe college students of 1963. It calls them "The Personalists" -- people who stress self-development -- and discusses their disillusionment with, of all people, John Kennedy. Chatham College's Edward Eddy cites "youth's decreasing identification with the Kennedy Administration," tracing it to "the shock and the terror" that hit collegians during last fall's Cuban crisis.

Campus disenchantment with President Kennedy now spreads far and wide. At conservative Georgia Tech, the complaint is that "he's interfering with my personal life" through Big Government. At liberal Reed, where "he doesn't inspire respect as Stevenson did," the gripe is Kennedy's caution on the civil rights bill. At exuberant Wisconsin, "he's liked in a negative way," faulted for lack of political conviction. "We're sick of him," say dissidents at Jesuit Georgetown.

How much of this is truly representative and how much is wishful Time thinking preparing the battlefield for a presidential election less than a year away is debatable. It's clear, however, that a week before he died, President John F. Kennedy had already established a habit of lax security on his travels and presided over a country where he still had a lot of enemies. Those two issues, brought out by Time in this issue, would come together in Dallas of the real-world timeline and write a powerful final chapter to his life.

Charles Whitman: America's First College Mass Murderer

Although the outrage and sorrow over Virginia Tech feels brand-new, this current tragedy isn't the first time some mentally-disturbed student grabbed a gun and started a shooting rampage on a college campus. That distinction goes back to 1966 and University of Texas at Austin architecture student Charles Whitman.

Seung-hui Cho's rampage at Virginia Tech last Monday killed 32 teachers and students and wounded more than two dozen others. Based on what we now know, it was long premeditated. Planning also went into the act of rage on that hot August day when Whitman went to three different stores to buy his guns and ammo, then went back to the University of Texas campus where he ascended to the observation deck of the limestone tower that soars 307 feet above the grounds. Here is how Time magazine described it in their August 12, 1966 issue in a cover article, "Madman in the Tower."

"Methodically, he began shooting everyone in sight. Ranging around the tower's walk at will, he sent his bullets burning and rasping through the flesh and bone of those on the campus below, then of those who walked or stood or rode as far as three blocks away. Somewhat like the travelers in Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, who were drawn by an inexorable fate to their crucial place in time and space, his victims fell as they went about their various tasks and pleasures. By lingering perhaps a moment too long in a classroom or leaving a moment too soon for lunch, they had unwittingly placed themselves within Whitman's lethal reach. Before he was himself perforated by police bullets, Charles Whitman killed 13 people and wounded 31—a staggering total of 44 casualties. As a prelude to his senseless rampage, it was later discovered, he had also slain his wife and mother, bringing the total dead to 15."

Much has been made about the how the system failed to find and deal with Cho before he boiled over. Whitman also had been in the psychiatric system.

"His parents' separation troubled Charlie deeply, and last March 29, he finally went to Dr. Maurice Heatly, the University of Texas' staff psychiatrist. In a two-hour interview, he told Heatly that, like his father, he had beaten his wife a few times. He was making "intense efforts" to control his temper, he said, but he was worried that he might explode. In notes jotted down at the time, Heatly described Whitman as a "massive, muscular youth" who "seemed to be oozing with hostility." Heatly took down only one direct quote of Whitman's—that he was "thinking about going up on the tower with a deer rifle and start shooting people." That did not particularly upset Heatly; it was, he said, "a common experience for students who came to the clinic to think of the tower as the site for some desperate action."* Nonetheless, Heatly urged Whitman to return the next week to talk some more. Charlie Whitman never went back. Instead, some time in the next few months, he decided to act."

And act he did. The evening before his trip to the tower, Whitman sat at a battered portable in his modest brick cottage. Kathy, his wife of four years (they had no children), was at work. This is what his note said:

"I don't quite understand what is compelling me to type this note. I've been having fears and violent impulses. I've had some tremendous headaches. I am prepared to die. After my death, I wish an autopsy on me to be performed to see if there's any mental disorders. I intend to kill my wife after I pick her up from work. I don't want her to have to face the embarrassment that my actions will surely cause her...Life is not worth living."

After writing that note, he drove to his mother's house  and stabbed Margaret Whitman in the chest and shot her in the back of the head, somehow also breaking several bones in her left hand with such force that the band of her diamond engagement ring was driven into her finger and the stone broken loose. This time he wrote a hand-printed note addressed to "To Whom It May Concern."

"I have just killed my mother. If there's a heaven, she is going there. If there is not a heaven, she is out of her pain and misery. I love my mother with all my heart."

Whitman gave less attention than Cho to his post-death PR campaign, though, and more to his actual violent siege in the tower. He stuffed the following Into a green duffel bag and a green foot locker: Spam, Planters peanuts, fruit cocktail, sandwiches and boxes of raisins, jerricans containing water and gasoline, rope, binoculars, canteens, transistor radio, toilet paper, and, in a bizarre allegiance to the cult of cleanliness, a plastic bottle of Mennen spray deodorant. He also stowed away a private armory that seemed sufficient to hold off an army: machete, Bowie knife, hatchet, a 6-mm. Remington bolt-action rifle with a 4-power Leupold telescopic sight (with which, experts say, a halfway decent shot can consistently hit a 6½-in. circle from 300 yds.), a 35-mm. Remington rifle, a 9-mm. Luger pistol, a Galesi-Brescia pistol and a .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum revolver. At home, he left three more rifles, two derringers.

"Then, deciding that he needed even more firepower, he went to Sears, Roebuck and bought a 12-gauge shotgun on credit, sawed off both barrel and stock. He visited Davis Hardware to buy a .30-cal. carbine. And at Chuck's Gun Shop, he bought some 30-shot magazines for the new carbine. All told, he had perhaps 700 rounds."

Whitman opened fire at 11:48 am and had four minutes to pick off his targets before police were notified. Soon more than 100 officers would converge on the scene. But he had the higher ground and his shots continued to be deadly. In contrast, the officers were trying to hit a hidden target and their shots were ineffectual. A sharpshooter was put in a light plane but was driven off by the sniper's fire. Eventually, four men (three cops and a civilian) made their way by subterranean passage to the tower. None had ever fired a shot in the line of duty or combat. Here's how they took him down.

"The four rode to the 27th floor, headed single file up the last three flights, carefully removed a barricade of furniture that Whitman had set at the top of the stairs. While cops on the ground intensified their fire to divert Whitman's attention, Martinez slowly pushed away the dolly propped against the door leading to the walkway around the tower, crawled out onto its south side and began moving stealthily to the east. Crum followed through the door and turned toward the west. Hearing footsteps, Crum fired into the southwest corner to keep Whitman from bursting around the corner and shooting him. Martinez, meanwhile, rounded one corner, then, more slowly, turned onto the north side of the walkway.

Fifty feet away from him, in the northwest corner, crouched Whitman, his eyes riveted on the corner that Crum was about to turn. Martinez poured six pistol shots into Whitman's left side, arms and legs. McCoy moved up, blasted Whitman with a shotgun. Martinez, noting that the sniper's gun "was still flopping," grabbed the shotgun and, blasted Whitman again. As an autopsy showed, the shotgun pellets did it: one pierced Whitman's heart, another his brain. Crum grabbed a green towel from Whitman's foot locker, waved it above the railing to signal ceasefire. At 1:24 p.m., 96 murderous minutes after his first fusillade from the tower, Charlie Whitman was dead."

In the aftermath, an autopsy showed that Whitman had a pecan-size brain tumor, or astrocytoma, in the hypothalamus region. The pathologist, however, did not believe it could have been the cause of the headaches or the "psychic behavior." They also found a number of Dexedrine tablets in Whitman's possession—stimulants known as "goofballs" —but physicians were not able to detect signs that he had taken any before he died.

Here is a link to the entire Time article, "Madman in the Tower."