Read A Sniper in the Tower Online

Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #State & Local, #Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), #True Crime, #Murder, #test

A Sniper in the Tower (74 page)

22 APD Files: Whitman's Notebooks, entry of 31 January 1964, and separate notes in Whitman's personal papers; Lawrence A. Fuess.
23
Austin American-Statesman
, 4 and 7 August 1966.
24 A copy of the
Memphis Press-Scimitar
article is in APD Files along with a letter dated 21 September 1966 from Chief Miles to James C. MacDonald, the Chief of Police of the Memphis Police Department. The file also included an enlarged photocopy of the bill. It is clearly not Charles Whitman's handwriting.
 
Page 254
17
Why Did He Do It?
Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.
Conte Vittorio Alfieri (17941803), Italian playwright and poet
I
Once he returned to Austin, Governor John Connally assembled a blue-ribbon commission to look into every medical aspect of the Tower incident. The commission members were giants in their respective fields. Fact-finders consisted mostly of medical school professors. Dr. R. Lee Clark, Surgeon-in-Chief of the University's M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, served as the chairman. The work of
 
Page 255
the eleven fact-finding members was reviewed by twenty-one other blue-ribbon physicians from throughout the United States.
1
The Connally Commission (for want of a better name) established four investigative objectives:
1. To determine the events and circumstances which surrounded the actions of Charles J. Whitman on August 1, 1966.
2. To explore the findings and to make such additional examinations as might be indicated by the factual information which is available.
3. To prepare the material for its maximal utilization in evaluating the problem for our society.
4. To make recommendations aimed at the detection and prevention of circumstances which might lead to similar incidents.
2
The commission looked carefully at Whitman's background, health, and overall behavior throughout his life. His elementary, high-school and university transcripts were analyzed. Teachers, classmates, family, and old and recent friends were interviewed.
The conclusions reached by the commission reinforced what many of Whitman's associates already knew about him and also exposed the nice facade he had developed around himself. Its portrait of Charles Whitman was that of an "intelligent, intense and driven" young man, but someone who had been encased in internal and external predicaments causing personal turmoil.
3
The internal goal of outdoing his father in all areas, not just education, had become an unhealthy obsession, a source of anxiety he inflicted upon himself. The separation of his parents, which had been out of his control, only exacerbated his internal struggles. Margaret's move to Austin exposed Whitman to her misery on a daily basis, and his father's constant phone calls only made things worse. Cumulative frustrations made him more dangerous, but his "nice" facade had effectively concealed that explosive state from his family and closest friends. Whitman realized that many of his cohorts in their mid-twenties were already college-educated, on their own, and supporting a wife and family. Aside from his own low-paying jobs, his family

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