Invitee Host: Indira Lakshmanan

It has been nearly 20 years since the arrest of Ted Kazcynski, the homo known as the Unabomber. In the 1980s and 90s, Kazcynski sent a serial of mail bombs, killing three and injuring dozens. The attacks might accept continued if it weren't for Ted'due south brother, David. Later reading the Unabomber's manifesto in the Washington Post, David Kazcynski grew suspicious. The ideas and writing resembled messages he had received from his mentally ill brother. David's tip led to Ted's arrest. Since then David has become an anti-death sentence activist and a mental health advocate. Now he has written a memoir. David Kaczynski and a forensic psychiatrist reflect on the story of the Unabomber and his family.

Guests

  • Dr. Liza Gold Clinical professor of psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Centre; vice president, American Academy of Psychiatry & The Law; editor and writer of "Gun Violence and Mental Disease"
  • David Kaczynski Author of "Every Terminal Tie: The Story Of The Unabomber And His Family"

Read An Extract

Excerpt from EVERY Terminal Necktie: THE STORY OF THE UNABOMBER AND HIS FAMILY by David Kaczynski. Copyright © 2016 by David Kaczynski. Reprinted courtesy of Duke University Press.

EVERY LAST Necktie: THE STORY OF THE UNABOMBER AND HIS Family

The Kaczynski Family, 1952

(Courtesy of David Kaczynski)

Transcript

  • eleven:06:54

    MS. INDIRA LAKSHMANANThanks for joining us. I'm Indira Lakshmanan sitting in for Diane Rehm. 20 years agone, David Kaczynski faced a spooky decision. He suspected his mentally ill blood brother, Ted, might be the Unabomber, one of the FBI'due south most wanted men. Every bit it turned out, he was right. Over 17 years, Ted Kaczynski has mailed or hand delivered a series of increasingly sophisticated mail bombs that killed iii people and injured two dozen, along the way, sowing terror, even threatening to explode airplanes.

  • xi:07:25

    MS. INDIRA LAKSHMANANEqually David suspicions grew, he faced a life-altering decision, plough in his dear older brother whom he worshipped as a child, peradventure condemning him to expiry or say nothing and risk that if the culprit was his brother, he might kill someone again. Joining me in the studio to share his incredible life story is David Kaczynski and later on in the evidence, we will besides be joined by Dr. Liza Gold, a psychiatrist at Georgetown University who studies the relationship between violence and mental health. Welcome.

  • xi:07:57

    MR. DAVID KACZYNSKIPracticed to be here, Indira.

  • xi:07:58

    LAKSHMANANGood to have you lot. And yous, the listeners, are, of course, equally always, most welcome to join our conversation, share your thoughts, ask your questions. You can call us at ane-800-433-8850. You tin send us email at drshow@wamu.org. Bring together us on Facebook or send us a tweet. So David, yous have merely published a very personal book called, "Every Last Tie: The Story Of The Unabomber And His Family." What motivated you lot to share your family's story and why now, 20 years after the fact?

  • eleven:08:31

    KACZYNSKII call back there might have been a couple of factors. One was the death of our mom in 2011 and I retired as director of New Yorkers Confronting the Capital punishment a few months after that. And and then my focus shifted from kind of the external world, this mission of opposing the death penalty, advocating for more attainable treatment for people with mental illness to kind of turning inward. Especially after mom died, I thought a lot about her.

  • eleven:09:01

    KACZYNSKII missed her terribly and I began to write a picayune scrap about her and and so I began to write more near the family, my blood brother and my father. And just about that time, I got -- I was approached by Gisela Fosado who is an editor at Knuckles Academy. And she said, David, we'd dearest it if yous would consider submitting a manuscript to us. So I took it more seriously. I didn't necessarily begin past intending to publish something, but the timing was right.

  • 11:09:34

    KACZYNSKIAnd every bit I said, I was beginning to look more inward and look kind of dorsum at the past and endeavour to process and make sense of the story that I'd lived through.

  • xi:09:45

    LAKSHMANANAnd y'all'd gone, of class, from your mission, as you say, of being an anti-death penalty activist and mental health advocate to starting to write poesy. Then, in a style, the writing was maybe a natural transition in this book, which is really extraordinary. Y'all begin with your childhood. What kind of a brother was Ted when you were growing upwards?

  • xi:10:06

    KACZYNSKIYou know, I have very many fond memories of Ted. You lot know, one of my fondest was that when I was a little boy and we'd move to a new house, I couldn't kind of reach the doorknob to let myself back into the house. I could push my manner out of the screen door, but I couldn't let myself back in. And Ted, who was nearly -- who was 7 years older than I am, so about 10 years old at this betoken, got this idea that he'd take a spool from mom's sewing kit and he removed the thread from the spool and then he hammered the spool onto the wooden screen door, in effect, making a makeshift door handle for me.

  • xi:10:47

    KACZYNSKISo, you know, as a little boy, and here'southward my big brother taking care of me, having the insight to realize, hey, my picayune brother'southward struggling to become in the firm. Maybe in that location'south something I could practise to help him. That'southward one just pocket-sized story. Merely he was a skillful large brother. Nosotros had a loving family unit. And, in a sense, because of the age difference, in that location was no sibling rivalry. Information technology was similar I had Ted upwards on a pedestal. He was my hero when I was growing up.

  • eleven:11:13

    LAKSHMANANHe was also incredibly bright not just in your family, but compared with everyone in your neighborhood, anybody you lot knew.

  • 11:11:21

    KACZYNSKIYeah. At one point, his IQ, I retrieve, was tested and they came up with the number, 165. So you're a genius at 140. Ted was kind of off the charts. He was really brilliant, especially at mathematics. He concluded up getting a scholarship, graduating from loftier schoolhouse two years early, barely 16 years old and getting a scholarship to go to Harvard Academy.

  • 11:11:47

    LAKSHMANANIncredible. And yous draw that a moment of looking back at a photo of that 24-hour interval when he was going off to Harvard University, the whole family unit was so proud of him, sixteen years old with his scholarship, property his suitcase. Tell us about that photo and how it fabricated you experience years later.

  • 11:12:05

    KACZYNSKIYeah, I wait back at that picture and, you know, I went through a lot of photos later on mom passed away and that 1 really struck me because information technology seemed like such a hopeful moment. You know, Ted is kind of dressed up and I'm dressed upward just like my large brother and I'm kind looking off to the side almost like looking off into the futurity that I see is bright and golden and I recall of, yous know, my brother's going to do corking things in the globe and I'thou so proud of him and peradventure I tin can be like him anytime.

  • 11:12:36

    KACZYNSKII look back at that little male child and I think, gee, that was me. And then much has changed since then and a lot of disappointments.

  • xi:12:45

    LAKSHMANANAnd that was him. And that was him in the picture. I hateful, the face that you draw of his looking out at the camera with so much promise and expectation for his future.

  • 11:12:55

    KACZYNSKIAnd a friendliness, a sense of connection. You await at that picture, Ted could wait into a camera and yous could see his eyes were bright and they were open. You lot look at later photographs, some of which are contained in this volume, of brother and in that location's -- like the light has gone out of his optics. Something has happened.

  • eleven:xiii:xiii

    LAKSHMANANAnd yet, fifty-fifty at a young historic period, you describe request both of your parents separately, what was incorrect with your brother. On the one paw, he'southward this incredibly kind and empathetic and loving older blood brother who thinks of making a footling doorknob for a 3-yr-sometime little tot, and at the aforementioned time, you lot knew, at your young age, that something was incorrect with him. How?

  • 11:xiii:35

    KACZYNSKIWell, he tended to withdraw. He didn't have friends. I was a very social kid. I had lots of friends in the neighborhood. Ted did not accept many friends, certainly not close friends. He spent a lot of time past himself. There were times when I felt at that place was a kind of bulwark, like I couldn't quite read his feelings, similar he would close down to some extent. And I think that was what motivated me to ask get-go female parent and so my father, you know, what's incorrect with Teddy? Why is he different?

  • xi:14:04

    KACZYNSKIMom's initial response was, well, David, at that place'due south nothing wrong with your blood brother. There are differences between people. You're very social. Ted is more than intellectual. Information technology'due south fine. You lot're both wonderful in your own fashion. I think that was a skillful answer. Only at some point, mom realized that that quite didn't cover it for me and she went on to explicate a traumatic experience that my brother had had when he was 3 years former. He'd gotten sick. They took him to the -- I'chiliad sorry. I said iii years sometime. I meant ix months former.

  • 11:xiv:36

    KACZYNSKIAnd so hither nosotros're talking about a child that'south preverbal who has to go to the hospital. And mom ever felt that that hospital feel, about a week or two weeks in the hospital equally a 9 calendar month sometime baby was quite traumatic to Ted, that he had inverse dramatically over that period of time. In those days, hospitals weren't particularly welcoming to families so they were -- mom and dad were only allowed to visit Ted, their babe son, during regular visiting hours, which was ii hours, three days a week and...

  • 11:15:13

    LAKSHMANANHmm. That is heartbreaking.

  • 11:15:fifteen

    KACZYNSKIYeah, I think -- and there's quite a chip of research that shows that that particular phase of ix months to a year old is a stage where, y'all know, connections, bonding is developed and there's a lot of literature on attachment disorder. There's some sense -- at least mom felt very, very strongly that that trauma had afflicted Ted's power to trust people and to mayhap feel that he was loved.

  • 11:15:41

    LAKSHMANANWell, you describe in the book how your mother said that he was crying hysterically when he was being handed over to the doctors and nurses at 9 months one-time by your parents and then, that was it. They were gone because, as yous say, they were simply allowed to visit three times a week and that she felt, for years and decades subsequently, that fifty-fifty this ix month old baby somehow had never forgiven her for leaving him at the infirmary with these strangers.

  • 11:16:06

    KACZYNSKIYeah, like at that place was some kind of imprint of a memory of abandonment or a broken human relationship that had affected Ted for the rest of his life.

  • 11:16:15

    LAKSHMANANWell, you mention that as one traumatic experience, simply some other one is here he was enrolled at Harvard on a scholarship at the tender age of 16. Sounds like a swell start to life, but not only did he suffer from profound social isolation there, in your telling, but I was horrified to read about the cruel psychological experimentation that was washed on him as minor. Tell us.

  • eleven:sixteen:37

    KACZYNSKIAye. Ted was, in effect, a guinea pig in a psychological research project that was conducted, I believe funded, by the U.South. government. There's suspicion without clear proof that it might accept actually been funded by the CIA, which was, at that point, funding a lot of experiments on mind control of American citizens, sometimes in prisons, in mental institutions, but also on higher campuses. The scholar who oversaw that report, Henry Murray, was really quite famous in his mean solar day and had been really part of the OSS, which was a precursor of the CIA.

  • xi:17:21

    KACZYNSKIAnd so there's a lot of possibilities that this study had been perhaps funded by the CIA.

  • xi:17:28

    LAKSHMANANAnd what did he do to Ted?

  • 11:17:30

    KACZYNSKIWhat it involved was a weekly meeting that involved a conversation with someone that Ted thought was another peer, another bailiwick to the experiment. Information technology was actually a graduate student who was coached to behave in an insulting and humiliating style. The bones premise of the study was to see how bright college students, especially those with alienation in their personalities, would respond to ambitious attacks on their beliefs and personal characteristics.

  • 11:18:00

    LAKSHMANANSo painful to hear that that was washed to him and when he was a minor. All correct. Well, we are going to have a short pause here. Coming upward, your comments, your questions, more about Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, from his brother. Stay with us.

  • 11:20:01

    LAKSHMANANWelcome back. I'm Indira Lakshmanan sitting in for Diane Rehm. This hour, I'm joined by David Kaczynski, brother of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, and author of a new memoir, "Every Last Tie: The Story Of The Unabomber And His Family unit." And as well joining us at present, Dr. Liza Gold, clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown School of Medicine and editor and author of "Gun Violence and Mental Illness."

  • 11:20:24

    LAKSHMANANCorrect before we went to the pause, David, nosotros were talking most this psychological study that Ted was subjected to while he was an undergraduate student at Harvard Academy from the fall of 1959 to the bound of 1962. Tell the states a little bit more than most it.

  • 11:20:43

    KACZYNSKIYeah. I believe that Murray himself, the man who oversaw the study, called -- described the procedure every bit sweeping and abusive attacks. And Ted is a kind of an alienated immature -- bright young person, spent three years every week facing this kind of abusive treatment. Later on, when his lawyers establish out about this, they asked him, Ted, why did you put up with this? Yous know, this was one of the worst experiences of your life. Why didn't yous just walk away from it?

  • 11:21:16

    KACZYNSKIAnd Ted'south response to them was I wanted to prove I could accept it, that I couldn't exist broken. Then much like Ted and yet, in a way, information technology kind of leaves this lingering question of, you know, how much outcome -- how much harm did these studies really do to my brother'due south personality, self esteem and way of thinking about other people.

  • eleven:21:37

    LAKSHMANANAnd one of the most heartbreaking things for me in this volume is, as a parent, reading that your mother was asked her permission to let him participate in a psychological study because he was a minor. He couldn't requite his own consent. And she, you know, from Chicago, wrote a letter of the alphabet signing aye because she thought that they were going to be helping him. She thought they were going to be giving him some sort of psychological support. She knew that her son was somewhat alienated and socially isolated.

  • 11:22:03

    KACZYNSKII remember her exact words when she spoke with me about it. She said she thought these nice psychiatrists might help Ted. And I -- exactly the opposite was happening.

  • 11:22:14

    LAKSHMANANWell, Ted graduated with a degree in math from Harvard, went on to go a PhD at the University of Michigan and concluded up as an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, a tertiary aristocracy institution, so it looked similar his life was on a great path. What happened?

  • 11:22:28

    KACZYNSKIWell, at some bespeak, he wrote a letter to our parents and said he had decided to quit his job. He idea they might be angry at him well-nigh this. I mean, this was -- they'd funded a wonderful education for him. They had high hopes for their son and he was throwing it all away. In some sense, he was kind of on the top of the earth, a rising star in academia and he decides to quit considering he's come to the determination that applied science is really -- nearly of u.s. adore, think highly of and call back is a great premise for humanity, is actually very negative, very destructive.

  • xi:23:04

    KACZYNSKIThen considering a lot of mathematics is involved in technology, he basically said he didn't want to do mathematics anymore. He didn't desire to teach mathematics and, in fact, he wanted to remove himself as far as possible from technology. And that'due south when he had this idea that he would live out in the wilderness.

  • 11:23:22

    LAKSHMANANAnd then he quit his job at Berkeley in 1969. He said he traveled because he wanted to alive in the wilderness. What was your reaction? And it was quite different from your parents' reaction.

  • 11:23:33

    KACZYNSKIYeah. Well, actually, mom and dad weren't angry at Ted. I hateful, I think mom, at some point, was a petty concerned. She said to me, you know, David, I don't think this is really so much almost technology as it is about your brother's difficulty with people. You know, maybe he's running away from a club that he doesn't sympathise and can't fit into. And I remember mom was probably right there. To me, this was Ted. This was my large brother. He's smart. He'southward principled. His ideas are very intriguing to me and I think, wow, how many people in life become to do what they want instead of what other people expect them to do?

  • 11:24:12

    KACZYNSKIAnd how many people are so principled to brand sacrifices on the basis of a belief system, in this case that, for Ted, that engineering was subversive?

  • xi:24:22

    LAKSHMANANAnd y'all actually jumped in the automobile with him and drove beyond Western Canada to help him look for a piece of land to homestead.

  • 11:24:28

    KACZYNSKIYeah. We spent near two months one summer and he really made an application to employ for a homesteading let to homestead some land in Canada. Effectually this time, it was during the time of the Vietnam War. I think Canada was being inundated by, you know, young males who were trying to escape the draft and they basically denied his application and that'south when Ted's focus shifted to Montana.

  • 11:24:54

    LAKSHMANANSo he ends upward in Montana where he becomes increasingly isolated and he begins sending scathing letters to your parents. At what point did you realize that something was wrong?

  • eleven:25:05

    KACZYNSKII gauge that was my beginning existent shock with Ted. I hateful, the first time I felt I really did not sympathise my brother's thinking. I remember a 23-page letter came. This was about five years after Ted had moved to Montana, living in a little cabin, very isolated. And it was basically challenge that he was abused as a kid, not physically, merely emotionally, that they pushed him academically because -- to feed their own pride, to feed their own egos, but not because they cared nearly him.

  • xi:25:38

    KACZYNSKII remember in one item instance, he said, mom, you yelled at me for throwing socks nether the bed. Didn't you know that this is normal beliefs for an adolescent male child? Well, Ted, you know, it'south kind of normal behavior for an adolescent male child's mother to, you know, perhaps get upset sometimes. So it's similar his perspective on our family unit and our parents was totally different. And I thought well, Ted, possibly he's lost his temper. He's gotten a fiddling aroused. He'south said some things he didn't mean.

  • eleven:26:09

    KACZYNSKII remember writing to him, telling him how devastating the letter had been to mom and dad, that he should apologize and instead, I get a very sort of escalated response from Ted and I began to realize, wow, he actually believes he was not loved when, in fact, we were both securely loved past both of our parents.

  • 11:26:29

    LAKSHMANANAnd the start mention of mental illness itself came when you were visiting dwelling and your mother handed you a book called "The Stranger, My Son" by Louise Wilson well-nigh the journeying of a mother seeking to understand and obtain help for her mentally ill son. So it seems similar your mom had a sense of what was going on. Did you acknowledge what she said and did the two of you try to assist go him mental wellness assist?

  • 11:26:56

    KACZYNSKIYou know, I remember reading the book and mom didn't say why she was interested in having me read this volume, only when I handed information technology dorsum to her -- and the book describes a mother's journey trying to go aid for her seriously mentally ill son diagnosed with schizophrenia and finding there was not much help bachelor and there was a lot of stigma and she concluded up being blamed for her son's problems. I think we've come a long way in our agreement of mental disease since the time that book was written.

  • 11:27:28

    KACZYNSKIBut I remember handing information technology dorsum mom and said, just nigh taking a little risk. Mom, did you lot ask me to read this 'cause information technology reminded you of Ted? And I saw her eyes kind of get big and she looked at me, full of business organisation, and said, yeah, did it remind your of Ted a piddling bit, David? And I said, yep. And, of form, it's kind of interesting, mom, at that bespeak, says, of course, Ted isn't schizophrenic, yous know, but maybe he has some tendencies in this direction. Maybe nosotros should watch this.

  • 11:28:02

    KACZYNSKIAnd so I call up there's some element of deprival here. There'due south such a stigma on mental illness. You know, parents are blamed for it. Nobody wants to admit that a loved ane is mentally ill, especially at that day and age. And I think there's some other factor here that when you're and so close to someone, you lose some of your perspective, yous know. Yous sort of adjust. You suit to their incremental changes over time. Merely this was not an incremental change, this sudden nail of anger coming from Ted was totally unexpected and kind of inexplicable to me.

  • 11:28:35

    LAKSHMANANWell, David, you talk in the book about how Ted actually sought out mental health services for himself and was unsuccessful. Tell u.s. why.

  • 11:28:44

    KACZYNSKIYeah. This is something that I was very surprised to learn afterward Ted's abort from his attorneys that, at some point, and he had really been the Unabomber at this point. He had actually sent bombs to people, had already killed one person. He wrote a letter to the mental health services in the rural county where he lived in Montana request if he could do therapy through the mail. And he probably didn't know he has schizophrenia, but he knew that he had difficulty sleeping. He knew he felt high anxiety effectually people. He knew he had problems in adjusting to, you know, society.

  • xi:29:24

    KACZYNSKIHe wanted to get help through the mail. And, of grade, he was told, past return alphabetic character, no, the organization doesn't work this way. You have to actually come up upwardly. You take to show -- nowadays yourself for an interview. You lot take to pay for services or we could help you apply for welfare. And anyway, in that location were a number of barriers. And for Ted, someone who was paranoid, who had trust bug, these were insurmountable barriers. There was no way Ted was going to sit down face up to face with someone and talk about his bug.

  • eleven:29:56

    KACZYNSKIThat would've been overwhelmingly difficult for Ted, given his mental problems and his issues in relating to people.

  • xi:30:05

    LAKSHMANANHe wasn't going to leave the cabin and as well, he didn't have the coin to pay for the services.

  • 11:thirty:09

    KACZYNSKIExactly.

  • 11:30:09

    LAKSHMANANDr. Liza Gold, it seems like David and his family knew that Ted was struggling, just they couldn't notice a mode to get him help. How common is this?

  • eleven:30:xviii

    DR. LIZA GOLDWell, I'k very deplorable to say that information technology'southward extremely common. To say that the mental health system is broken in this country is a tremendous understatement. It'south not fifty-fifty cohesive enough to actually call it a system, I think. And unfortunately, every bit a gild, nosotros've accepted the lack of investment in mental health resources and we bewail information technology at certain times, but we have accepted information technology in the people we vote for, in our social policy and in the suffering that it causes just occasionally comes to the surface when at that place's a terrible incident that happens.

  • 11:31:11

    DR. LIZA GOLDBut it's heartbreaking. I go calls frequently from family members. My son, my husband, my blood brother, my uncle, my father, usually information technology's a male, merely not always, often it can exist a female. And, you know, they don't think they're sick and we can't get them into treatment and we're worried they're gonna commit suicide, unremarkably, is the business concern and what can nosotros do. And we go over -- I do spend time going over what their options are give the resources.

  • 11:31:43

    LAKSHMANANI'm Indira Lakshmanan and you're listening to "The Diane Rehm Show." David, I'd love it if you would read a passage in your book for us. In that location's one bit on page 24 where y'all really sort of sum up how yous feel about the whole thing. Can you read that for us?

  • 11:31:59

    KACZYNSKISure, thank yous. "Of a sudden, it felt every bit if my brother and I were key characters in a grandiose tragedy. I began to discern a frightening symmetry in our lives that pb me to the terrible dilemma that Linda and I then faced. Do nada and run the risk that Ted might kill again or turn him in and accept the likelihood that he would be executed for his crimes. I could not reconcile the conflict betwixt our moral obligation and my love from my brother, could not make a decision without sacrificing one for the other.

  • eleven:32:38

    KACZYNSKIJust mayhap, I thought, we would wake up someday and run into our state of affairs differently. Perhaps our cede compelled by reason and necessity would experience less painful now that I had come up closer to acknowledging the worst about my brother. If we waited for some magical resolution of our dilemma, nosotros would end up waiting forever. We could cease up waiting until someone else got blown up. The alternatives looked to stark to be truthful, more than like literature than life.

  • 11:33:13

    KACZYNSKILooking dorsum over our lives as brothers, I began to see how every footstep lead to this terrible juncture. Now, I felt trapped inside the narrative of our lives. My identity forever defined past the fate of beingness Ted Kaczynski's blood brother. I wanted out of that part. I wanted to brand my own choices in life, not take them foisted upon me. I wanted to create my own story and yet to choose to do nothing was itself a option. There was no escape. I was boxed in by the atrocious dilemma.

  • 11:33:50

    KACZYNSKIAnd for some fourth dimension, I felt engulfed in a vision of the universe equally dark as Ted's. When federal agents entered my brother's tiny cabin well-nigh Lincoln, Montana, on April 3, 1996, they discovered flop-making parts and plans, a carbon copy of the Unabomber's manifesto and most spooky of all, another live flop found under his bed wrapped and apparently gear up to be mailed to someone. My resentment of Ted strangely melted away.

  • 11:34:28

    KACZYNSKIThe way I was accepted to thinking well-nigh him, my usual frame of reference no longer worked. Now, there was just emptiness and deep pity in my center where my brother had been. I wondered how Ted would receive the news that I'd turned him in. I hoped he might understand on some level why I had done and then and non hate me for it. How would it feel to my paranoid brother to exist turned in by the ane person he had loved and trusted? I thought information technology must feel like the confirmation of his darkest thought.

  • 11:35:04

    KACZYNSKIMom'south alert voice from babyhood echoed in my ears. David, you must never abandon your brother because that's what he fears the most."

  • 11:35:15

    LAKSHMANANThank you so much for sharing that with us. You must never carelessness your brother because that's what he fears virtually. It takes us back to that moment when was the ix month onetime babe stuck in the infirmary without his parents. I'm also reminded of a story that you tell in the book about a rabbit. Tell us that story.

  • 11:35:34

    KACZYNSKIYeah. Nosotros lived in this suburb of Chicago with, you know, my father had a garden. And one twenty-four hours, he establish this little baby rabbit in the garden and, you know, he took it and we had had, like, a little box. He put it in this little box and it was kind of cool that, you know, hither we had a run a risk to look at little rabbit upwards shut. And a lot of my friends, people from, you know, other little boys and girls clustered effectually. We were all looking at this rabbit down in the box.

  • 11:36:07

    KACZYNSKIAnd then, Teddy was the last person to come up, kind of. And he looked down into that box with the, you know, the rabbit -- had a screen on top and the rabbit was kind of trapped in this box. And Ted'due south reaction was, like, very dissimilar from ours and it was instinctive. Information technology was, oh, oh, no. Let it go, let it get. It was like he was near panicked to wait at this rabbit. And all of a sudden, I realized, oh, this fiddling rabbit's afraid. It'due south trembling. It's -- hey, we're being barbarous. Let's permit it go.

  • 11:36:36

    KACZYNSKIAnd sure enough, our male parent realizing that he had caused distress to his other son, took the rabbit beyond to a park across a petty slice of wood across the street and let the rabbit become. It reminded me -- in many ways, I idea -- this story has come up dorsum to me considering it reminded me of Ted'southward sensitivity, particularly when he could identify with someone in pain or a creature that was hurting or frightened, in this instance, a little rabbit.

  • 11:37:06

    KACZYNSKIAnd then, after his arrest, I idea, oh, my gosh, is Ted going to spend his life trapped in a cage like this little rabbit? Is this the fulfillment of his worst fear?

  • 11:37:fifteen

    LAKSHMANANIndeed. Of course, he was sensitive to other people'southward pain, simply he ended up hurting people very desperately, killing three people and injuring ii dozen of them. We'll talk more about that when we come dorsum a short break. Nosotros'll take your calls and your questions. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

  • 11:forty:02

    LAKSHMANANWelcome back. I'yard Indira Lakshmanan. I'grand sitting in for Diane Rehm. This hour we're talking with David Kaczynski, the brother of the notorious Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and author of a new memoir "Every Last Tie: The Story Of The Unabomber And His Family." And Dr. Liza Gilt, a clinical professor of psychology at Georgetown School of Medicine, and also author of "Gun Violence and Mental Affliction."

  • 11:40:24

    LAKSHMANANI want to starting time out with an email that nosotros got from Larry, that says, "Coincidentally just 2 days back I read Ted Kaczynski'due south manifesto." He's referring to the 35,000 discussion piece that was published both in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He threatened to have more than victims if they didn't publish his piece. And the listener says, "This does not seem to me the work of an insane man. Maybe from someone with a xl degree tilt, but not insane," he asks. Dr. Gold?

  • 11:forty:54

    GOLDWell, insanity is not a medical term or a psychiatric term in this century. It'south really a legal term, and it's defined legally in certain ways. And 1 can have paranoid delusions, hallucinations, other kinds of fixed false beliefs, and all the same not entirely lose the ability to have rational thought. Then that's sort of a misconception, I remember, that is, over again, reinforced over and over again by the legal system, which has a very, very narrow definition of this concept, insanity.

  • 11:41:28

    GOLDThere'south no question that people tin take stock-still simulated beliefs, delusions, hallucinations fifty-fifty, and still maintain the power to plan, to function in many ways usually, unless you go up close and personal and meet what's going on underneath the surface. So to the extent that there's no question I never evaluated Ted Kaczynski, obviously, but I've read some of the psychiatric reports, et cetera. There's no question in my listen that those were probable correct, that he had a mental illness. He did non necessarily meet the legal definition of insanity, but he certainly had a mental affliction. And there is a disconnect there.

  • 11:42:12

    LAKSHMANANAll right. Well, David, earlier the pause, y'all were talking about your blood brother in terms of how y'all as his younger sibling saw and so many flashes of his sensitivity and his goodness, but when did you doubtable that he might really exist the Unabomber?

  • 11:42:27

    KACZYNSKIThe first person to doubtable this was my wife, Linda, who actually had never met Ted. She had read some of his letters. Linda was really the showtime person to sort of, as maybe a more objective member of the family, to begin to accept existent concerns about mental illness. So fifty-fifty long before nosotros had even heard of the Unabomber, she persuaded me to take some of Ted's letters to a psychiatrist who said, you know, we don't make a diagnosis based on letters, but your brother's really sick, and he needs help.

  • eleven:42:57

    KACZYNSKIAnd of course nosotros're stuck in this hard place. How do nosotros get him assistance if he doesn't know he's ill, if he's -- and then I'm thinking -- when Linda said to me, exercise you lot think he could be the Unabomber, I'k thinking -- I'm remembering the sensitive older brother I had. I call back, no, Ted is not capable of this. So a huge mystery for me, and one that I really struggle within the book is how could I have these memories, how could I know this person who at the age of x could be so kind to me, and nonetheless cold-bloodedly transport bombs to people he didn't fifty-fifty know, completely innocent people.

  • eleven:43:36

    KACZYNSKIIt'southward just like how does this -- how is this disconnect possible? How can a human being being have sensitivity on one hand and a completely callous condone for life on the other?

  • 11:43:47

    LAKSHMANANAnd so when you read the Unabomber manifesto in the papers, what did you retrieve? Did you immediately remember, aye, this is Ted?

  • 11:43:54

    KACZYNSKIWell, you know, I read it actually with Linda sitting next to me. We read it on a computer screen. I realized very quickly Linda was looking at my face, because she didn't know Ted. She knew that my face would tell her more than than the words on the screen. And I was all set to turn to her and say, I know it's not him. I know how he writes. I know how he thinks. And unfortunately I started to get this -- on an intuitive level, I started to really -- my heart sank when I started to read it. Intellectually I think I told Linda at that point, possibly there's i run a risk in a i,000.

  • 11:44:26

    KACZYNSKIAnd that's when we began to really investigate. We compared Ted'due south letters to me over the years, some of which dealt with this theme of engineering and passages in the manifesto. And over a period of probably well-nigh a month somewhen I got to the point of saying, yous know, I think information technology might be a fifty/50 gamble that Ted is the Unabomber.

  • 11:44:47

    LAKSHMANANAnd then you had to make this life altering decision, altering his life, and forever altering your life equally well to get to the authorities.

  • 11:44:55

    KACZYNSKIAnd facing this kind of dilemma, this life and death dilemma where you realize you lot're looking for a mode out, only you realize that whatever choice you make could pb to somebody dying. If you exercise cipher, and you make that choice, your brother might send some other bomb to somebody, and they would be killed. Their families would exist devastated. What a horrible -- I couldn't live with the blood of innocent people on my hands. On the other manus, what's the alternative? Turning Ted in, the likelihood that he would face the expiry punishment, what would information technology exist similar to go through the remainder of my life with my brother's claret on my hands?

  • 11:45:32

    KACZYNSKIUltimately I think there was really just one choice to exist made, and that was nosotros could not just sit by and let this person -- nosotros're the only people who could stop the Unabomber, because nosotros're the simply people who know Ted well enough to doubtable him. And then we fabricated the decision that we would go forrad and at least practise the i thing -- if Ted was the Unabomber, we could stop it, and that's what we decided to do.

  • 11:45:59

    LAKSHMANANSo you alerted authorities, and of course did event in his capture in Montana in his cabin. Y'all immediately began campaigning against the capital punishment for your brother, showtime specifically, and so at large against the death sentence in general. But did you ever become to communicate with your brother from the moment that y'all turned him in?

  • xi:46:19

    KACZYNSKINo. Yous know, Ted had kind of estranged himself first from our parents, and then ultimately from me. I hadn't received a friendly letter from Ted in years. When he was arrested, I reached out to his attorneys, asked if I could speak with them, asked if I could run across Ted, asked how Ted was doing. I really wanted to try to explicate to him why I'd done what I'd done. And unfortunately Ted at this indicate had slammed a door. He said he would never run across or speak with or communicate with his family once again. That was twenty years agone. And it's still true. I continue to write to Ted from time to time, but I've never received a response.

  • xi:47:01

    LAKSHMANANWell, it sort of goes to a comment that nosotros've gotten here on website from someone who says, "One-half the time David talks well-nigh his brother every bit though he'south deceased. I find that interesting."

  • 11:47:ten

    KACZYNSKIMmm. Mmm. Well, information technology'due south interesting. I wonder, that brother that I loved, yous know, it'south well-nigh like I've lost him in a sure sense, y'all know. I have to believe that there is this spark inside him that on some level, he probably knows what he's done, he probably knows the harm that he'due south done, and I notwithstanding have some hope that mayhap at some betoken Ted might open a door and I would rush to come across him if that were to happen.

  • 11:47:41

    LAKSHMANANHow did he...

  • eleven:47:41

    KACZYNSKIJust I don't know if it ever will.

  • eleven:47:43

    LAKSHMANANHow did he react when he plant out you were the one who turned him in?

  • xi:47:46

    KACZYNSKIYou know, I just heard this story tertiary manus, and so I'm not sure if it'southward exactly truthful, just apparently Ted asked one of the attorneys that he had contact with at the very beginning, how did they observe me? And the attorney said, well, it was your blood brother that turned you lot in. And Ted wouldn't believe information technology at kickoff. He said, no, David loves me. He wouldn't do such a affair. So that was painful to hear. I have to believe that what we did was not only for the benefit of protecting society and preventing future victims. I retrieve it was for Ted'south benefit equally well.

  • 11:48:26

    LAKSHMANANDr. Aureate.

  • 11:48:27

    GOLDYou know, reading through David'south book over the last few days, in that location was 1 passage that really struck me about how none of us become through life without loss. We lose one thing, we lose people, nosotros lose fabric possessions, we tin lose parts of ourselves, various types of loss. As someone who lost a brother many years agone, he passed abroad at a immature age, I was actually struck over again, and made me think of this question about being deceased in that, you know, at that place's a tremendous loss here for David, even before. Although his brother was estranged, he could maintain his image of his caring, older blood brother.

  • 11:49:xi

    GOLDIn one case the data clicked about the Unabomber, that is -- there are multiple losses here for him. Those memories get tinged I would think. You can ask him. Plus, of course the relationship now, the fact that they were estranged takes on a whole other meaning, and no contact for 20 years. So, you lot know, the loss of a brother is a very difficult thing for anybody to live through. And David has described and talked about this.

  • xi:49:43

    KACZYNSKIThis is non the first time I've heard him talk about this, in a way that is so compassionate for others and presents a model, I recollect, for compassion and understanding for both others and cocky, that I just want to say it's very moving, not only on a professional person level, but on a personal level as well.

  • 11:50:05

    LAKSHMANANThanks for that.

  • 11:50:07

    KACZYNSKIThe other thing I think it's actually of import to remember is how much damage Ted did, how much his own pain translated through his violence into pain for other people, and all the people he hurt. And I've met some of his victims and victims' family members. There's so much -- nosotros tend to focus and then much on, you know, perpetrator, what got the perpetrator there. We don't really give plenty idea and attending to victims and the plight of victims. And ofttimes they experience, you know, very, very cut off and isolated and wondering, you know, what to do with this loss.

  • 11:50:45

    LAKSHMANANAll right. Let's take a quick call from Dick in Pittsford, N.Y. Dick, you're on the air.

  • eleven:50:l

    DICKCheers for taking my call. I have great respect for David. I'm a retired FBI amanuensis, and I know that he had to make the most difficult of choices. Fortunately in hearing him talk today it seems to be that he is probably come to exist more accepting of the nigh difficult choice that he had to make. And information technology was obviously the right selection, but it had to have been at great cost to him and his family. So I'1000 calling merely to thank him for his courage, and most of all the courage that he shows today past talking well-nigh it. And the terminal matter is just to back up him for his piece of work against capital punishment. Then thank you, David.

  • 11:51:32

    LAKSHMANANWell, thanks for your call, Dick. You know, it's interesting because that choice yous made did redound dorsum to you with consequences. Immediately later the arrest, the media surrounded your house. They seemed to exist in search of the respond to what kind of a family would produce the Unabomber. Is that a off-white question for outsiders to enquire nigh the family of someone who was on the FBI's most wanted listing?

  • eleven:51:54

    KACZYNSKIWell, sure. And actually that'southward 1 of my motivations in writing the book, to sort of shine a light into the family that my brother and I grew upward in, and to pigment a picture that's I recollect circuitous, but notwithstanding very loving motion-picture show of both my female parent and father, who really had such love for their children, really cared more almost their children than they did about themselves, and to understand -- I think -- and in meeting with other families, non only of people who have committed violence, only where mental disease is a factor in the family, understanding that mental illness can come in any family. It'southward not caused by a dysfunctional family. It's other factors that create it.

  • eleven:52:37

    LAKSHMANANInteresting point. I'g Indira Lakshmanan, and you're listening to "The Diane Rehm Testify." In fact, we take several callers who want to talk about the mental health aspect. Permit's go to Michael from Fayette, Ala. Michael, you're on the air.

  • 11:52:49

    MICHAELGood morning. Thank you so much for accepting my call.

  • 11:52:52

    LAKSHMANANYes.

  • 11:52:55

    MICHAELOh, I don't know how to say this. I don't know if Mr. Kaczynski himself ever took any personality tests, only equally somebody like myself who has had obsessive compulsive disorder twice, and once had severe depression, and likewise had a very rare -- was born with a very rare autism called Asperger Syndrome. I also take temporal lobe epilepsy. Yous take -- very often if y'all're given mental health -- I mean, medical health, very rare out here in rural America, you're given something like the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory, is what I was given at University of Alabama, Birmingham.

  • 11:53:41

    LAKSHMANANMm-hmm.

  • 11:53:41

    MICHAELHas whatsoever of these Congress people and Senators or land governments, and this is especially for Dr. Aureate -- oh, how can I say it? If states administered this with gun permits, and especially these gun shows and flea markets and so forth...

  • 11:54:03

    LAKSHMANANOkay.

  • 11:54:04

    MICHAEL...pawn shops, that would yet enable the gun owners' rights that white conservatives down hither in the south beat the chests about, just weed out the mentally -- not but the mentally ill, but too young adults...

  • eleven:54:20

    LAKSHMANANOkay.

  • 11:54:xx

    MICHAEL...who don't take the bullets out and lock the gun...

  • 11:54:25

    LAKSHMANANThank you for...

  • eleven:54:25

    MICHAEL...simply are parents of pocket-size children.

  • xi:54:26

    LAKSHMANAN...cheers for your call, Michael. I retrieve that the caller is trying to ask about whether state governments or the federal government are doing anything with the gun permit process to determine if a person has a mental disorder to preclude them from getting a gun.

  • 11:54:xl

    GOLDWell, that question...

  • 11:54:40

    LAKSHMANANDr. Gold.

  • 11:54:41

    GOLD...could take a whole hr to answer. The curt answer is there are certain mental health prohibitors in the federal police and in some state laws that put your name onto the NICS background cheque organisation. Those are not actually evidence based. They don't piece of work well in preventing people who for reasons of mental health, primarily issues of suicide, should non have guns. And most of the guns that people accept when they commit suicide and ofttimes fifty-fifty homicide are legally purchased. So the curt answer is yep, merely no.

  • 11:55:24

    KACZYNSKII'd love to comment on that besides. I call back it'south just really important. At that place's some very adept enquiry out there that people with even the most serious kinds of mental illness are non statistically more violent than the population at large. And then this kind of linkage of mental illness and violence kind of feeds into the stereotypical ways we take of thinking most mental illness. And that'southward a terrible injustice to people with mental illness.

  • xi:55:51

    GOLDYes, absolutely. That's admittedly true. I will say, y'all know, mental -- people with mental illness account for just iii to five percent of all violence in the United States. Gun violence, even less so. And every time they are linked, it does contribute to the stereotype that people with mental affliction are unsafe. When, in fact, it's extraordinarily rare.

  • 11:56:16

    LAKSHMANANGood betoken to make, Dr. Gold. Give thanks you. In the terminal infinitesimal we accept left, David, I want to bring in a concern from some listeners, particularly Anna in Ann Arbor, Mich., is wondering about people who might be in a situation where they have a loved i who might be a petty odd, just hasn't done annihilation that they know of to bear witness information technology. What communication practise y'all give to someone with that? And also many listeners want to know how Ted is doing today, if y'all could tell us.

  • xi:56:43

    KACZYNSKIYeah, very quickly, I think the most of import thing is to keep an open communication, to just proceed the door open, proceed the heart open up, be empathetic, heed, be a really good listener, Try to develop trust and hopefully, you lot know, persuade the person that, you lot know, help is not -- doesn't mean there'due south something -- you know, doesn't annihilate yous equally a person to acknowledge that y'all have an illness, and maybe it's good to get some assistance.

  • 11:57:10

    KACZYNSKIAs far as how Ted is doing today, I acquire well-nigh how he'south doing from the media. As I said, he doesn't communicate with me. My understanding is that he has a fairly wide correspondence with people who are interested in his ideas. So in some foreign way he has more than social interaction in the most secure prison house in America than he e'er had before. That's nearly all I could say.

  • 11:57:35

    LAKSHMANANAmazing. Thank you lot so much for sharing your story with us. David Kaczynski, brother of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and author of a new memoir, "Every Last Tie." And Dr. Liza Gold, a psychiatry professor at Georgetown Schoolhouse of Medicine. I'm Indira Lakshmanan. Give thanks you lot for listening to "The Diane Rehm Evidence."

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