CHAPTER FIVE

Had I still cared, I might have reflected upon the irony of situation.  The station had received a spectacular boost during the holiday season; and under any reasonable circumstances the net profit generated between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day should have been ample to carry it through the annual first quarter slump. But according to the spreadsheet Jean had delivered the previous morning, the business was floundering.  That was, I supposed, a testament to her extraordinary accounting skills; but I was no longer sufficiently interested to appreciate them.

I gulped down the last of a cold cup of coffee, and stubbed out my cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.  Leaning back in my dilapidated chair, I picked up the yellow legal pad from the top of the desk and studied the remaining tasks I had assigned myself for the day.  Of the 14 or so items I had scrawled upon the page, I had crossed off all but three. The first was a list of calls to return. The second was a note to call General Richardson; and the third was a reminder of my doctor's appointment, scheduled for 4:00 PM that day.

I glanced down at my watch to check the time, and I was astonished to find that it was already 3:00 PM. Although I wasn't sure when the General closed up shop, I assumed he would still be in his office.  But first I wanted another cup of coffee. 

I got up from my chair and made my way past the cluttered desk. Opening the door to the service bay, I yelled for Rafael.  He pulled his head out from under the hood of a 1980 Chrysler, and looked at me quizzically. Unable to be heard above the din of the badly malfunctioning engine, I pulled a five-dollar bill from my pocket and pointed in the direction of the 7-11 across the street. Rafael grinned and shook his head emphatically.  Reasonably persuaded that he would not poison me, I had worked out an "I buy, you fly" arrangement with him some months ago.  Rafael bounded over and snatched the bill from my hand, and disappeared out the door.  

Returning to my desk, I picked up the phone and began returning calls. The first was from a dissatisfied customer; and the remainder were from various creditors.  By the time I finished, Rafael had returned with a 20-oz. cup of coffee.  I mixed the cream and sugar into it as I dialed the number for High Frontier.  When the receptionist answered the phone on the second ring, I identified myself and asked for General Richardson.

I had first met the general at the American Security Council some six years before. The AFC was and remains a conservative public policy center specialized in national security issues; and it had given refuge to a score of luminaries who had run afoul of the Washington establishment.  Amongst the most notable of these were Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow, former U.S. emissary to South Vietnam; James J. Angleton, former CIA Chief of Counterintelligence; Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; and B/Gen. Robert C. Richardson. Each of these men had built brilliant careers in their respective services; and each of them had crossed swords with the foreign policy elite over matters of fundamental principle.

When I arrived on the scene in the spring of 1979, I was taking doctoral coursework in strategic studies at Georgetown University. By chance and good fortune I had secured a related internship at the ASC, where I had been assigned to Gen. Graham as a research assistant. Graham had just published a brilliant polemic entitled Shall America Be Defended; and as a result had emerged as perhaps the nation's foremost advocate of strategic nuclear defense. His partner in crime was Gen. Richardson, who had been forcibly retired from the Air Force during the Kennedy administration. 

Richardson came from a long line of distinguished soldiers; his father had been a general officer, as had his father before him. A graduate of West Point, Richardson had rocketed through the ranks, becoming one of the youngest generals in American history. A fighter pilot in the European Theater during the Second World War, Richardson had later become a protégé of the legendary Gen. Curtis E. Lemay. He was a high flyer, who would have almost certainly become Chief of Staff had he not clashed with Robert C. MacNamara.

MacNamara had been president of Ford Motor Company until Kennedy had implausibly appointed him Secretary of Defense. Best known for his sponsorship of the Edsel - perhaps the single greatest disaster in Ford's history - MacNamara went on to wreak comparable havoc at the Department of Defense. Convinced that the business principles he doubtfully understood could be applied to the national security, he had upended the Pentagon with a succession of ill-advised reforms.

A statistician of considerable merit, MacNamara believed that all questions were reducible to numeric analysis. The first result was a radical revision in U.S. strategic nuclear policy; the second was the war of attrition in Vietnam. Both proved disastrous in their separate ways.

Persuaded that a strategic nuclear war could not be won, MacNamara had embraced the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. Although strategic nuclear theory would later acquire the intellectual complexity of medieval theology, Mutual Assured Destruction - or MAD - was relatively straightforward.  Postulating that a nuclear exchange would inevitably result in national catastrophe, the doctrine relegated nuclear weapons to the role of deterrence alone. For that reason, civilian population centers were specifically targeted for retaliatory attack. Moreover it assumed as an article of faith that strategic nuclear defense was neither possible nor desirable; for an active defense against ballistic missile attack would undermine the balance of terror that MAD sought to ensure.

MAD had the virtue of logical consistency, but little else. It was morally indefensible, and for that reason it was regarded as anathema by the senior military leadership. On a philosophical level, military officers accept Von Clauswitz's dictum that war is an extension of politics by other means; but on a more emotive level, they tend to believe that their first duty is to defend the civilian populace.  For that reason MacNamara's demand that senior officers formally endorse MAD sparked a near mutiny. To his credit, Gen. Richardson was among those that refused to accede to MacNamara's diktat; and for that he was unceremoniously shown the door.

Although I worked for Gen. Graham throughout the year and a half I spent at ASC, I had been in frequent contact with Gen. Richardson and had come to know him reasonably well. Save for his diminutive stature and piercing blue eyes, he was physically nondescript. But his unremarkable appearance belied an extraordinary intellect and a riotous sense of humor; and I had come to admire him for both. 

After I had left the ASC for the Heritage Foundation in 1981, I had stayed in contact with both generals regarding matters of mutual interest. At Heritage I was involved in project that ran parallel to the one I had been engaged in at ASC, and both generals had followed it with interest. And while I had the greatest respect and admiration for Gen. Graham, I got along better with Gen. Richardson. For that reason, he was most often my point of contact.

Another thing I liked about him was his easy informality. Although he had been born into substantial privilege, he had emerged from it entirely unscathed. He took a realistic view of himself and others; and if he was sometimes sardonic, wry humor forgave him. He was first and foremost a fighter pilot; and all else seemed incidental.

According to the general, he had been humbled at the tender age of three. At that time his father had been posted to France as a military attaché; and in accordance to the customs of the time and place, his mother had entrusted him to the care of a governess. Unwilling to speak English, she demanded that he address her in French. Terrified by the new and awesome presence fate had imposed upon him, he fled. Finding refuge under a high bed, he hid there for days. But hunger eventually got the best of him; and on the third morning, he emerged from hiding to plead for his breakfast in impeccable French.

The story was probably apocryphal, but it betrayed a deep personal meaning. From his early experience the general had learned the vicissitudes of life are indiscriminate; and even the privileged and powerful are subject to their whims. This had impressed a deep humility upon him, which I respected greatly. 

I heard a click at the other end of the line as the call was transferred, and the clatter of a dropped receiver as it bounced upon the general's desk. In the background I could hear him swearing; and then there was a moment of silence before his voice came through the line. "Richardson."

Suppressing my laughter, I identified myself. "General? Charlie Viar here. How the hell are you, sir?"

The general paused for a second and said, "Charlie!  How the hell are you?  I haven't heard from you in years. Are you still down there in Texas?"

In actual fact, I had left Texas more than a year ago, but I let it slide. "No, sir," I joked, "I got out early on good behavior." 

Surprised, he asked what I was doing. I informed him that I had recently resigned from the construction management company that I had joined after returning to St. Louis in 1981, and moved back to DC. I started to explain that the construction industry had been devastated by high interest rates, and that McBro - the firm I had been with - had been particularly hard hit. The company had specialized in hospital construction, and had ridden a building wave fueled by Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements. But in response to an artificially created excess of hospital capacity, Congress had passed legislation prohibiting the use of reimbursements for new construction. As a result, hospital building had gone into a tailspin. When I joined the firm, McBro had 122 major construction projects underway; but by the time I left, the number had shrunk to 32, with no new contracts in sight. But as soon as I mentioned that I was back in the area, the general cut me off. "Christ almighty, we have to get together. There's something I want to talk to you about right away!"

The general asked me to hold on while he checked his schedule. After a long minute of muffled swearing, the general returned to the line. “Ah shit, Charlie…I'm wrapped around the axel all week. How about meeting me for breakfast tomorrow morning at 7:00?”

Surprised, I agreed. The general gave me directions to a Marriott Hotel, then located on 1100 block of Vermont Avenue, and excused himself. He was late for a meeting; but he looked forward to seeing me in the morning.

I rolled my eyes as I put down the receiver, and made a mental note to kick myself. If there was one thing in the world I despised, it was an early morning awakening. In order to make it to the Marriott by 7:00 AM, I would have to drag myself out of bed by 5:30 at the latest – a truly God-forsaken hour, by any standard. Given the fact that I was long accustomed to arising between 8:30 or 9:00, this was going to be a real challenge. With the problems I had sleeping, going to bed early was simply not a realistic option – unless, of course, I was prepared to drink myself into a sleep-inducing stupor. After pondering the problem for a few minutes, I decided I could handle it. But I was far from enthused.

I put the handset back on the receiver, and sloshed down the last my coffee.  As the now empty cup arced across the room towards the trashcan, I glanced up at the clock on the wall.  Damn! It was already 3:45; and unless I hurried, I was going to be late for my doctor's appointment.

After telling Rafael and the new hire I was leaving, I hurried across the sales lot and clambered into my new Plymouth Turismo. I had traded in my Monza more than a month before, and I was enormously pleased with the deal. With the possible exception of my 1974 Mustang coupe, it was the nicest car I had ever owned. The exterior was a dark caramel, stylishly offset by a beige interior; and with a two liter four cylinder engine and a five-speed engine, it was designed for speed as well as agility. It came with air conditioning, an AM / FM radio and a cassette tape player, which I particularly valued as so many of my favorite musicians were no longer played by commercial radio stations. The songs of Harry Chapin and Al Stewart were too lengthy to fit their format; and the Moody Blues had fallen from the charts. I had moreover a collection of classics from the 50's, 60's and 70's on cassette tapes, and I played them over and over.

But unfortunately, I did not have time to appreciate either the car or the music. I started the engine and put the car into gear, trying hard to think up a reasonable excuse as I pulled out into traffic. Throughout the three months I had been under the doctor's care, I had been habitually late for appointments and it had begun to wear thin. Recurrent crises at the station were one reason for my persistent tardiness; but on a deeper level I knew the real reason was my profound aversion for psychiatrists.  I had no patience for them, or for their unproven practices.  But unfortunately, they held a practical monopoly upon lithium carbonate and if I wanted my prescription refilled I had no choice but to pay the piper. I resented this enormously, but I had as yet to find a way around it.

I had become entangled with the psychiatric profession almost by accident. Almost a year before my formal separation from the Marine Corps, I had sought out a civilian doctor for help with my sleeping problems. He had listened to my complaints sympathetically, but as a general practitioner he had little expertise in this area. The nightmares, he said, suggested that I was experiencing difficulties in readjusting to life in the United States; and instead of prescribing the sleeping pills I requested he referred me to a psychologist who had built his practice around returning veterans.  Unpersuaded, I had tossed his referral in the trash as I left his office. 

The matter would have remained there, unresolved, had it not been for my mother’s mention of a physician she had known for some years.  He had been trained as both a psychiatrist and a neurologist, and as an acquaintance of long-standing she felt sure that he would be willing to help me on my own terms. 

When I eventually arrived at his office, I found him to be a kind and sympathetic man.  He listened to me attentatively as I described the difficulties I was having. Without going into any great detail, I explained to him that my sleep cycle had become increasingly erratic over the past six months.  I would go for days at a time without sleeping, and then collapse quite suddenly into a deep sleep.  This would sometimes last six or even eight hours; but it was rarely restful. Most of the time, I would be haunted by nightmares. 

After a half hour of probing questions that I tried hard to deflect, he wrote out a prescription and handed it to me across his desk. It was his best judgment that I was afflicted with bipolar illness, otherwise known as manic depression.  Most fortunately, it was easily treated and in fact it conferred substantial secondary gains.  Individuals who suffered from bipolar illness tended to be exceedingly bright, dynamic and creative.  But there was a price to be paid for this, and if left untreated that price often became exorbitant.  Alcoholism, drug addiction, and anti-social behavior became common with the passage of time; and the likelihood of suicide was shockingly high.

But fortunately, it didn’t last. Bi-polar illness typically appeared quite suddenly in the mid to late teens and plagued its victims for twenty years or more. But as they approached middle age, it most often vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. 

This fact made it possible for me to view the malady as a temporary inconvenience; and in fact I was determined to treat it as such. As far as I was concerned, it was a game of maneuver and delay. If I could outlast it, I’d win all the marbles.

That seemed easy enough, but as I learned much later the diagnosis was mistaken. Post-traumatic stress disorder was then poorly understood and rarely recognized, in part because the symptoms so closely mirrored those of bipolar disorder. Moreover, bi-polar illness seemed consistent with my family history. It was strongly conditioned by genetic factors, and my maternal grandfather's history suggested that he had been so afflicted.  A man of enormous talent and ability, he achieved remarkable success in two separate careers. But despite his substantial accomplishments, he had experienced lengthy periods of dark despair. 

My mother had attributed this to the effects of war. Left parentless by a tragic accident, he and his older brother had escaped an Ohio orphanage by enlisting in the Army. Although both were well under age, the Army accepted their preposterous claims to legal majority. Congress had just declared war upon Spain; and in the frantic mobilization that followed, the armed services were inclined to overlook legal technicalities.

The war had ended before they arrived in the Philippine Islands; but by the time they reported for duty in Manila, a savage rebellion had broken out against the American forces that had seized and occupied the formerly Spanish colony. Hurriedly thrown into battle, the two brothers were blooded in ferocious jungle combat. The elder was then 17; my grandfather, two years younger.  

The two brothers survived five years of hard fighting against the rebels, returning to the United States physically unscathed when their enlistments expired. 

Despite the fact that neither of them had completed high school, they were determined to pursue professional careers. The elder brother returned to Ohio and enrolled in a Methodist seminary, but my grandfather heeded a different calling. He proceeded on to Washington, DC, where he studied law at Georgetown University. After graduating, he sought and received a job with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. But the Army retained a deep hold upon him, and he soon re-enlisted - this time as a reserve officer in the Judge Advocate General Corps. He spent the next 40 years of his life alternating between civil and military service. He was recalled to active duty during World War I, and again during the disturbances of the Great Depression. 

I never had a chance to know him well, for he died when I was just twelve years of age. But I was impressed by his tremendous strength and energy, his exceptional intellect, and his willingness to share his thoughts and experiences. By then well into his 70's, he nonetheless easily kept pace with my older sister and me during our frequent - and often arduous - expeditions throughout Washington. Moreover, he retained a keen interest in political developments and, especially, international affairs. On many occasions he took the time to patiently explain to me the intricacies of geopolitics, carefully illustrating his lessons with the maps and histories that littered his apartment.  Although I was vaguely aware that his work with the INS was intimately related to his military service, I failed to make the connection at the time. It was only after I retrieved copies of his service record many years later that I realized he had spent four decades immersed in the shadows of military intelligence.

But none of this was on my mind as I raced down Stevenson Avenue, en route to the doctor's office. I was focused instead upon the urgent necessity of formulating an acceptable excuse for being late once again. I had found this particular doctor to be an exceptionally patient and understanding man, but I had no doubt that his forbearance had begun to fray.  I realized that I faced the very realistic prospect of being summarily dismissed from his care. Although that didn’t bother me, the prospect of loosing easy access to the lithium did. Over the past several years I had come to depend upon it heavily as a sleeping aid; and despite my strong desire to believe otherwise, I suspected that it had a more salutatory effect upon my moods. Although I was still given to black outbursts of temper, these had become far less frequent since I had been taking it.

I turned right on Whiting, and raced up the hill to where the road passed by the parking lot of his building. I made a hard left into the lot and slid my car into a vacant space. Clambering out, I sprinted into the lobby. To my great good fortune, an elevator stood empty.

When I reached the doctors office, I was surprised to find the door to his consultation room ajar. He was standing against the window, apparently lost in thought. I knocked on the open door to announce myself, and strode across the room towards him. "I apologize for being late, sir. I have no reasonable excuse."

To my surprise, he was unconcerned. After waving me to an overstuffed chair, he informed me that he had given my case a great deal of thought. He said he understood that I had no interest or desire for psychotherapy, and that my sole reason for consulting him was to obtain medication. That would be fine with most doctors, but it had made him increasingly uncomfortable. To my great surprise, he went on to explain that he was a disciple of Carl Jung; and for that reason he rejected in principal - though not always in practice - psychoactive medications.

He stopped quite suddenly, and smiled at me indulgently. "Yes, I know, Mr. Viar, you are an engineer and you dismiss psychology out of hand.

"But believe it or not, I have a similar background. Before I became a physician, I was an engineer as well. I understand your education, and I understand your inclination. You are an empiricist, and you regard psychoanalysis - or depth psychology, as I would describe it - as pseudoscientific bunk.

"Well so did I…

"But you have never plumbed the depths of the human psyche. Had you done so, you would have learned what I learned - that the mind defies your practical science. 

"In the final analysis, the mind is ineffable; and it possesses qualities that are more mystical than scientific. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today.

"I realize that as a psychotherapist, my more traditional role is that of a listener and a guide. But you have no interest in what I have to offer you professionally, so I will take this time to make a strong suggestion."

He paused to gauge my reaction; and when I nodded my assent he continued. "You have heard of Auschwitz?"

I nodded again. "Yes, sir. I took my first undergraduate degree in European History. I am familiar with that horror."

This time he nodded at me. "Then I would suggest that you read a certain book. A Jewish psychiatrist who was imprisoned there during the war wrote it. It contains his thoughts and observations, and I think they would help you a great deal."

Puzzled, I asked him the name of the book. He scribbled it on the top sheet of his prescription pad, tore it off, and handed it to me. In barely legible script, it read Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. I folded it in half, and slipped it in my shirt pocket. "I'll be sure to read it."

The doctor smiled. "Perhaps. But I will tell you about it anyway.

"The author - Frankl - had the opportunity to observe at close hand how people meet their deaths, and that is a critically important part of life…

"Some of the Jews went to the gas chambers quaking with fear. Others went with courage and dignity. And others went singing hymns in praise of the Lord God…the very God that, apparently, had delivered them to their tormentors. He paused for a moment, and then digressed. "I know this is something that you have tried to avoid, but you were a soldier once, were you not?"

I nodded slightly. "A Marine."

"A Marine," he repeated. "Yes, of course…"

"And haven’t you ever wondered why it was that some lived and some died? Haven’t you ever wondered why it is that you are among those that lived, rather than those that died?"

I tensed involuntarily, and shifted uneasily in my seat. It was not something I wished to think about, let alone discuss. Up until this point I had avoided any discussion of my military service; and with convenient self-deceit, I had rationalized this on the basis of my orders. But still I knew that something dark and deeply sinister lurked just beyond the wall of my silence. 

"Frankl looked about him, and asked himself that same question. And he found the answer in perhaps a strange way.

"You see, the people that died in the camps taught him an important lesson. All of them faced the same fate, but the three groups I described met their deaths very differently.

"Of course," I interjected. "That is a matter of faith, and courage."

The doctor nodded. "Yes, that’s true. But you are missing the much larger point - and this is essential for you to understand: Reality, Mr. Viar, is far less important than how one relates to it. And that, my good sir, is a choice.

"One may choose to meet his death quaking with fear, cursing the God that has condemned them. Or one may choose to meet his death with grace and courage. Or with an unshakable faith in the wisdom, and ultimate benevolence, of his Creator…

"Its all up to the individual. Its their choice."

He paused, as I tried to assimilate what he had said. 

"Now I would take that one step further. I will assert that at the deepest level of their being, the people imprisoned in those camps chose to be there. I will further assert that at the very deepest level of their existence, those who died did so as a matter of choice, and I will make the same argument for those that lived.

Taken aback, I found it difficult to reply. After a long silence, I told him that I understood his argument. But didn’t that imply that reality, so-called, is interactive? That the Universe is somehow aware of the individual's choice and responsive to it? And if so, didn’t that make the Universe magical, in a very basic sense?

To my surprise, he nodded approvingly. "Precisely. That is a very deep insight and I am frankly surprised that someone with your background grasped it so quickly…

"In the final analysis, Mr. Viar, all of life is a choice. I would suggest that you are alive today because at that very fundamental level to which I referred, you chose to survive…

"The Universe, as you put it, acknowledged and honored your choice. As it always has, and as it always will."

"This is what you must understand, Mr. Viar. You chose to survive, and now you must learn to live with that choice…

“Having chosen to survive, you can no longer rationalize your life as an accident of nature or a whimsy of God. You must now accept responsibility for your own being.”

He looked at me intently; and then with great compassion he softly said: "It won't be easy."

He quickly raised his hand to stifle my objection. "Enough. I'm not interested in your rebuttal. All that I ask is that you think about what I have said. Think deeply, Mr. Viar. I suspect it will serve you well. Far better, I'm convinced, than any psychotherapy."

With that, he handed me a business card. "Under the circumstances, I don’t feel that I can continue to see you in good conscience. This is the name of a young colleague I highly recommend. Unlike myself, he is a firm believer in the value of psychoactive drugs and I'm sure he will meet your needs far better than I have been able to."