THE MENTAL ILLNESS OF TIMOTHY MCVEIGH
Victor Bloom MD
At a noontime lunch Monday, just hours after Timothy McVeigh's execution, I told my friend I was thinking of writing another article about Timothy McVeigh. He said that everything that could be said about him has already been said. I replied that I didn't think so.
Here's what I had in mind. In all the talk about Timothy McVeigh, about his major act of terrorism, about the death toll, the number 168 dead, so many more wounded and psychologically damaged, that they were men, women and children, that it was a Federal building, that it had to do with Ruby Ridge and Waco, that in his mind it was an act of war against the federal government, that the casualties were anticipated 'collateral damage,' there was not much mentioned about his being out of his mind.
By his own report, he thought about it long and carefully, he had a rationale, that it included the fear and expectation that the government was going to confiscate all weapons, that they had no right to do this, that the government was getting out of hand and needed to be stopped. In his own mind he was a courageous hero for an honorable cause, and he had a small circle of believers and followers. It would seem that his mind was working fine--- he was methodical, systematic, organized and logical. He could not have carried out the ultimate act without his mind working like a Swiss watch.
He must have insisted to his defense attorneys that they not use the insanity defense. He did not want his act to be dismissed as 'crazy.' He knew he committed a crime by the rule-books, he was caught, convicted and ready to take his punishment. He wanted to go down in history as a martyr for a noble cause. He had no further statements in the end because he wanted the act to speak for itself. Further words would merely sully the purity of his act.
His previous published words said it all quite succinctly. In a letter to Robert Popovich, a former neighbor of Terry Nichols, McVeigh wrote:
"It was at this time, after waiting for nonviolent checks and balances to correct ongoing federal abuses and seeing no results, that the assault-weapons ban passed, and rumors subsequently surfaced of nationwide Waco-style raids scheduled for the spring of 1995 to confiscate firearms. It was in this climate then that I reached the decision to go on the offensive, to put a check on government abuse of power, where others had failed in stopping the federal juggernaut run amok."
His own words and actions fit the definition of first-degree murder--- he committed murder with malice aforethought, knew the difference between right and wrong, knew the consequences of his actions and freely chose, decided in his 'right mind' that he was going to do what he wanted to do. He had a vision, a Big Picture, that in the long run, what he did would be a good thing--- he would get the Federal Government to think twice about confiscating weapons.
What he did was based on a couple of government bungled attempts to prevent the accumulation of serious weapons, arsenals of ammunition and bombs, in the hands of those who could potentially do a lot of damage. The government was trying to do its job of assuring domestic tranquillity. And then, fed by a rumor of a government 'juggernaut' which would disarm his local militia, he took it upon himself to wage war on--- the government, snarlingly dismissed by its opponents as the 'gummint.' Some people believe the 'gummint' has no right to assess income tax. During Prohibition it was fair game to shoot 'revenuers.'
What we have here is not schizophrenia. McVeigh probably did not hallucinate, but his thinking bordered on 'delusional.' Some would argue that his belief was not delusional, that there was a grain of truth to it, but every delusion has a grain of truth. His thinking was somewhat paranoid--- 'they are plotting against me.'
Hinckley, who shot president Reagan, was judged to be schizophrenic, and so he was deemed to be 'not responsible, by virtue of mental illness.' And so he has been hospitalized ever since then, in effect incarcerated for life, as a warning to other schizophrenics, that you cannot commit an egregious crime and expect to get away with it. Even if you are mentally ill, you have to obey the law. The Japanese man who massacred a bunch of schoolkids recently with a butcher knife was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Every now and then an obviously mentally ill person commits destructive acts out of deranged thinking, but it is relatively rare.
We must face the fact that the danger of serious destructiveness is greater in those not considered mentally ill, than those who are. These people's mental illness is much more subtle and hard to discern. They do not have obvious symptoms; they are clever in their ability to mask extreme degrees of underlying emotional turmoil. There is no easy answer to the solution of this problem. What we do have to do is eradicate stereotypical and simplistic thinking about the workings of the mind and what constitutes mental illness. We must learn to look under the surface to see the depth and complexity of the human condition.
Dr Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of the Wayne County Medical Society.
