Unabomber : the secret life of Ted Kaczynski

by Waits, Chris

  Dave shared a funny story during one of our last conversations about Ted.

  Prisoners are not normally taken to court together, but on one particular day Ted was forced to ride in the back of a vehicle with another prisoner. The driver sternly told Ted and the other inmate that he didn't want to hear one word from either of them.

  Sitting there quietly, Ted was obeying the command when the other prisoner started talking softly to him. Ted turned and whispered very seriously to shush, he didn't want to get into any trouble.

  He didn't want to get caught talking, against orders, but he had no problem sending lethal bombs to people.

  Actually, the story spoke volumes about how Ted would get along in prison. He'd be just fine, would keep to himself and not cause trouble.

  On May 4, Ted was given an airtight sentence. For the five counts of transporting and of mailing his bombs that caused three fatalities, he received five life sentences, to be served concurrently. Also concurrent would be four twenty-year terms for transporting and for mailing two bombs that resulted in injuries. Following these were three life sentences to be served consecutively: two for carrying firearms while committing a crime and the third for transporting one of the bombs that resulted in injury. Consecutive to those life sentences came a thirty-year term for carrying a firearm while transporting one of the bombs that resulted in injury.

  He was fined $650.00, but the fine was waived because Ted was "without the ability to pay." Any proceeds Ted received from books, articles, or films about him would be paid to the United States Attorney General. Finally, he was ordered to pay restitution to victims in the amount of $15,026,000, and allowed no possibility of parole.

  The reign of the notorious Unabomber was over.

  Many factors came into play in the government's decision to do what it had sworn not to, and that was plea-bargain the case.

  Dr. Sally Johnson's psychiatric report certainly played a pivotal role in the decision. Johnson spent twenty-two hours interviewing Kaczynski in his Sacramento County jail cell and also studied his writings. She concluded Ted was paranoid schizophrenic, but competent to stand trial.

  Ev^er aware of his public image, Kaczynski sent the Helena newspaper this gracious note in 1996.

  With Johnson's report, the government reaHzed that if tried and found guilty, Ted might not receive the death penalty anyway But when the defense demanded disclosure of the information about the secret cabin and evidence included therein, the government surprised everyone by accepting a plea bargain the very next day

  Prosecutors at once saw how much the secret cabin buttressed the defense's portrayal of Ted's isolationism in a mental-defect defense. Weighing the odds of obtaining a death sentence considering those factors made them realize the whole process wasn't worth it.

  The plea bargain appealed to Ted. It was a sure way to save his life, but equally importantly, to prevent the court and the nation from learning all the sordid details of his acts.

  He could also avoid being further embarrassed before the public, especially the people of Lincoln, who would have learned about all the "unchargeable offenses": acts of vandalism, thefts, shootings, etc., which might have been part of a trial.

  Ted always had and continues to have a great concern for the public's perception of him.

  As one reporter asked me, "Why would Ted's public image even matter to him.^ He's admitted to the bombings."

  The reason is Ted, in his own twisted way, could justify the killings to save the planet from the evils of technology and satisfy his need for revenge.

  It was an evil means, but in his mind it was justified by the end.

  But how could he justify the vicious, selfish, and criminal acts he committed right here in the Lincoln area.^ Those acts had nothing to do with his cause of saving mankind from technology.

  Ted will spend the rest of his life in prison, but he didn't have to go to trial and face the public he had terrorized for two decades.

  A Closer Look

  Ted Kaczynski's life was, is, and always will be an enigma to anyone who studies it. Even though I knew Ted for nearly the entire twenty-five years he lived in Lincoln, I really didn't know him.

  I have many regrets regarding my relationship with Ted. Perhaps nothing would have slowed his pell-mell charge toward infamy. But everyone who ever knew him must have the same thoughts as me, that somehow we could have sidetracked him and helped him solve his problems short of violence.

  In Ted's journals he said he made a conscious effort to overcome his middle-class inhibitions, becoming free to commit crimes without the burden of guilt. He deprogrammed society's norms and the training of his early years. He then reprogrammed his mind so he felt satisfaction from violence, even murder, acts that seemed to cleanse his mind and ease the hatred temporarily His reprogramming, which cry^s-tallized around ideas developed early in his life, led him to adopt a twisted logic and situational ethics.

  His primary reasons for committing crimes were hatred and revenge. But in later years, as he tantalized the media and the FBI with his letters and manifesto, he found it advantageous to advance a more acceptable justification for his crimes, i.e., saving the world from the evils of technology in order to preserve individual freedom and the environment. Even if he were captured and threatened with the death penalty, Ted could then become a martyr for his cause.

  Kaczyxski journal, April 1971

  My motive for doing what I am going to do is simply personal revenge. I do not expect to accomplish anything bv it. Of course, if mv crime (and mv reasons for

  committing it) gets any public attention, it may help to stimulate public interest in the technology question and thereby improve the chances of stopping technology before it is too late; but on the other hand most people will probably be repelled by my crime, and the opponents of freedom may use it as a weapon to support their arguments for control over human behavior.

  I have no way of knowing whether my action will do more good than harm. I certainly don't claim to be an altruist or to be acting for the "good" (whatever that is) of the human race. I act merely from a desire for revenge.

  Twenty-five years later, just before his arrest, Ted again wrote that his personal resentment of the technological system, not the good of mankind, was the motivating energy behind his actions.

  Jan. 23, 1996 (recopied by Ted from earlier entries)

  I now have more of a sense of—mission—a concern with issues wider than personal resentment of the technological society. Never the less, it should be made clear that the motivating energy behind my actions comes from my personal grievance and personal resentment of the technological system. I certainly wouldn't take such risks from a pure desire to benefit my fellow man. I imagine that anyone who ever makes great efforts or takes great risks on account of social issues has some powerful personal motive, even if he persuades himself that he is actuated by pure altruism.

  Ted's personal motivation was reinforced further by his sense of superiority over most everyone else.

  UNDATED JOURNAL ENTRY

  I believe in nothing. Whereas I don't even believe in the cult of nature-worshippers or wilderness-worshippers. (I am perfectly ready to litter in parts of the woods that are of no use to me—I often throw cans in logged-over areas

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  Kaczynski's pocket notebook: news of the manifesto's publication, philosophy, and key to caches.

  or in places much frequented by people; I don't find wilderness particularly healthy physically; I don't hesitate to poach.)

  UNDATED JOURNAL ENTRY; STRIKE-THROUGH IN ORIGINAL The fact that I was able to admit to mvfjelf that there was no logical justification for morality illustrates a very important trait of mine. I have alw
ays had a strong tendency to admit an unpleasant truth to myself, rather than trying to push it away with self-deception or rationalization. I am certainly not claiming that I've never indulged in self deception—I only claim that I have much less tendency to self-deception than most people.

  This requires an important qualification.... Thus I tended to feel that I was a particularly important person and superior to most of the rest of the human race. Generally speaking, there was nothing arrogant or egotistical in this feeling, nor did I ever express any such feeling outside the immediate family. It just came to me as naturally as breathing to feel that I was someone special.

  In Ted's early writings he tried to justify his need for revenge within the parameters of the fading influence of his middle class morality and his past experiences, until he made a breakthrough.

  UNDATED JOl^RNAL ENTRY

  I'll just chuck all of this silly morality business and hate anybody I please. Since then I have never had any interest in or respect for morality, ethics, or anything of the sort.

  Ted's ideas of revenge and his ability to carry out terrorist acts fit neatly with this belief that it was all right for him to hate anybody, but he was angry that he required further "deprogramming."

  FROM KaCZYNSKI AUTOBKXtRAPHY

  The reader must realize by now that in high school and

  college, I often became terribly angry at someone, or hated someone, but as a matter of prudence, 1 could not express that anger or hatred openly. I would therefore indulge in fantasies of dire revenge. However, I never attempted to put any such fantasies into effect, because I was too strongly conditioned by my early training, against any defiance of authority, lb be more precise: I could not have committed a crime of revenge, even a relatively minor crime, because my fear of being caught and punished was all out of proportion to the actual danger of being caught. I could have much more easily risked my life in a lawful way, then [sir] take an equal risk of spending 30 days in jail for some minor crime. Thus, when I had a fantasy of revenge, I had very little comfort from it, because I was all to [sic] clearly aware that I had had many previous fantasies of revenge, and nothing had ever come of any of them. This was very frustrating and humiliating. Therefore I became more and more determined that some day I would actually take revenge on some of the people I hated.

  As those thoughts matured, Ted planned, but couldn't quite follow through with, his first attempt to murder a scientist.

  Christmas Day, 1972:

  About a year and a half ago, I planned to murder a scientist—as a means of revenge against organized society in general and the technological establishment in particular. Unfortunately, I chickened out. I couldn't work up the nerve to do it. The experience showed me that propaganda and indoctrination have a much stronger hold on me than I realized. My plan was such that there was very little chance of my getting caught. I had no qualms before I tried to do it, and thought I would have no difficulty. I had everything all prepared. But when I tried to take the final irrevocable step, I found myself overwhelmed by an irrational, superstitious fear—not a fear of anything specific, merely a vague but powerful fear of committing the act.

  I cannot attribute this to a rational fear of being caught. I made my preparations with extreme care, and 1 figured my chances of being caught were less than, say, my chances of being killed in an automobile accident within the next year. I am not in the least nervous when I get into my car. I can only attribute my fear to the constant flood of anticrime propaganda to which one is subjected. For example, murderers in TV dramas are always caught.

  Shortly before his mail-bombing began, he wrote:

  Fall 1977

  The technological society may be in some sense inevitable, but it is so only because of the way people behave. Consequently I hate people. (I may have some other reasons for hating some people, but the main reason is that people are responsible for the technological society and its associated phenomena, from motorcycles to computers to psychological controls. Almost anyone who holds steady employment is contributing his part in maintaining the technological society.) Of course, the people I hate most are those who consciously and willfully promote the technological society, such as scientists, big businessmen, union leaders, politicians, etc., etc. I emphasize that my motivation is personal revenge. I don't pretend to any kind of philosophical or moralistic justification.

  The concept of morality is simply one of the psychological tools by which society controls peoples' [sir] behavior. My ambition is to kill a scientist, big businessman, government official, or the like. I would also like to kill a communist.

  Ted coolly considered the consequences of being caught. At first he planned one violent act that would result in his death. In his autobiography, he looked back on a session with a psychiatrist he saw while contemplating a sex change operation; he changed his mind while still in the waiting room, yet directed his disgust at the doctor.

  FROM KaC/VNSKI AllOBKXJR API h

  As I walked away from the building afterwards, I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do and I felt humiliated, and I iolently hated the psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I \ anted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me.

  I felt I wouldn't care if I died. And so I said to myself "why not really kill that psychiatrist xndi anyone else whom I hate." What is important is not the words that ran through my mind, but the way I felt about them. What was entirely new was the fact that I really felt I could kill someone. My ver^ hopelessness had liberated me. Because I no longer cared about death. I no longer cared about consequences, and I suddenly felt that I really could break out of my rut in life and do things that were daring, "irresponsible," or criminal. My first thought was to kill somebody I hated and then kill myself before the cops could get me. (I've always considered death preferable to long imprisonment.) But, since I now had new hope, I was not ready to relinquish life so easily. So I thought "I will kill, but I w ill make at least some effort to avoid detection, so that I can kill again." Then I thought, "Well, as long as I am going to throw everything up anyway, instead of having to shoot it out with the cops or something, I will go up to Canada, take off into the woods with a rifle, and try to live off the countrv'. If that doesn't work out, and if I can get back to civilization before I starve, then I will come back here and kill someone I hate."

  What xsras new here xtras the fact that I noxir felt I really had the courage to behave ''irresponsibly. " All these thoughts passed through my head in the length of time it took me to walk a quarter of a mile. By the end of that time I had acquired bright new hope, an angry, vicious kind of determination and high morale.

  Ted's feelings at the time on preserving his Hfe and finally being able to place his first bomb are also reflected in his autobiography, started in 1978 and finished in 1979, written while Ted was in Illinois.

  FROM KaCZYNSKI AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  It's not a question of preserving my life and health; getting out of the power of civilization has long since become an end in itself for me. By now I have practically lost all hope of ever attaining this end. There my happiness in my Montana hills is spoiled every time an airplane passes over or anything else happens that reminds me of the inescapability of civilization. Life under the thumb of modern civilization seems worthless to measure and thus I more and more felt that life was coming to a dead end for me and death began at times to look attractive—it would mean peace. There was just one thing that really made me determined to cling to life for awhile [sic], and that was the desire for—revenge—I wanted to kill some people, preferably including at least one scientist, businessman, or other bigshot. This actually was my biggest reason for coming back to Illinois this spring. In Montana, if I went to the city to mail a bomb to some bigshot, [driver's name] would doubtless remember I rode the bus that day. In the anonymity of t
he big city I figured it would be much safer to buy materials for a bomb and mail it. (Though the death-wish had appeared, it was still far from dominant, and therefore I preferred not to be suspected of crimes.) As mentioned in some of my notes, I did make an attempt with a bomb—whether successful or not I don't know. In making a second bomb I have only barely made a start...

  Even though Ted had a few guilty feelings in the beginning, those faded as he continued on his quest for revenge.

  Sept. 15, 1980 [coded journal]

  Since committing the crimes reported elsewhere in my

  notes I feci better. I am still plenty angry, you understand, but the difference is that I am now able to strike back, to a degree. True, 1 cant strike back to anything like the extent I wish to, but I no longer feel totally helpless, and the anger duzzent gnaw at my guts as it used throughout. Guilty feelings.' Yes, a little. Occasionally I have bad dreams in which the police are after me. Or in which I am threatened with punishment from some supernatural source. Such as the devil. But these dont occur often enuf to be a problem. I am defmitely glad to have done what I have.

  Een though this coded entry showed a flicker of guilt, it was doused in his final statement.

  A year earlier, after his first bombing and just two months before his second, he had written:

  FROM KaCZYNSKI Al'TOBIOGRAPHY

  One thing that our society demands is that you have a recognized place in the system. By quitting my job [at Prince Castle Spice Packing Plant], Fve made myself again an outcast, a good-for-nothing, a bum—someone whom "respectable" people can't view without a certain element of suspicion. I can't feel comfortable in this respect until I get away into the hills again—away from society. Besides, in quitting I feel as if I have signed my own death-warrant. Drifting along indefmitely in that job would have been the path of least resistance—and that, in a way, w as the only thing remaining between me and the fmish of everything. Now the path of least resistance is simply to go back to Montana, and once I'm there, I'll kill, because, as I decided before I left Montana, if I ever went back there I'd have to kill, because I had too much accumulated anger over the inroads of civilization. I'm not likely to change my mind and go looking for another job— job hunting, going to sleep, and getting up for work again the next morning. (Maybe there would still be something