The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; "John Hinckley, Jr.'s Profile"

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. President Reagan continued to make a good re- covery today from the wound received in Monday`s attempted assassination, taking a 50-yard walk in the hospital, and eating his first solid meal. At the same time, the man accused of trying to kill him, John Hinckley, Jr., appeared in federal court in Washington under heavy security. A government psychiatrist who examined Hinckley yesterday said the young man was mentally fit to stand trial. The judge sent the case to a grand jury and, over the objections of Hinckley`s lawyer, ordered him committed to a mental institution for further tests to determine his sanity. His defense lawyers said they had not yet decided whether he would plead insanity. Meanwhile, much more information about the accused has been coming out.

So, tonight, what do we know about Hinckley, and is there any pattern to the kinds of people who become assassins? Jim Lehrer and Charlayne Hunter- Gault are on other assignments tonight. First, what today`s evidence -- that Hinckley is competent to stand trial -- really means. Sidney Bernstein is chairman of the criminal law-section of the American Association of Trial Lawyers. He is the editor of the text Criminal Defense Techniques, and assistant to the president of the New York law firm, Matthew Bender and Company. Mr. Bernstein, as I just said, the government psychiatrist testified today that Hinckley, in his view, was competent to stand trial. What does that mean legally?

SIDNEY BERNSTEIN: The United States Supreme Court, in Durskey against the United States, defined competency to stand trial as, one. being able to consult with your own lawyer, and, two, having a rational understanding of the nature of the proceedings against you. But "consult with your own lawyer" doesn`t just mean communicate with him, though that`s important. It means provide leads, select witnesses, analyze the evidence. After all, one of the most important members of the defense team is the defendant himself.

MacNEIL: Does it have anything to do with whether the defendant is sane?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: No, the definitions are disparate. Insanity consists of one of four definitions depending upon the jurisdiction. The old McNaghlen 1843 House of Lords case --right and wrong test, most people say: can you appreciate the nature and quality of your act? And if you do, do you nevertheless know that it`s right or wrong? The irresistible impulse test: if you know what`s right and wrong, are you nevertheless able to withstand the internal compulsion to do what`s wrong? The Durham Rule which, curiously, comes out of the Washington, D.C. area: criminality is excused if it`s the result of mental disease or defect. And finally, the rule that will be applied in Mr. Hinckley`s case, the ALI, or model Penal Code 401 test: disease or mental defect-- mental disease or defect excuses criminality if it results in your inability to distinguish right from wrong, lack of a substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of your act, or an inability to conform your conduct to the requirements of the law.

MacNEIL: Why would his defense object to his being sent for further psychiatric examination to determine sanity?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: Because the Hinckley that the defense psychiatrists interview will be a different Hinckley than the one that the state`s psychiatrists have interviewed.

MacNEIL: How?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: The questions that have been asked are questions he hadn`t heard before. The stimuli will prompt different thought processes. The defense wants to get its psychiatrists in as quickly as possible. So far. the defense lawyer has not been in the room when the prosecution`s psychiatrists have been interviewing him, and we don`t know what`s been happening in there, do we?

MacNEIL: Would you as a lawyer-- without wanting to comment directly on this case -- but would you, in view of the extraordinary publicity, in view of all the things that have appeared in the press, the incident being seen on national television repeatedly, would you say there was any defense they could bring up except insanity?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: I`m unprepared to say that. Certainly if everything that we hear in the papers and on television is true -- and between a commentator`s mouth and God`s cars, as much space -- then it would seem that insanity is the defense we are likely to see.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. While Hinckley was appearing in court this morning, newspapers in a number of cities were carrying the text of a letter federal investigators said he wrote to teenage actress Jodie Foster just before the Reagan shooting. In the letter Hinckley says, "There is a definite possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan." And the letter ends, "I`ve got to do something now to make you understand in no uncertain terms that 1 am doing all of this for your sake. By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jodie, I`m asking you to please look into your heart, and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love." Yesterday it emerged that Hinckley had written a lot of letters to the 19-year-old actress who starred in the movie Taxi Driver. Ms. Foster, a freshman at Yale University, gave a press conference to discuss it.

JODIE FOSTER: I`m not allowed to reveal any of the contents because I don`t want to jeopardize the prosecution.

REPORTER: Without getting specific, was he threatening, amorous? What was he like?

Ms. FOSTER: I`m not allowed to say. I believe that it`s, you know, that the letters were assumed to have been, you know, love-type letters.

REPORTER: When did you first realize the connection between the Hinckley in the letters and the Hinckley who shot the President?

Ms. FOSTER: Well, how many Hinckleys do you know?

REPORTER: Did you contact the authorities at that point?

MS. FOSTER: No, I was contacted by the authorities.

REPORTER: How did you feel when you noticed the possible relationship?

Ms. FOSTER: I felt very shocked, very frightened, and very distressed.

REPORTER: Did you have any knowledge then that those letters were forwarded to the FBI? When was the first time you knew the FBI was involved in an investigation of the Hinckley letters?

Ms. FOSTER: The first time I knew that the FBI was involved was when somebody called me up, and said please come over and talk to the FBI. That was also at the same moment, I think, maybe 10 minutes later, when I heard about the whole Reagan deal. I didn`t know anything about it until that point.

REPORTER: So you cannot corroborate reports that are coming from Washington today that the FBI knew about the Hinckley letters as far back as November?

Ms. FOSTER: No. I have no knowledge at all.

MacNEIL: Hundreds of reporters have been digging into Hinckley`s life the past few days. One editor who has the benefit of the output of many reporters is Kurt Andersen, a writer at Time magazine, who is putting together the Hinckley story for the next issue. Mr. Andersen, what do you believe are the key details in the 25 years that brought Hinckley to the point where he wrote that letter on Monday, if in fact he wrote it?

KURT ANDERSEN: Well, as-- I want to make it clear that I`m a writer, first of all. But the thing about Hinckley`s life that we can trace closely -- that is. before he left home for college -- that seems most salient, is it`s lack of prominent, anecdotal kinds of incident. He was normal. He was more than typically popular, he was elected to class positions; he excelled at sports in elementary school; he-- it has not been reported that he had any disciplinary problems at all. He was not a high achiever, but 1 mean, he seems to me to be unremarkable, and no cause for concern to anybody -- his parents or anyone else. As 1 say. up until he graduated from high school. After that it becomes unclear. And clearly-- clearly, whatever change took place in him, took place between his high school graduation and last Monday.

MacNEIL: There was a marked moment at which a change took place?

Mr. ANDERSEN: That`s not clear at all.

MacNEIL: I mean, there was a change apparent from his early life and later?

Mr. ANDERSEN: Well, unless we assume-- unless we speculate that he was pathological and disturbed as a 16-year-old and just kept it all inside -- but there was no outward appearance of disturbance or abnormally or anything else.

MacNEIL: What did he do with his time? I mean, he drifted in and out of college, apparently, but how did he spend his time? Do you know any of that?

Mr. ANDERSEN: Well, it`s terribly unclear. He drifted in and out of college, it`s true, but he in fact completed enough college courses to, I think, achieve senior standing by the time he left. He was near graduation; he did well on several of the courses whose professors have been interviewed. He had a junket to California during the spring of 1976 during which he lived in a sort of seedy part of town. He had this flirtation with the Nazis, but there`s no--

MacNEIL: He actually joined the American Nazi Party for a period, is that so?

Mr. ANDERSEN: Well, that`s not their official name, and, nor do we know beyond the word of a couple of Nazis, that he joined the party.

MacNEIL: It`s not clear that he joined the party?

Mr. ANDERSEN: It`s not absolutely clear to me that he joined the party.

MacNEIL: I see. What is the meaning of the Jodie Foster correspondence as far as you`ve been able to discover?

Mr. ANDERSEN: It seems to me that the Jodie Foster correspondence is pretty central to his motives, and was a pretty central delusion.

MacNEIL: His family says he`s been under psychiatric care. Do we know how? Was it with an individual practitioner, or in an institution -- and for what?

Mr. ANDERSEN: It was apparently with an individual practitioner in Colorado for at least the last six months, and perhaps as much as a year.

MacNEIL: Do we know what symptoms were being treated?

Mr. ANDERSEN: No. We know that he was being treated with sedatives.

MacNEIL: Was he really close to anybody that you`ve been able to discover?

Mr. ANDERSEN: No, apparently not. There--- naturally, I mean, there is some difficulty in getting high school classmates to admit to being friends of John Hinckley. Some classmates say boy John Doe was his friend; John Doc now denies that. But beyond that, it seems as though he made no close personal affiliations at all: sort of passing acquaintances with maids and, you know, people who rented him appliances and televisions, but no real friendships, and no relationships with women, apparently.

MacNEIL: No real girlfriends, in other words?

Mr. ANDERSEN: No.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Since assassination of public figures has become a sadly repetitive fact in American life, many psychologists have been working to see if there`s any pattern, and whether such behavior might be predicted. One study is being prepared by the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Secret Service. It is not yet complete. One psychiatrist who has made his own study is Dr. Irving Harris of Chicago, currently a consultant to the Illinois Institute for Juvenile Research. Dr. Harris, how docs what is known of convicted assassins compare with what is known of Mr. Hinckley?

Dr. IRVING HARRIS: As background, I ought to say that I became interested in the whole question by studying the effect of family position on one`s personality, one`s creativity, and finally, on one`s aggression. And after studying a number of eminent men who have been first sons in their families, and other eminent men who have been younger brothers, when I came to the subject of aggression, I found that the younger brother has a particular problem -- just like the first son has a particular problem -- but the younger brother has the particular problem of being overshadowed by an older brother who was first on the scene, bigger and stronger, has a little more education as he`s a couple years ahead, and the younger brother has to be in the background unless he is very competent with a lot of energy, ambitious -- like our president, who is a second son. But if you don`t have those characteristics, and if you are for some reason, the-- you haven`t had as much parental input because you`ve come into the family down the line, the parents are a little tired, so on, then you have to do something to offset your disadvantage. Have to do something to get a part of the limelight, part of the spotlight.

MacNEIL: What convicted assassins fit that description?

Dr. HARRIS: Well, now, you can get John Wilkes Booth who was the third son in the family. His older brothers and his father were prominent and distinguished actors. By the way, he was not schizoid; he was a charmer. The--

MacNEIL: What about the modern ones like Lee Harvey Oswald, and Arthur Bremmer. and--

Dr. HARRIS: They are all second-- they are all later-- they are younger brothers in their families. And this also includes Dan White who assassinated the mayor of San Francisco. It also includes the Colonel Stauffenburg who is the one who tried to assassinate Hitler. So it isn`t only the loner schizoid. You can get rather competent people who have held positions in public life who turn to assassination as their way of removing the top figure.

MacNEIL: If there is a common pattern, is there any way that such tendencies could be identified before they erupt into violent action?

Dr. HARRIS: Not too easily, because many of these characteristics are, in moderation, quite normal and quite necessary. As an example, it`s good to be realistic about one`s fellow men rather than naive. You could go on to become extremely paranoid about them. Similarly, the rivalry that the younger brother has for the older is very healthy. The rebelliousness they have with tradition -- they want to kick over the traces, those who are healthy. But if it`s carried too far, like any psychological phenomenon, it can cause instability and lead, in this case, to assassination.

MacNEIL: How typical is this in the population? This combination of factors that you see. that you have determined in people who have actually attempted or carried out an assassination?

Dr. HARRIS: Well, if you`re talking about degree and intensification of rivalry and rebelliousness, where you`ll do anything to add limelight to your name, I would say very few. But the number of those who are rebellious and rivalrous and competitive -- quite a few.

MacNEIL: What does quite a few mean?

Dr. HARRIS: Quite a few means that, I would say, in our society which has emphasized achievement and being in the limelight and being famous for 15 minutes, that it`s an endemic problem. Everybody has a wish to be famous, and to be outstanding. Fortunately, there are socially acceptable channels for most people, but those who cannot find them for one reason or another will resort to assassination. Will be thinking of that, whether they actually resort to it is another thing-- but they will think along those lines.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Another expert who has studied this area is Dr. Stanley Gochman, Professor of Psychology at Howard University in Washington, with a particular interest in the prevention of crime. Dr. Gochman, you`ve done a study of criminals who have committed violent crimes. Are they different from assassins who strike at a public figure?

Dr. STANLEY GOCHMAN: Well, I think-- what I would like to say, first, is that the interest in prevention is that behavior is not just happenstance, and it makes sense, if we know the details of the person`s life, so that the description, I think, some descriptions I`ve read about Hinckley as being kind of a normal personality and just like anybody`s son, as just your average American boy -- Mom and apple pie, kind of thing -- I think that really is not probably a very accurate picture of the development of an individual who is going to become an assassin.

MacNEIL: You mean, it was just what appeared on the surface?

Dr. GOCHMAN: It`s what appears on the surface, right. And we often make erroneous judgments by what appears on the surface. And if we eliminate other kinds of things like the possibility of some sort of drug trip or something organic which is relatively uncommon that might be disturbing him, if we talk about his personality as being the main issue -- if it boils down to that -- then we have to, I think, look back at the kind of personality he showed right along. And there would be, I think, telltale signs.

MacNEIL: And what would those telltale signs be?

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well, I think, in any child that is later going to turn out to be a loner, a joiner of the Nazi Party, there are going to be things in his history that show up-- that could show up to his parents, to his schoolteachers, to his church, to his friends. It`s not something that suddenly appears at a later date. And I think very often we don`t really make an effort to discover these things at an earlier point in time.

MacNEIL: Are only trained professionals like yourself, a psychiatrist capable of discerning those things, or can. as you say. people in the church, or a school, or in the family discern them?

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well. I think that we can educate people to discern them, and I think that many people are capable of doing that so it`s not just the professional. Although the professional psychologist or psychiatrist or mental health worker should have special skills in that area. But I think there arc telltale signs that people are not frequently aware of. I mean, our emphasis--

MacNEIL: What are those telltale signs?

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well, I think in terms of, for example, the child who is not making interactions with other children. The child who is showing some interactions-- showing lack of interest in the opposite sex. or not really making it. He`s making it in a fantasy-sort of situation, apparently, in the case of Hinckley, with Jodie (Foster). But not in the real situation.

MacNEIL: What age children are we talking about now?

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well. I think the telltale signs would vary at different ages. We would be looking for different kinds of things along the line of the child`s development, or the young person`s development, but I think right from early age, assuming that this is a psychological kind of thing, it`s not a political kind of thing or anything else, then the telltale signs would be there to be seen. And frequently, they`re not observed.

MacNEIL: Is there any way that they could be tracked, do you think? I mean, lots of people would presumably have those same telltale signs -- which Dr. Harris has just said -- who are not going to turn-- or can channel them into constructive activities, and not turn into violent attackers of presidents.

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well, I`m not sure that anybody`s at the point of really doing that, as yet. But, for example, one study that we`re doing -- that I`m doing together with my wife. Dr. Eva Gochman, and Dr. Fantasia -- has been a study of criminals. Now, there isn`t a direct link between that and the other -- and the case of Hinckley, really, but the interesting thing is that in the criminal, what we find if we take a group of criminals, that the murderer comes out quite differently in what he recollects of his early life. And there may be an ingredient there that`s quite important.

MacNEIL: I wonder, Mr. Bernstein, as an attorney, is there any way that-- supposing psychiatrists-- that somebody was lucky enough to fall into the hands of the psychiatrist and he did identify traits like this, is there any way that they could be tracked through the society without interfering with a person`s civil rights``

Mr. BERNSTEIN: One has to be very careful. You heard Dr. Harris say a moment ago. Mr. MacNeil, that the potential for assassins or assassination in the United States is endemic. What kind of a security system would we have to devise in order to monitor the movements of all those people who are the potential Oswalds or anyone else? I`m concerned that no event such as this -- the attempted assassination of the President -- be used as our burning of the Reichstag to give forces of reaction a flag or a banner to wave and march behind which will deprive the rest of us of our civil liberties.

MacNEIL: Well, supposing they weren`t forces of reaction. Supposing they were just the Secret Service trying more effectively to protect presidents, and suppose the Academy of Science`s study which is being done comes up with something approximating the profile we`ve heard tonight, can that in any practicable way be used for security purposes? Can you think of any way, as a psychiatrist, it could be used?

Dr. HARRIS: I would say this. If they have a list of 25.000 that they`re watching -- and not watching very intensely because it`s hard to watch 25.000-- if you can narrow the list down to maybe 10.000, to 5,000-- you cannot stop the President from presenting himself to the public. You cannot sequester somebody who is potentially violent until he has done something violent. That`s the law. So you can`t-- so the best thing I would think are screening processes. And anybody from 20 to 30 who has not found himself in life -- who has not found a commitment -- I exempt those from 16 to 20 because that`s still a time one can flop around. and try to find-- but from 20 to 30 if they have not found themselves yet. 1 think they should be on a suspect list. That doesn`t mean they have to-- their individual liberties are infringed on; they just have to be watched a little more carefully.

MacNEIL: Are you talking about females and males, or just males?

Dr. HARRIS: So far. it`s males

Mr. BERNSTEIN: Don`t violate one of my client`s Fourth Amendment rights because some psychiatrist thinks he has identified him as what -- a potential assassin?

Dr. HARRIS: What right-- what Fourth Amendment right is that? Privacy?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: Well, I don`t want you to tap my client`s phone, and I don`t want you--

Dr. HARRIS: No, no, I don`t mean that. I didn`t say that. I didn`t say-- I didn`t say go to an extreme. If you have a list, and you watch them-- now, I think there are measures short of eavesdropping or wiretapping which you can-- and still, the person`s rights arc not-- I was pressed for an educated guess as how to do it, and this is my-- although it may--

MacNEIL: I asked the question because in 1968, the Presidential Commission on Violence, appointed by President Johnson -- as the columnist Joe Kraft pointed out in his column today -- predicted "the next assassination to strike at a president." And he would be -- this is a selection from what they said, "withdrawn, a loner, unable to work steadily the last year or so. white, male, chooses a handgun as his weapon, selects a moment when the president is appearing amid crowds." If so much is well known, is there some-- do you think there`s some practical way that people of that kind -- without violation of their civil liberties -- could be tracked?

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well, it seems to me that following some line between what you`ve both said, that having an awareness of that kind of profile -- which seems to have been pretty consistent -- that kind of person, and somebody carrying three guns into Nashville--

MacNEIL: Which Hinckley was arrested for doing--

Dr. GOCHMAN: Yes

Mr. ANDERSEN: But I would like to know, which is a crucial-- in that instance, it was crucial, and this is the Secret Service`s explanation for why Hinckley was on no list of theirs, is, he was leaving Nashville, and as they said--

MacNEIL: He was picked up in airport screening.

Mr. ANDERSEN: Boarding a flight for New York, indeed.

Dr. GOCHMAN: But in or out. it seems to me that here`s somebody carrying three guns who fits this kind of picture and--

MacNEIL: You mean, if apprehended for some obvious infraction of the rules, and then you apply the profile to that, he should be--

Dr. GOCHMAN: Perhaps so

Mr. BERNSTEIN: And then what? And then what? Follow him around?

Dr. GOCHMAN: Well, at least observe him. What are you--

Mr. BERNSTEIN: Twenty-five thousand people? Was that the minimum figure I heard bid?

Dr. HARRIS: Are you saying it`s impractical, or unethical?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: Well. I`m just asking the question.

Dr. HARRIS: Oh, I thought you were-- there is a--

Mr. BERNSTEIN: How? How would you--

Dr. HARRIS: How would you do it? That`s the practical question.

MacNEIL: Yes. Understanding your concern for civil liberties and the person`s rights, how would one apply what is becoming more and more apparent -- is some understanding of what may motivate such people -- in a practical sense to protect public figures?

Mr. BERNSTEIN: I can`t answer that. I think you have to be awfully careful to generalize from this kind of an incident to a way in which you`d have us threaten our basic liberties.

Dr. HARRIS: It-

Mr. BERNSTEIN: It scares me, it really does. It has happened before -- one incident and then you go off and they`ll suppress the rest of us.

Dr. HARRIS: There can be witch hunts, but if you- I think the Supreme Court tries to strike a balance between one right and another right. And which is the overriding right? If it is the safety of the president, then something else has to yield.

MacNEIL: Fortunately, we don`t have to resolve this argument here tonight. And I thank you all for joining us. Dr. Harris, Mr. Andersen, Mr. Berstein, and Dr. Gochman. That`s all for tonight. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.