Response to “The Unabomber”

response article

H. John Rogers

Abstract

In this article, the author responds to “The Cry of a Child: The Unabomber Suspect’s Explosive Family Boundaries,” by Paul H. Elovitz and O’Donnell, from the September 1996 issue. The response centers on David Kaczynski, brother of the Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski. The author frames David’s situation as the question posed in Sophocles’ Antigone: where does obligation to family end and obligation to the polity begin? Working from David’s public statements, the author identifies two concerns weighing on him, the possibility that money he had given his brother financed crimes and the fear that further killings would follow. The author sets this beside an episode in the author’s own family involving a relative and the police. He contrasts the middle-class habit of trusting law enforcement with his own preference for handling such matters within the family. He sketches an alternative course David might have taken, a private confrontation with his brother, while conceding that a valid case exists for turning him in. The author concludes that David will be regarded as a hero by others but not by himself, and characterizes his act as a betrayal that will carry the mark of Cain.

Keywords:

betrayal, brotherhood, “The Cry of a Child: The Unabomber Suspect’s Explosive Family Boundaries,” David Kaczynski, emotional conflict, ethics, family dynamics, guilt, justice, Michele O’Donnell, middle-class values, morality, obligation to state, Paul Elovitz, psychohistory, public safety, sibling dynamics, Ted Kaczynski, Unabomber

One sentence leaped out at me from Elovitz and O’Donnell’s excellent “The Cry of a Child: The Unabomber Suspect’s Explosive Family Boundaries” [in the September, 1996, issue]. That sentence was about alleged Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s brother: “David, a social worker who believes in the Biblical injunction to be his brother’s keeper, wonders if he will be indirectly responsible for another death — his brother’s….” The situation facing David Kaczynski is at least as old as that of Sophocles’ Antigone: where does one’s obligation to family end and obligation to the polity begin?

From his public statements, two factors weighed heavily on David’s mind. First, he was repulsed by the possibility that the financial largesse he had given to his brother had financed, however unwittingly, Ted’s criminal activities. Second, and far more germane, David feared that the Unabomber would kill again. (I have put aside two other possibly relevant facts from the public record: 1) David’s wife, like Lady Macbeth, hectored him into taking action and 2) there was a sizable monetary reward posted which the family has not publicly renounced.)

The Kaczynski family seems to be

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possessed of solid middle class values. Middle class people view the police and prosecutors as their protectors and friends, which they usually are. An example of this thinking was present in my family when my nephew was in a one-car accident after a high school football game. He was intoxicated and the police found a handgun (his father’s) under the front seat. My sister, an elementary school teacher, felt that her son should give the Deputy Sheriff a full statement because the boy “needed to learn a lesson.” (It was my position that he should decline to make a statement and that any “lesson” here could be best taught by his parents.)

But, what should David have done? Clearly, at the beginning he was only operating on suspicion. Why not fly out to Montana, confront his brother Ted, and say, “I suspect A, B, and C, and I have reasons 1 to 8 inclusive. What do you have to say?” If Ted denies the allegations, David could say, “I have left a tape of what I just told you with a trusted friend and if anything happens to me, or if the Unabomber strikes again, that tape will be delivered to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.” If Ted admits the allegations, I, personally, would follow Antigone’s course and put the welfare of my brother (by blood or affinity) before the welfare of the state, as it applies to past actions. Then I would deliver the above admonition with regard to possible future offenses. But, I am the first to concede that a valid case can be made for turning the brother in. Again, where does one’s obligation to family end and obligation to the polity begin?

I have the feeling that David Kaczynski will end up being a hero in everyone’s eyes but his own. Regardless of the reasons behind his actions, he betrayed his brother and, like history’s first surviving brother, he will bear Lekayin ot — “the mark of Cain.”

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