REOPEN KENNEDY CASE

Haven't read the book, but due to my interest in Youth House,  I was curious about this part of the CTKA review:

By this time, the mid fifties, Lane had been in practice for just six years. But yet, his reputation as a champion of lost causes was so prevalent that a young man named Graciliano Acevedo walked into his office one day. He was an escapee from a young adult prison. Except it was not called a prison. It was called Wassaic State School for Mental Defectives. Acevedo began to recite a virtual horror story to the young lawyer. He told him that Wassaic was not really a school. It was a prison camouflaged as a school. Acevedo had been committed there without access to an attorney and not given a hearing or a trial. He did not want to return. He said there was no real schooling going on there, and that the guards were incompetent and sadistic and would beat up some of the prisoners. In fact, one guard actually killed an 18-year-old prisoner. (p. 58)

Lane took Acevedo to a psychiatrist. When his IQ was tested it turned out to be 115. So much for him being a mental defective. Lane decided he was not going to turn him over. He now enlisted two local reporters to his side: Fern Marja and Peter Khiss. Marja ran a three-day series on the abuses of this “school," which culminated with an editorial plea for it to be cleaned up. Which it was. There was no more solitary confinement, books were now made available, academic tests were now given in Spanish, guards were fired (some were prosecuted), and hundreds of the inmates were released.

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You would think that this would have generated quite a bit of media interest... guards prosecuted, hundreds of inmates released....but apparently not.

When I checked this section of the autobio in google books... it says this: I shared Fern's series with several friends. Each person who read the articles responded wit tears or outrage, often both. I would prefer to cite a readily available source, but the Post is not a newspaper of record, as is the New York Times, and it maintains no archive, It appears that the only place where the article may be found is through a physical visit to a special section of the New York Public Library in Manhattan,

I have now searched google books and have found many books either directly about such NY institutions, or touching on Wassaic in some way. None so much as allude to any of Lane's tale. What I did find was what you would expect to find. A Commission of Inquiry (in the 1940s, based on the Moreland Act which deals with state institutional corruption) and the formation of a parents group attached to Wassaic formed in 1952 to oversee improvements to the educational programs and facitilites,  Did these solve all of the issues. Of course not. But the major issue was the unspoken issue of unwanted children spurred on by the provision of inistutions in which parents could request to send them, This was all driven by "mental hygeine" and eugenics proponents within govenment and within philanthropic fund managing. 

Next, I dd a thorough search of google news archives. Again... nada... although I did find one story of 4 escapees from Wassaic in November 1956... https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Mf4yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cgAGAAAAIBAJ&pg=2604%2C182451

I would have to say I'm a little septical of the claims made by Lane in this instance, The lack of any available corroboration, on top of his overcooked explanation as to why there is no easy corroboration cause some concern - especially since in lieu of his explanation, all he had to do was scan part of the story and embed it in the book, as I did with one or two news stories.

Not saying he made the whole thing up... but has he exaggerated it?  Until the Fern Marja articles are obtained, it can't be ruled out.

I did a search.Here is all that I found.

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/114681698/

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/114896865/

Vinny at June 15, 2016 at 5:37 AM

I did a search.Here is all that I found.

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/114681698/

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/114896865/

Good work Vinnie. 

I think he probably did exaggerate the good that came out of it.  And how bad some of the employees were.... one was in trouble because he gave one of the "students" some chewing tobacco? Brutal!

Also those stories only seem to talk about two or three under scrutiny. Moreover, far from hundreds of inmates being released, actual teaching being conducted, and books becoming available.... the main solution seems to have revolved around more secure facilities for the most troubled and/or disabled. In short - if anything this inquiry seemed to be heading in the opposite direction to what Lane claimed the outcomes to be. 

It would be good to see any report/s made by or through that inquiry. 

I recently obtained a copy of this book.I will later have a look to see if there is any further info about this.

Here is the entire chapter on Wassaic.

4 Wassaic

It was a warm summer day in 1955. I was drafting a brief in my East Harlem office when a handsome, bright, and charming young man, Graciliano Acevedo, furtively entered. He was, he said, a fugitive from Wassaic. I did not know what Wassaic was. I later learned that he was referring to the state facility named the Wassaic State

School for Mental Defectives (no state euphemisms based upon the word challenged in those days) in Wassaic, New York.1 It was a “school” without teachers, classes, students, or any form of instruction. It was operated by the State Department of Mental Hygiene and directed by a medical doctor. It provided no services to its “patients.” In reality, it was a huge facility for warehousing children and adults, many of whom were not “retarded” by the state’s own standards.

Graciliano said he and many others had been confined there as punishment, some sentenced to imprisonment for life. The inmates,he said, had been beaten, tortured, and starved. He had just escaped from the state facility, was wanted, and added that if he was forced to return he would kill himself.

When the authorities of the state learned that he had met with me, they ordered me to reveal his address and cooperate with their efforts to capture him so that he could be locked up again in the institution. They said that they would arrest me as an accomplice and refer the matter to the Bar Association of New York in an effort to disbar me if I did not assist them. They added that two units of the New York state police were at that moment on the way to my office.

I had been a lawyer for just a few years, and the threat terrified me. I knew, of course, I would not comply with that demand and I would look into the charges made by my young pro bono client before deciding how to proceed. I thought about what immediate action I might take. Leave the office at once was my first thought, followed shortly by an exit. That, of course, was a temporary measure at best.

Before I left I called an acquaintance, a respected psychiatrist. I explained the circumstances to him and what it was I wished for him to do. He agreed. I then contacted Graciliano, and together we drove to the psychiatrist’s fashionable office on the Upper West Side. Doctor and patient met for a considerable period of time while I read old magazines, apparently required to be available in all medical waiting rooms since the adoption of the Hippocratic oath in the fifth century BCE.

When they emerged, the doctor thanked me for calling upon him, and then wrote a letter addressed to me stating that Graciliano was his patient and that he believed that returning him to the Wassaic institution would cause him serious harm and perhaps death.

We left armed with a document that provided at least a modicum of protection for my client and for me. He was not going back, I assured him.

Within a few days Graciliano, with the help of Ramon Diaz and his associates, rounded up other former Wassaic inmates. They came from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Lower East Side, Harlem, and East Harlem in Manhattan. Like Graciliano, most were fugitives from the institution.

I called Fern Marja, an investigative reporter at the New York Post, and told her what I had learned. She called contacts, all of whom vouched for the integrity of Paul H. Hoch, the commissioner of the Wassaicâ New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, who immediately denied the allegations made by Graciliano, whom he referred to as a patient.

Hoch did not know why my client had been sent to Wassaic or how long his sentence was. Since I had looked into the matter, talking with Graciliano, his mother, and other witnesses, I did discover the facts. Graciliano had had a brief affair with a woman several years older than he was. His mother felt it was inappropriate and made a call to the local police precinct for advice. Officers raided their home and took Graciliano in handcuffs to the prison in Wassaic that was posing as a mental institution and school.

I prepared a meticulous questionnaire, designed to establish not just the facts of life at Wassaic but the details as well, such as the number of bars on the solitary confinement cells, the size of the rooms, the color of the walls, a description of the straps—size and color—used to restrain inmates, the names and descriptions of the guards who were most brutal, specific statements about their misconduct including dates and the names of victims, and, above all, the names of other witnesses to those events. Clearly, none of those to be questioned could have anticipated the specific questions, and the answers would be similar only if truth was the common denominator.

We gathered the fugitives—black, white, Puerto Rican—in a suite of rooms. The questionnaire was administered contemporaneously in isolation to each of them by lawyers and doctors. Fern Marja was present. We met to compare the results. Our worst fears were confirmed; Wassaic was worse than we could have imagined.

We were overwhelmed by the body of evidence suggesting that for years—in fact, decades—felonious acts, including torture, beatings,and long-term solitary confinement, had been regularly committed against those unable to protect themselves. Many children had been cruelly bound in restraining sheets. I knew that the state had committed unspeakable crimes, but I doubted my ability to be an effective agent of change. If it were not for the fact that the misconduct was still ongoing, I might have given in to despair and taken no action. I was a twenty-eight-year-old lawyer in a storefront office in East Harlem that I had but recently opened. But the continuing barbaric acts against the least of these was with me each day and required me to take up a battle against the state of New York, one that I thought I could never win. When I later discovered that an African American boy, just fifteen years old, had been murdered by a guard and the crime covered up by the state employees, I knew that I had no choice; whatever the result and cost, I made the only possible decision.

The state served a notice upon me, setting a date for the mandatory return of Graciliano. I called Dr. George Etling, director of the Wassaic State School, and told him what we had discovered about the facility for which he was responsible. I told him that Graciliano would never return, and I invited him to bring an action against me in a court of his choice where all of the facts could be made public.

I talked to Pete Khiss at the New York Times, and he and Fern called Etling for a comment.Two days later Etling sent a letter to me stating that Graciliano had been discharged. Apparently a miracle had taken place while he was hiding out in East Harlem; he had become “unretarded” and no longer “defective.” He achieved that new status without being treated, examined, or even interviewed by the authorities since his escape from Wassaic. Yet the state had in absentia pronounced him to be cured.

Later, when Graciliano was given an independent IQ test in Spanish, properly administered by a licensed examiner in Manhattan, this formerly classified “mental defective,” with an IQ under 60 according to the Wassaic records, scored 115. Later, other inmates were similarly tested, and on average they likely scored higher marks on the IQ tests than did some of their callous and often brutal guards.

Etling evidently thought that Graciliano’s release would end the matter. A reporter or two agreed that the matter had been successfully concluded. I considered Etling’s precipitous action to be a Wassaicâ confession of wrongdoing by the state, an admission that a young man had been falsely imprisoned. In my view, our modest effort to learn all of the relevant facts had just begun.

We continued our fact-finding efforts, and Fern communicated some of the results to the authorities. Finally, in an effort to convince us that all was well and that “those children are mentally defective, but they have active imaginations,” Dr. Etling invited Fern and me to visit him in Wassaic.

During the interview in his office, Fern informed him that we had been told that the dining room was locked and the patients were not allowed to talk to one another. I was surprised that she revealed that information, since I thought she may have precluded our hopes of seeing the dining room while the inmates were present. I had great respect for Fern, and while I did not favor the ambush interviews that have now become common, I did believe that it was too early to reveal to Etling all we had discovered.

It soon became clear we approached the inquiry from different perspectives. Fern was a liberal reporter of integrity, and she,her editor, and her publisher maintained cordial relationships with those ultimately responsible for the almost unfathomable misconduct,including the Democratic governor and the much-praised state commissioner Hoch. I had less trust in the authorities and more faith in the words of my young clients. Fern’s approach to Etling soon proved to be the path to entry. Etling denied the charges. “Of course it is not locked. The patients wander around as they choose, and they chat quite a bit in the dining room.” He invited us to have a private lunch with him in his own dining room attached to his office.

I said that we wanted to eat with the patients. Fern agreed with me. Etling tried again, stating, “I’m sure you will find the food better here and the atmosphere more relaxing.” I assured him that I had no reason to disagree with his evaluation but that we felt quite strongly that we should visit the inmates’ dining room. Etling reluctantly agreed to our request; he asked us to excuse him for a few minutes.

As we left his office, he picked up his telephone. I presumed he was ordering the guards to prepare for our visit.We walked to the massive dining room; however, we could not enter since the doors were bolted and locked. There were more than four thousand inmates at the institution then. If a fire had broken out, the inmates would have been trapped. Etling called a guard so that we could enter the vestibule and then called another guard as we were confronted by another set of sturdy doors that were also locked and bolted. While visiting clients in prisons I had often encountered less security, except at a maximum-security prison for the most violent criminals.

We entered into an eerie scene, quite different from mess halls I had seen hundreds of times while I was in the armed forces and those I had visited in prisons. Hundreds of people were eating in absolute silence. The clicking sounds of knives and forks could be heard but not a sound from a human being.

I observed, “No one is talking; why is that, Dr. Etling?” He said, “I guess that they don’t feel like talking. There certainly is no rule against talking.”

With that remark what remaining credibility he had with Fern came to a sudden and irrevocable end. Mine had long since fled after meeting with the clients months earlier. Fern insisted upon trying the food. We went to the mess hall line and were served something that we could not identify, and when Fern tasted it she gagged and almost threw up. Etling did not sample the fare. As I saw hundreds of people, most of them young and thin, devouring the food, I felt obligated to eat it. I consumed some of it. I knew then that if I were imprisoned there I would try to escape before the next meal was served.

I walked up to one young man. I asked him how the food was. He looked around in obvious fear and then whispered, “Don’t talk. You can’t talk in here or they throw you in solitary and beat you.” I later spoke to that young man, Reinaldo Otero, after our efforts resulted in his release, and he talked about the day we had met. “I knew you were coming that day. We heard about what you were doing for us on the outside, and we prayed you would come to see for yourself because we knew they were lying to you.” I asked how he knew I would be there that day. He said, “We knew it because of the food.It was the best we ever had except for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

For the first time in that long struggle, I could not hold back tears. Fern was convinced that conditions at Wassaic were intolerable.Wisely, she also wanted to conduct her own investigation before she wrote about the conditions. She was going to try to make arrangements with Etling to allow her free access to the entire institution.

It did not seem likely to me or to Fern that Etling would allow that.Since time was of the essence and the suffering of innocents had not ceased so far as we knew, a public airing of some sort was necessary.I wrote to the governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman. He was the millionaire son of the last and greatest of the nineteenth century railroad barons, but unlike his famous Republican father, the governor was a New Deal Democrat. I informed him that conditions at the state institution were “barbaric” and the children were being subjected to “uncivilized treatment.” I offered to submit documentation for each of the specific charges that I had made: long periods of solitary confinement for minor infractions, children bound for weeks in restraining sheets unable to move any part of their bodies except their heads, some of them being beaten by attendants as they were lying helpless. Among the infractions that resulted in mistreatment were talking in the dining room, refusal to work at a job assignment that was too difficult for them, or not responding immediately when given an order. Harriman had supported President Roosevelt in 1937 when he sought to strengthen the child labor laws. These were the very laws his state institution was violating almost two decades later.

I asked for the appointment of an independent citizens’ commission to investigate the accusations. The governor hesitated.Fern did not; she pressed Etling for permission to visit the institution and to agree that no area in the facility would be closed to her. Of course, since I had written to the governor I was excluded. I recently shared Fern’s series with several friends. Each person who read the articles responded with tears or outrage, often both. I would prefer to cite a readily available source, but the Post is not a newspaper of record, as is the New York Times, and it maintains no archive.

It appears that the only place where the articles may be found is through a physical visit to a special section of the New York Public Library in Manhattan.

I quote or paraphrase below portions of the Marja investigative report, a historic series that remains the definitive work that ultimately led to improving the lives of thousands of oppressed children and adults held captive and mistreated by the state.

On August 17, 1955, Fern’s first article in a three-part series was prominently published by the New York Post under a banner headline:

“The Wassaic Horror: Inhuman Treatment for Young Inmates.” She referred to my letter to Harriman and stated, “No matter what the outcome, this reporter has witnessed enough to know that overcrowded, understaffed Wassaic is employing treatment techniques that were regarded as cruel and inhuman before the turn of the century.”

She listed the many accusations that I had made, asserting that children at the institution were regularly and brutally beaten with fists, sticks, chains, rocks, broom handles, and keys. Children, some six and seven years old, had been struck on an almost daily basis;Puerto Rican children, hundreds of them, had not been tested for years and were beaten for not responding to orders promptly, even though they spoke no English and not one of the guards at Wassaic could speak Spanish.

She concluded, “This reporter, given free access to the institution by the Director, Dr. George W. Etling, corroborated a substantial portion of these charges either directly or through conversations with a score or more of the inmates, whose stories checked on every major point.”

In the first article, Fern reported that she had visited several buildings while accompanied by Etling. Two of the structures were “maximum security buildings.” She asked Etling to show her the seclusion areas. “He took me to two maximum security buildings where the cells were merely airless rooms that were little better than sweatboxes. I walked through a corridor lined on both sides with tile and steel cells about 7½ by 8½ feet and a metal door with a grated peep hole through which the prisoners stared out like animals.”

As she was about to talk to one patient, the attendant told her, “He’s only been in there a short time.” She wrote, “I asked him how long he had been in solitary and he answered, ‘one week,’â•›” adding that he was being punished for attempting to run away from the institution.

The General Orders of the Mental Hygiene Department and the laws of the state of New York specify the rules for the use of “restraint and seclusion”: “Protective restraint or seclusion is to be employed only for satisfactory surgical or medical reasons, or to prevent the patient from injuring himself or others.” Even when a patient, for surgical or medical reasons, is restrained or placed in seclusion or solitary confinement, the law requires “the maximum period of continuous seclusion shall not exceed three hours in the daytime, and the patient shall be visited every hour day and night.” Fern reported that while the attendant said that he let the boys in seclusion out of their cells “every couple of hours,” the patient responded, “I ain’t been out. I ain’t been out of here the whole time.” The reporter added that neither Etling nor the attendant contradicted him and that the same scenario reoccurred “almost every time I spoke to a patient in solitary.”

One patient had been in solitary confinement since April 6, more than ninety days before Fern visited him. When she visited the next patient, the attendant led her away and said that he is “a low-grade. He takes his clothes off.”

“Oh yes,” said Etling. “That’s the one who can’t stand to have anything on him. Takes everything off and smears feces all over.”

Fern said that “the ‘low-grade’ had been locked in for two weeks.”

She visited another patient in solitary confinement. On that occasion Etling asked the attendant, “Why is he here?”

The attendant responded, “He’s the boy who took plums from your tree, doctor.” Fern asked the patient if he had anything to read, and he replied, “No, they don’t let you read.”

Fern turned to the attendant for an explanation. The attendant said, “It’s just routine.” Etling spoke to the attendant, saying, “I don’t see why they can’t read.”

Fern wrote:

In a third cell was a patient who had spent all but six of his twenty-four years in Wassaic. “This is my first time in trouble,”he said earnestly. “I know I did wrong.” Just what wrong had he done? “I was talking in the dining room. I’ll never do it again.” In another room, a chunky youth addressed Etling: “I don’t mind getting punishment for things I do, but I don’t like to get punishment for things I don’t do.” For the first time the director sounded a trifle severe. “We don’t call it punishment,” he said reprovingly. “We call it discipline.” “Well,” said the boy, “I got one week of discipline for not drinking coffee.”

When she visited one building she noted that the wards were vast, with three rows of cots and sixty beds in all. Between them there was barely more than a foot or two. The sour smell of sweat was overpowering. In the August heat the only window, opaque to prevent the prisoners from looking out, was shut tight.

On August 18, Fern’s second article was published under the banner headline, “Young Inmates Tell of Horror at Wassaic.”

This is the story of six boys; but there is only one story, since the facts are almost identical. Each of the youngsters spent from seven months to eight years at the Wassaic State School for Mental Defectives between 1942 and 1955. Interviewed separately, they filled out individual questionnaires that checked out on every major point.

All had been locked in solitary confinement at least once as a disciplinary measure, with one youth reaching such an acute state of depression that he attempted suicide.

All but one had been beaten by attendants, one so severely that he still carries a head scar. All but one had been immobilized in restraining sheets for days at a time, for real or imagined violations. All had witnessed widespread homosexuality, and one had himself contracted VD after having intimate relations with a fellow patient.

Five of the six are Puerto Ricans who had serious language handicaps at the time of their commitment. Their IQ could not be adequately determined, since the test was given in English, and they spoke Spanish.

The lead editorial published by the New York Post that day was entitled “The Wassaic Horror.” It began, “Surely no editorial should be needed to supplement Fern Marja’s exposure of wretchedness and inhumanity at the Wassaic State School for Mental Defectives.” It ended, “No routine investigation by state officials will be an adequate answer to these revelations. What is needed is an independent inquiry by a special commission whose members are free of any compulsion to cover up. Each day such an inquiry is delayed compounds the state’s crime.”

The last of the series of three articles was published on Friday, August 19. Although Harriman had not replied to my letter, he responded to both it and the articles by appointing Hoch to secretly investigate the charges made by many inmates and former inmatesagainst the institution for which he was ultimately responsible. I was doubtful about the outcome since the inquiry was being conducted behind closed doors and by the bureaucrat with the most to lose. At best I was cautiously hopeful.

While Harriman had ordered “a full scale investigation of conditions at the Wassaic State School,” he apparently ignored the fact that many of the criminal acts at Wassaic had taken place during Hoch’s administration; Hoch had never visited Wassaic. Hoch at once stated, “I will stop immediately the use of solitary confinement and restraining sheets for disciplinary purposes.” While I was relieved that he issued that edict in terms of its impact upon the many tortured children at the institution, the statement by Hoch was bizarre because it merely stated that the state would stop violating the law. In fact, Hoch had been the chief research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute before he had been appointed commissioner. It was at that institute that eighteen of the twenty doctors “received their psychiatric training from an eleven month, one day a week special course given to them after they went to work at Wassaic.”

Hoch added that personnel from his department had questioned “physicians, supervisors, and all ward employees who had supervised the patients.” No one from Hoch’s office had ever sought to speak with the patients who had made the numerous specific statements that I referred to in my letters to the governor or who were interviewed by Marja.

Months of work began. I worked with former inmates and their friends; we located additional witnesses, almost all fugitives from Wassaic, in addition to some who had been discharged or who were on authorized leave. Nevertheless, it was not surprising when Hoch issued his report

to the governor on October 27, 1955, stating that after “an exhaustive investigation” by his department, he had determined that there was “no substantial evidence” of the abuse of mental patients at Wassaic.

One had to question his standards, since one child had died after having been beaten. We met that evening at my office, Graciliano and a few of his friends, still fugitives, a couple of trial lawyers, and the psychiatrist who had assisted us. There were some high-level professionals and

a number of courageous kids in that room. Before our struggle with the state was over, each of us had contributed our services over a period of more than a year. No one was compensated or had out-of pocket expenses reimbursed. None of the abused young men ever suggested that they would like to sue the state. Everyone was there in an effort to challenge and possibly change a barbaric system committed to covering up its crimes. The false imprisonment and mistreatment of hundreds, still ongoing, were beyond our ability to alter.

That evening was a meeting of the defeated.In an act of desperation and with little hope that we could prevail,I wrote an open letter to the governor stating that I should at least be permitted to appear before some person with authority so that our side could be heard. Pete Khiss from the New York Times and Fern Marja made sure that the authorities knew of the letter and the reporters’ interest in the issue and that the public was informed as well. The state agreed to allow me to make a presentation at its offices in New York City, but the public and the press would be barred from our meeting.

Since the state considered the case closed and wished to maintain that status, their first error was agreeing to meet with me. A more serious mistake was the decision to exclude the press about such a serious public matter. The date and place were set, November 17, 1955, at 270 Broadway in Manhattan, the office of the deputy commissioner of the state mental hygiene agency, Arthur W. Pense, who would meet with me.

I suggested to Pense that instead of my telling him what the witnesses would probably say, it would be better if a couple or more met with him. He was reluctant at first; he was a doctor, not a lawyer. I asked him how the excluded public and press would react if they learned that the person conducting the inquiry favored hearsay over direct admissible testimony. The state reluctantly agreed; they didn’t want me to be there in the first place, and they were less inclined to allow their victims to be present. But so long as it was all confined to their offices, and they would not allow a transcript to be prepared, they felt adequately protected. Certainly neither the public nor the press would be admitted. We could speak, but we would only be heard by a state official who had already characterized the allegations as nonsense and who had praised the commitment to excellence exemplified by two distinguished doctors, Hoch and Etling.

I invited the press and the public to the hearing. I said that we were faced with a somewhat ambiguous situation; there would be a public hearing except for the fact that the public and the press would be denied admission by the state. Rule one of a list of one rule: Never tell the press that they cannot attend. Even a story of little interest to the media becomes irresistibly fascinating when the press is banned.

We created a quasi-public hearing from a decision that there would be no hearing. Build it and they will come. They came. The media—television crews, newspaper reporters, radio interviewers—all tried to crowd into a small reception room while many more filled the corridors.

A state authority exited the hearing room to announce that the press was banned, and he ordered them to leave. Of course, no one left. I responded to the press that every ten minutes I would take a break, leave the hearing room, and make a full report to the media as to what had just transpired. It would be “breaking news.”

I did so for the entire day as witness after witness spoke. The witnesses were all, except one, former inmates who had been brutalized at Wassaic and who had witnessed almost countless acts of outrageous conduct. The final witness was Fern Marja. The facts were out.

We proved that one woman, sent to the institution from the time of her birth because her mother was not married, was confined there for more than forty years, never tested, and never released. Her IQ was slightly over 100. We demonstrated that a number of the guards were sadistic and routinely engaged in torture, including sexual torture by holding the genitals of young men against extremely hot radiators and raping young women.

The case, closed by Hoch at the end of October, had been reopened three weeks later by the victims, the witnesses, and the attention of the New York Times and the New York Post as well as numerous radio and television stations. Reporting that Hoch had said that there was “no substantial evidence” of abuse, the Times provided a meticulously accurate summary of the testimony before Pense, demonstrating substantial repeated abuse.

During our continuing inquiry, I stayed in an isolated motel near Wassaic. Unable to sleep one night, I went for a short walk. I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Pete Khiss lumbering behind me in the shadows. I stopped, and he walked up to me. My look said, What are you doing? He shrugged. “You know, from the viewpoint of the attendants you are threatening their jobs. You shouldn’t walk around here alone.”

Former patients and parents of children still incarcerated came forward with additional facts. Many corroborated what others had said; some added gruesome new evidence. I discovered an eyewitness to the beating and kicking of a fifteen-year-old African American boy by a guard. According to a witness, the boy had asked the attendant to open a locked door, and the guard kicked the youngster in the stomach “as hard as he could.” The victim collapsed, doubled up in pain, and then vomited. He remained in bed for three days, crying and unable to move. No medical care was given to him, not even an examination. He was then moved to the hospital where he died. The Dutchess County district attorney’s office said it was investigating the possible homicide. The records of the State Department of Mental Hygiene had listed the cause of death as “natural.” And that was not the first time that Hoch had covered up a death.

Hoch, when questioned by the New York Times about the death and other allegations of brutality, said, “These things have to be looked into. I don’t like to make detailed statements before the thing is finished or investigated. Many incidents go back several years. I really don’t know what went on there four or five years ago.

Those remarks were published by the Times on December 3, 1955, just over a month after the Times had printed Hoch’s statement about his “exhaustive investigation” and his conclusion that there was “no substantial evidence” of abuse. The state denied everything as long as it could do so feasibly and,as is the way with great bureaucracies, a little longer than decency allows. In the end restraint was ended, solitary confinement wards were demolished, and reading rooms and libraries took their place.

Books were made available, and tests were administered in Spanish for the first time in the history of the state. Many guards were fired,and some were prosecuted.Above all, many hundreds of inmates were released. They had been confined illegally and improperly at Wassaic as well as at other institutions throughout the state. That was our qualified victory, brought about by the resolve and courage of those who had been brutalized.

In the end there was no real victory and there were no heroes, except the survivors and two reporters, Fern and Pete, who were just doing their jobs, as the lives of so many innocents could not be adequately restored. No one in charge of the institution or charged with the responsibility of monitoring it was ever prosecuted. No official was even reprimanded.

The faces of those tortured children and adults were with me for years and now revisit as I write this painful chapter. I have also wondered about their tormentors—not the poorly educated, vulgar, and underpaid guards; my thoughts have turned to Etling and Hoch.Etling was undecipherable for me. Did he really know nothing about the institution to which he allowed free access to Fern and to me? Did he not know that even a cursory inquiry, in which he was complicit, would prove that all of his assurances to us were fabrications?

He remained as director at Wassaic for another eighteen years,at which time he retired with honors and effusive praise from the state officials.

A few months after the stories about the homicide at Wassaic were published, Hoch was honored by the International Rho Pi Phi Pharmaceutical Fraternity for his “outstanding leadership in the research and treatment of mental illness, and his dedication to the welfare of its victims.” He was given the organization’s prestigious Man of the Year Award. Perhaps Hoch’s greatest accomplishment was his ability to hide his past. He was a paid CIA consultant for MKULTRA, the agency’s illegal creation charged with discovering new methods of mind control. For MKULTRA, Hoch performed a lobotomy on a conscious victim, injected others with drugs that either permanently destroyed their ability to function or in some cases killed them,

and tested various “warfare agents” on unsuspecting patients, and then covered up the cause of death with false certificates. The full extent of his criminal activity will likely never be known, since the CIA destroyed most of the relevant files after a committee of the US Senate sought to examine them. Sufficient evidence survived so that Hoch could have been prosecuted for murder and numerous other crimes. Instead, he was given the authority to govern all of New York State’s mental institutions for many years, having been reappointed by Rockefeller in 1959. He remained as the commissioner until his death on December 15, 1964.