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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. XIV - Page 573« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of Dr. William Robert Beavers)

Mr. Specter.
hand, at times it is quite obvious that he is trying to seem sane and becomes quite truculent and angry at people who imply that he was in fact of unsound mind.
One of the things I think that is extremely obvious in any of this man's discourse over a period of time is the marked ambivalence, that is, the mixed feelings which are strong but on both sides of almost any position that he has taken.
This may be true at the time or it may be true sequentially, so that on the one hand we see him trying to appear quite sane and according to some testimony, at times he has not done this but in fact, not according to my own testimony, but the statements that I have heard from others, he has tried to appear a little bit more delusional than the person thought that he was.
Now, I felt that this answer that we saw the second time around was consistent with the same attitude that he had when he came, when he was stating very definitely that he was not of unsound mind. In other words, it may have given him a little more time to cover.
Mr. Specter.
Aside from the questions to which you have referred on the danger to counsel and family, did the delusional state which you have characterized as his condition of today, have any effect in your opinion on the polygraphic examination?
Dr. BEAVERS. I can't answer the question like it's put, but I can answer it this way, if I may, because I'm just not an expert on that box over there. I don't know that-much about polygraph.
Mr. Specter.
You are referring to the polygraph machine. Well, consider the question rephrased in a manner that you find it convenient to respond to?
Dr. BEAVERS. All right. I felt that so far as my ability to evaluate this man in responding to questions, that any delusional state did not interfere with awareness of the past, with the presence of seemingly adequate memory, with the presence of an apparently reasonable appreciation of reality in reference to his whereabouts and his behavior in the critical time that was under discussion.
In short, he seemed to behave like a man with a well-fixed delusional system in which whole areas of his thinking and his behavior is not strongly interfered by the delusion.
Mr. Specter.
So that the major portion of the polygraphic examination then, except for those parts which you have already referred to, would not be affected in your opinion by what you have characterized as his delusional state?
Dr. BEAVERS. In my opinion, the major portion of his appreciation of questions and of his answers would be unaffected by the delusional state.
I just can't, you see, in all honesty, answer something about what the machine taps, because I think I would sort of be making a fool of myself because I don't know that much about polygraph.
Mr. Specter.
Dr. Beavers, do you have an opinion as to whether the poly-graphic examination which was conducted here today hurt Mr. Ruby mentally or physically in any way?
Dr. BEAVERS. Well, after the period of time, I think we were all fatigued. I think he was and I think everybody in the room was. I felt that he was fatigued as the rest of us were, during the course of a pretty long number of hours of interrogation.
Whether this would come under the heading of any physical harm, I don't know. I would not consider it so ordinarily.
Mr. Specter.
Would that fatigue diminish or evaporate with some rest tonight?
Dr. BEAVERS. I think so; I think so. I know what you're trying to get at and I'll try to answer it the best I can. The question of whether his mental state, and secondarily, a physical problem would be seriously affected by having this interrogation, by having this man take a polygraph examination. The one thing that this man has not been ambivalent on since my acquaintanceship with him, and I mean that so far as I can think of literally, the one area, the one subject that he has not been having these mixed feelings about is the fact that he did want to make this testimony, either with truth serum or with a polygraph or some way of getting the truth out.
Now, as a physician, and this was my-role in these evaluations, not at the time and so far until right now, not as somebody testifying, I was concerned with his mental state, and rather early I felt there would possibly be something useful
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