Contrary to statements by individual practitioners, the committee’s report was decidedly inconclusive. Immediately after the shooting, Texas Governor John Connally convened a thirty-two person expert committee to answer these very questions. 4 Despite advances in neuroscience and psychology, satisfying answers to these questions continue to intrigue – and elude – us. Meanwhile, speculation continues as to whether Whitman suffered from psychosis brought on by amphetamine-induced sleep deprivation and neuroscientists remain fascinated by the tumor and how much pressure it may or may not have exerted on his amygdala. Those perspectives have turned out to be quite damning. More surprisingly, nobody bothered to get the perspective of his wife Kathy or her family about Whitman until just a couple of years ago, despite his admission to beating her on more than one occasion. 3 Lightning strike survivors typically experience some level of long-term cognitive disabilities. Some are simply bizarre, like the fact that he was once caught in a phone booth struck by lightning. Certain additional, relevant details of his life have received surprisingly little attention. Physicians, investigators, and researchers have spent years documenting his troubled home life, drug abuse, the infamous “pecan-sized” tumor discovered in his brain, and the personal demons he described with disturbingly clinical self-reflection. The debate over what made Charles Whitman “snap,” as it’s often put, began the day of his killings and will likely never end. Whitman had a variety of unusual medical issues – an “unusually thin” skull, a “pecan-sized” brain tumor, and, as shown here, he was struck by lightning while stationed at Guantanamo Bay. That explosion reverberated throughout the country, which found itself at a loss over how a “hitherto sane individual,” and an “all-American boy,” no less, could commit such senseless acts of violence. Earlier that evening, Whitman had begun to unburden his “problems” onto the two women he supposedly held most dear and would continue to do so later that day, onto dozens of other innocent victims and their families, communities, and friends. We know this only because he tells us so: at the top of the page, Whitman made a notation in the midnight hours of August 1, 1966, explaining the year as a time “when I was in a similar feeling as I have been lately.” 1 That “fused bomb” was detonating as he wrote. Lavergne Papers, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.Ĭharles Whitman wrote these lines sometime in early 1964. Should one who considers himself strong, surrender to an enemy he considers so trivial and despicable Charles Whitman, excerpted from his diary, Gary M. Will the gain be worth the effort put forth To carry them is akin to carrying a fused bomb – To burden others with your problems – are they problems? – is not right – however

Charles whitman diary