Margaret Truman's Experiment in Murder Read online

  Borger called for the cook and instructed her to prepare a hearty breakfast for his young guest. “He’s a prizefighter,” he told her. “He needs his nourishment.”

  Itani felt uncomfortable sitting alone with Borger and hoped that his host would not ask him about the night spent with Elena. To his relief, Borger immediately turned to the subject of boxing and further treatment of Itani’s headaches.

  “I have a proposal for you,” Borger said as he patted his lips with his napkin. “But first I want to ask about your headaches. Have you had any since our session last night?”

  “Yes, sir,” Itani said. “This morning. But I put on the helmet and it was gone. Poof! Like that.” He grinned.

  “That’s wonderful,” said Borger. “But it’s important that we continue working on the problem. I’ve found over the years that while a single session can be effective, it doesn’t necessarily last long term. I want to continue working with you until we’re assured that those headaches will be a permanent thing of the past.”

  “Yes, that’s good,” Itani said. He desperately wanted to please this man who’d entered his life so unexpectedly and who had his best interests at heart. “I would like that,” he added.

  “Good. I also want to follow up on resurrecting your boxing career. I’ve spoken with Jake Gibbons this morning, and he has agreed to consider managing you. He wants to see you work out.”

  “All right. I can go to the gym and—”

  “No, not the gym, Iskander. He can come and watch you right here. I have a fully equipped gym of my own right here in the house, in the basement. If you agree, you can train here, live here. That will enable us to continue treating your headaches while at the same time you get in shape to resume your career. I realize that this is all new to you but, to be truthful, I’ve taken a sincere liking to you.”

  Itani squirmed in his chair and fumbled for an answer.

  “There’s no need to respond right now, Iskander. I’m not suggesting that you come and live here forever. I’m sure your family wouldn’t take kindly to that. What I am suggesting is that you plan to spend two or three weeks here. That will give me the opportunity to rid you of those headaches forever while you put other aspects of your life together. I admit that I have a selfish motive behind my offer, Iskander. You see, it’s important to me that my success in curing headaches be documented in a scientific way. I’ve done this with others. When I’m successful with a patient, it’s necessary that I share with other physicians the techniques that I’ve developed over the years. I believe that you are one of those patients who will truly benefit from my treatments. In other words, you would be doing me a favor by accepting my offer to live here for a few weeks and to continue treatment.”

  He observed Itani for a reaction. The young man had suddenly drifted to another place known only to him. Borger waited patiently until Itani blinked his eyes and seemed almost startled that he was there at the table. He looked up as the cook delivered his breakfast—scrambled eggs, two pancakes, strips of bacon, and hash fries. Borger poured him orange juice from a cut-glass pitcher and coffee from a stainless-steel thermos. “Eat up, my boy,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  When Borger returned, he patted Itani on the shoulder. “Looks like you were hungry,” he said, motioning at the empty plate. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”

  He led Itani down to the basement gym that was equipped with the latest exercise equipment.

  “It is so nice,” Itani said. “So big and clean.”

  “And it will be even nicer this afternoon when they deliver the punching bags and the portable ring I’ve ordered.”

  Itani looked as though he might cry. Borger put his arm around his shoulders and said, “It’s my pleasure to do this for a deserving young man.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “A problem?”

  “I could never repay you, Dr. Borger. And my family. I don’t know how they will be if I leave them.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Borger said. “You won’t be leaving them. As I said it’s only for a few weeks while we get rid of your headaches forever. I’ll tell you what. I’ll have Peter Puhlman drive you home, where you can explain to your family what you’re doing. I’m told that your mother is ill. I can refer her to some of the top doctors in the area. She’ll be delighted to see her son given this wonderful opportunity.”

  Itani started to say something, but Borger’s raised hand stopped the words. “And let’s not hear ever again of having to repay me. As you’ve probably noticed, life has been good, very good indeed, for me. But what good is money if you don’t share it with others? I’ll be happy to help you and your family during this difficult period. Neither you nor your family will have to worry about money while we work together. This country truly is the land of opportunity, Iskander, and it can be for you. Frankly, that’s why I’m very concerned with the presidential election that’s coming up. Men like George Mortinson don’t understand what makes this country great. If they have their way, they’ll destroy it for everyone, you and me included.”

  Anger crossed Itani’s swarthy, handsome face.

  “In addition to my medical practice, I’m involved with influential men in our nation who share my views about Mortinson and enemies like him.”

  Mention of presidential candidate Mortinson sent Itani into an involuntary trance. Borger snapped him out of it and said, “Let’s spend an hour together to reinforce ways to control your headaches. Then Peter will drive you home, where you can collect some clothing and tell your family that you’ll be away for a few weeks. The new gym equipment will be here when you return, and you can start training again, free of headaches and with the whole world in front of you.”

  * * *

  And so Iskander Itani moved into Dr. Sheldon Borger’s palatial home on San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Naturally he faced questions about it when he went directly to the room he shared with one of his brothers and started shoving clothing into a battered backpack covered with faded, ripped boxing stickers and Lebanese flag decals.

  “I have met a wonderful man,” Iskander told his younger brother, “a medical doctor. He is an expert in managing pain like my headaches and has already helped me. He is al-Mahdi, truly a savior. He has many rich friends who want to help me with my boxing career. I will live with him for two weeks while he cures my headaches, And he has his own gymnasium in his own house and will have heavy and light bags and a ring set up for me.”

  His brother laughed along with Iskander. “What is he,” the brother asked playfully, “a shaz?”

  Iskander punched his brother in the chest. No, you idiot, he is not a queer.” Iskander lowered his voice. “Listen. Last night I slept with one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Her name is Elena. She was at a party the doctor had, and she lured me into bed.” He extended his fingers and moved them to indicate how she’d enticed him.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Don’t believe me, then. It is true. Why would I lie to my brother? Look, the man who dropped me off—his name is Puhlman, a fat man—he will be back soon to take me to the doctor’s house, and what a house it is, the biggest house in San Francisco.”

  His brother turned serious as he sat on the bed.

  “Hey,” Iskander said, “what’s the matter?”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “No. I mean the doctor would be mad if I bring someone else. I can’t do that.” He slapped his brother on the top of his head. “I’ll be back in two weeks. This doctor he will make us rich. I know it. My headaches are gone. Good, huh? Listen, do not tell Mother where I’ve gone.”

  “What do I say?”

  “You say that … you say that I went away to work for two weeks, that’s all. Tell her I will be back with money. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Where is she and your brother?”

  He shrugged.

  Puhlman pulled up in front and blew the horn.

/>   “It’s the fat man. I have to go.”

  “Can I call you?”

  “No. Two weeks.” He kissed his brother on the cheek. “Two weeks and things will be good, better than they have ever been for us.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  Borger used Itani’s absence to add to notes he’d made that would be included in his report once the exercise was completed. He was in the midst of that when he received a call from his CIA contact, the psychiatrist Colin Landow.

  “How is it going?” Landow asked. He was calling from a Dallas hotel after having met with the project’s moneymen.

  “Very well. He’s even more perfect than I’d hoped for. He’ll be staying here at the house for a few weeks, plenty of time to prepare him.”

  “A few weeks is too long, Sheldon. We’ve chosen a date eleven days from now, in D.C.”

  “Oh?”

  Borger leaned back in his office chair and did a quick mental calculation. He’d assumed that the project’s culmination would occur in San Francisco during a campaign stop there by George Mortinson. Shifting it to Washington would mean transporting Itani there and setting him up. That gave Borger nine days at the most to accomplish what he needed to.

  “Is that a problem?” Landow asked in his New England–tinged voice.

  “No, it’s not a problem, Colin. Of course there’s the logistics of getting him there and—”

  “That will be taken care of. Your responsibility is to have him prepared.”

  Borger bristled at being told his responsibilities. He’d grown increasingly disenchanted with Landow over the past few years, resenting his imperious tone and need to remind Borger of the obvious.

  “He’ll be fully prepared,” Borger said flatly.

  “Good. I’m coming to San Francisco tomorrow, staying overnight. Do you have dinner plans?”

  “I planned on working with him every possible moment.”

  “I’m sure you can spare a few hours for me.”

  “Yes, I’m free for dinner.”

  “Good. I’ll call from the hotel. I’ll be at the Hyatt on the Embarcadero.”

  Borger heard the click on Landow’s end.

  Borger went to the window and looked out over the grounds. He’d been contemplating bowing out of the program for a while now. Had the time come? It seemed to him that it probably had.

  * * *

  Although he had joined the program late in its history, the quest for creating the perfect spy or messenger had been under way since the mid-1950s when then CIA director Allen Dulles persuaded Harold Wolff, a friend and prominent Cornell neuropsychiatrist and an expert on stress, to examine returning American prisoners of war who had served in Korea. The goal was to uncover brainwashing that these POWs might have undergone. Working through a CIA-funded front, the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, later renamed the Human Ecology Fund, Wolff and others delved deeply into brainwashing techniques used by the North Koreans.

  While the original purpose of the research was defensive in nature, it soon became evident to those involved that many of the same techniques used by the North Koreans—and the Russians—could be utilized to program and manipulate Americans for, as the project’s founders proclaimed, “the national good.”

  The research quickly escalated to include hundreds of scientists working at many of the nation’s leading hospitals and universities, few of whom were aware that their financing came from the CIA. (Forty-four top universities around the country were eventually informed by the CIA in 1977 that scientific research conducted at their facilities had been, in fact, agency-funded.)

  But that tip-of-the-hat demonstration of transparency in no way slowed the agency’s ongoing and secretive investigations into means of controlling individuals. Large-scale programs with names such as ARTICHOKE, MK-ULTRA, and BLUEBIRD heralded an expansion of research, with unwitting American citizens the human guinea pigs.

  Did the clandestine, sometimes brutal, and even deadly nature of these experiments prick the consciences of the doctors and scientists involved? For some, the money justified everything and anything. For others, a perverted sense of patriotism salved their guilt.

  In Sheldon Borger’s case, on rare occasions he questioned whether using the power of hypnosis for other than legitimate treatment of needy patients was appropriate. He wondered if making nefarious use of the pioneering work of such giants in the field as Herbert Spiegel and his HIP test was justified. But such flashes of conscience didn’t last long. As far as Borger was concerned, University of Illinois psychologist Charles Osgood summed up a defense of the practice: “If we had to do only things that would be safe when other people use them, there would be very little—damn little—we could do in science.”

  Borger often told colleagues who questioned the work they did, “Look, we invented atomic energy. It can be used to light a city or blow it up. It’s not up to us to question what use our research findings are put to.”

  Borger never lost a night’s sleep over it.

  Nevertheless, he debated internally whether the time was coming for him to withdraw. The assassination of presidential candidate George Mortinson, using a killer he’d personally programmed, would be the touchstone of his long career. Not only would he prove the potency of hypnosis, he would also make America a better place by ridding it of the likes of Mortinson. After that, his work would be done. He deserved a nice long rest.

  * * *

  He returned to his desk and finished determining the schedule for working with Itani. He was cognizant, of course, that things could go wrong. Although Itani appeared to be the perfect hypnotic subject, Borger had seen others in that class fall apart during programming. It was his thesis that those situations resulted from a wrong move on the part of the hypnotist, and he pledged to himself that he would exercise the utmost caution in his approach. He’d had great success with Sheila Klaus, and from everything he’d heard and read, the amnesia he’d programmed into her had held. She’d proved to be an excellent subject, but it was his judgment that Itani was even better. Shelia’s misplaced and unrequited love for Mark Sedgwick had generated anger at him in her. It was important that the subject already be angry with the selected victim, and Borger had sensed Sheila’s unhappiness with her therapist the first time Sedgwick had brought her to San Francisco and to the Lightpath Clinic.

  Once the word came down that Sedgwick was to be eliminated, Borger wondered whether he would have to “change the visual” with Sheila to cause her to kill Sedgwick. Borger had lectured on that technique many times to young medical students who’d chosen psychiatry as their specialty. He’d explained to them that it was almost impossible to prompt someone under hypnosis to violate his or her core beliefs. He used as an example high school males who’d heard that they could use hypnosis to convince a pretty co-ed to remove her clothing. That was unlikely—unless the girl was already eager to undress for the school’s football star. But it was possible under hypnosis to convince the young woman that she was alone in a very warm room and needed to undress to be comfortable.

  Another example was telling a wife under hypnosis to shoot her husband when he came through the door. That wouldn’t work with a loving wife. But she could be programmed to believe that when the door opened, it wasn’t her husband coming through it. Instead it was a rabid bear intent upon killing her.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary to apply that technique to Sheila Klaus. Her pique at having her sexual and romantic overtures to Sedgwick rebuffed was sufficient. The problem was that murdering someone, anyone, wasn’t compatible with her basic beliefs. That’s where her “second personality” came in handy.

  During his sessions with Sheila, Sedgwick had uncovered another personality within her, an imaginary childhood friend she called Carla. Using hypnosis, he’d reinforced this alter ego to the extent that Carla could be easily summoned by him. While Sheila was basically a passive person, she turned to Carla as the tough one, the person who would right th
e wrongs Sheila perceived as being perpetrated against her.

  Sheila often demonstrated this second personality when Sedgwick brought her to San Francisco to participate in trials at Lightpath. Borger was delighted to see this imaginary person in her life and focused on further developing Carla. In doing so—and without Sedgwick’s knowledge—he injected himself into Sheila’s life as her second “control,” someone whom she, and Carla, would obey without question. When Borger was told that it was necessary to get rid of Sedgwick, he instructed Sheila (and Carla) to stop seeing her therapist in Washington, which she did. She was then programmed to make two more trips to San Francisco without Sedgwick, during which Borger applied constant reinforcement of her negative feelings toward Sedgwick and the need for Carla to take revenge. Sheila had been given a code to which she would respond when back in Washington, a telephone call during which the caller would say, “It’s a beautiful day for a cruise.” That brought Carla to the fore, who did as instructed. Carla walked out of Sheila’s house to a white Buick sedan that had been delivered and parked in the driveway. She got behind the wheel, drove to Virginia Avenue, waited for Sedgwick to cross the street, and ran him down. She then returned the car to Sheila’s home, where the man who’d delivered it got behind the wheel and drove away. Once Borger had been informed that Sedgwick was dead, he called Sheila and said, “The cruise has been canceled.” She instantly came out of her trance state and had no memory whatsoever of any aspect of what had happened, including her visits to Borger and Carla’s violent act against Mark Sedgwick.

  Borger knew, of course, that there would come a day when Sheila Klaus would have to be eliminated to ensure that her amnesia was truly permanent. There was always the threat that she’d end up with someone else who practiced hypnosis and have her programming undone.

  But that was not his concern at that moment. Once his work with Iskander Itani was completed, he would bow out of the program. Sheila Klaus would be their problem.

  His only concern at the moment was to turn Itani into the perfect assassin, and he had nine days to do it.