August 1, 1966: The Texas Sniper

August 1, 1966: Guns, insanity, Texas, and toxic masculinity: A dangerous combination under any conditions. Never more so than on this day.

Charles Joseph Whitman was born on June 24, 1941, in the Miami suburb of Lake Worth, Florida. His father was physically and verbally abusive to his wife and children. He was also a firearms collector who taught his sons the proper use and care of guns. He later said of his namesake, "Charlie could plug the eye out of a squirrel by the time he was sixteen."

Young Charles was intelligent enough to make Eagle Scout within 2 years after joining the Boy Scouts. At 14, he had saved up enough money from a newspaper route to buy a motorcycle. But a month before graduating from high school, his father beat him up and threw him into the pool. So, after graduation, he ran away, and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. In the Marines, "Sniper" is a category that must be achieved, and he never achieved it, despite his later characterization as "the Texas Sniper." But he did score very high in marksmanship.

In 1961, as part of the Naval Enlisted Science and Education Program (NESEP), an initiative designed to send enlisted personnel to college to train as engineers, and after graduation, be commissioned as officers, the Corps allowed him to return to civilian life, and to study mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, in Austin. (Then, as now, the Marines require a college degree to promote someone to officer, although it can be something like this, or the Army or Naval War College.)

The University's Main Building is a 307-foot, 27-story tower, opened in 1937, 5 blocks west of the University's famed Memorial Stadium. Whitman was not a good student, and the Marines considered his grades insufficient for continuing his scholarship, and recalled him to active duty in 1963 -- but not before looking up at the Main Building, and remarking to a fellow student, "A person could stand off an army from atop of it before they got him."

With his return to the Corps, his college credits got him a promotion to Lance Corporal. But he had become a compulsive gambler, and in November 1963 -- the same month in which another man who had been a Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested for assassinating President John F. Kennedy -- Whitman was court-martialed on various charges related to his gambling. He was sentenced to 30 days' confinement and 90 days' hard labor, and busted back down to buck Private. Nevertheless, on time, he was honorably discharged, and returned to UT, and his wife, Kathleen Leissner.

He began experiencing headaches, and abusing amphetamines. His mother finally left his abusive father, and his younger brother went with her, both going to Austin to be close to Charles. On two occasions, Charles hit Kathleen, and he began to be afraid he would turn out like his father. He saw several doctors, including a psychiatrist who prescribed Valium.

On the night of July 31, 1966, at the age of 25, he typed out a suicide note, saying, "I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks."

In this note, he asked for an autopsy to be performed, to find out if there was a medical cause for his actions, not that he would ever know. And he said that he was going to kill his mother and his wife, not out of any anger toward them, but to relieve them of their suffering. But he did not mention using the Main Building's tower.

He killed his mother shortly after midnight on August 1, and his wife at around 3:00 AM, both by stabbing them in the heart. At 11:35 AM, he told a security guard at the Main Building that he was there to deliver equipment. He got to the observation deck on the 28th floor, killing 3 people along the way, took out his rifle, and started shooting.

For 1 hour and 36 minutes, he kept firing, before Patrolman Houston McCoy of the Austin Police Department fired a shot that killed him. There were 14 victims from his rifle, with 31 others suffering non-fatal wounds. In total Whitman had killed 19 people in a little over 12 hours.

The following day, an autopsy was performed, and a "pecan-sized" brain tumor was found, pressing against Whitman's amygdala, a part of the brain related to anxiety and "fight or flight" responses.

Just 18 days before Whitman's shooting, Richard Speck had killed 8 nursing students in Chicago. This seemingly back-to-back occurrence would seem routine today, but, at the time, it was terribly shocking. On March 18, 1968, running for President, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, his life already touched by gun violence, gave a speech at the University of Kansas:

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.

Our gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods, and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.

It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Just 16 days after that, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. And, 62 days after that, so was RFK. Crime was out of control -- but, in the case of Charles Whitman, it was, as it so often seems to be these days, both a medical and a mental health issue.

The University of Texas increased security for the Main Building, but has kept it in use. In 1972, Harry Chapin released a song title "Sniper," a mostly-fictionalized account of the events, and put in on an album he titled Sniper and Other Love Songs. In 1975, Kurt Russell starred in the film The Deadly Tower.

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August 1, 1966 was a Monday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the California Angels, 4-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Joe Pepitone hit a home run, and Mickey Mantle went 1-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the San Francisco Giants, 4-2 at Shea Stadium. Willie Mays went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros, 6-5 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The former Shibe Park had reduced its former 447-foot center field corner to 410 feet, but Dick Allen still sent a drive out there in the bottom of the 10th inning, and made an inside-the-park home run.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. For 7innings, Tommie Sisk outpitched Sandy Koufax. But the Dodgers tied the game in the 8th, and scored 4 runs in the 9th, including home runs by John Roseboro and Jim Gilliam, to make a winning pitcher out of Phil Regan. Games like that, where Regan would become the winning pitcher, led to his being nicknamed "The Vulture." Roberto Clemente went 3-for-4, and drive in the Pirates' only run.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Jimmie Hall hit 2 home runs, and Earl Battey added one. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-4. For the Sox, Tony Conigliaro hit a home run, but Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Pete Rose went 1-for-4.

* The Washington Senators beat the Kansas City Athletics, 6-4 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were rained out at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader 2 days later. The Tigers won the opener, 3-1. Ken Berry hit a home run off Mickey Lolich in the top of the 9th. But in the bottom of the 9th, the Tigers tied the game off Bruce Howard, and then Jim Northtrup hit a 2-run home run off Hoyt Wilhelm to win it.

The White Sox won the nightcap, 6-3, by scoring 5 runs in the top of the 8th. Al Kaline went 0-for-3 with a walk in the 1st game, and sat out the 2nd game.

* And the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs were not scheduled.