Personal History (62 page)

It had finally penetrated to me that Phil’s diagnosis was manic-depression, but the whole issue of treatment—or, indeed, even what manic-depression was—I didn’t really comprehend. Although the illness was now named, I didn’t know what its outcome usually was if not properly treated with a combination of drugs and psychiatry. I certainly didn’t understand something that I learned later from Dr. Kay Jamison, the author
of
An Unquiet Mind
, about her own manic-depression. She has written that it is “a lethal illness, particularly if left untreated, or wrongly treated.” And, of course, much less was known then. Lithium was only in the experimental stages, being used mostly in Europe; it wasn’t in clinical practice here.

Electric-shock treatment had been used routinely with manic-depression for decades and at least should have been considered for someone who was severely depressed or severely manic. Though it had improved considerably since the 1950s, electric shock was still a rough therapy, with many cases of convulsions leading to cracked ribs and broken backs. It might still have been the preferred treatment at the time, but a place like Chestnut Lodge, which prided itself on psychodynamic or psychoanalytic treatment, would certainly not have used it.

In any case, Phil had a deep aversion to both drugs and shock treatment—an antipathy that had been inculcated in him by Farber and reinforced by his having seen the negative effects on our friend Frank Wisner. Phil may have been a victim not only of Farber’s peculiar form of psychotherapy, but of the timing of his illness and of his own antidrug attitude. I don’t know whether there still exists a branch of psychiatry that treats manic-depression by shunning drugs and relying completely on talk therapy and discussions of existential philosophy, but I hope not. I don’t believe you can reach people in the depths of depression or in the heights of mania through mere talking.

It bothers me still that I was so passive about the nature of Phil’s illness and so accepting of Farber for so long. I’m not sure why I didn’t insist on more of an explanation. Perhaps I was just holding on to the naïve notion that all would be well. I don’t think I would have felt so optimistic had I seen something Phil wrote at that time, addressed to Scotty Reston but never sent. It was a little essay on balance and moderation and being “middle-of-the-road,” all written out in careful longhand. This turned up later in Phil’s papers, and I sent it to Scotty when I found it. It’s hard to fathom why he addressed these thoughts specifically to Scotty and why he didn’t send them, but they reflect thinking that—had we known of it—might have led us all to a different decision about whether he was ready to have a day away from the hospital. Phil wrote:

Phil very much wanted to go to Glen Welby for a break from the hospital, and had started to work on the doctors to obtain their permission. There was a sharp difference of opinion among the doctors at the Lodge about whether this was a good idea, but no one ever asked me if there was liquor or sleeping pills at the farm, nor did I think to mention the guns we had there. I, who certainly knew the farm was stocked with guns that Phil used for sport, was completely deluded by his seeming progress, lack of visible depression, and determination to get well; in fact, I was optimistic about his ability to do so. One doctor at the Lodge told a friend later, “Phil was determined to get out and really was unbelievably masterful in his ability to manipulate people.” He even got the patients to take a vote among themselves—and he went to them to argue his case and get them on his side. Naturally, they voted that he be allowed to go. During one of his hospital stays, Phil had confided to his friend and colleague Jim Truitt that when he was sick he made people dance “the devil’s dance.” Indeed, Dr. Cameron once remarked to me that someone like Phil, especially in his manic moods, could pull people into going along in some way with his
madness, becoming part of it. “When I look back,” Anne Truitt said, “I see Phil as a dervish.… He’s going round and round—dancing himself the devil’s dance and pulling into his orbit—nearly magnetically—everyone whom he touched.” I see now that we were all enablers, in the long run not helping him in the least in the end.

Even I started asking people what they thought. I asked Ed Williams, among others, and he was very bothered afterwards that he had said yes, Phil should be allowed out. My own doctor, Dr. Cameron, who had an office at Chestnut Lodge, thought the whole idea of Phil’s leaving the hospital for a weekend at the beginning of August was definitely premature.

In any event, Phil won. And I must say I was glad. He wanted so much to go to the farm, and I got caught up in thinking how good it would be for him—he loved Glen Welby and was always so happy there.

The night before we were to go to the farm, I had dinner with my neighbor Kay Halle, whose brother-in-law was Dr. George Crile, Jr., of the Cleveland Clinic. He walked me home and asked if Phil was being given drugs. When I said no, he expressed surprise and told me that, according to what he knew, drugs were absolutely necessary for Phil’s future. I remained skeptical that Phil would ever agree to drugs, given his feelings about them, but I thought of pursuing this when he went back to the Lodge after our time at the farm.

On Saturday, August 3, Phil’s driver picked him up at Chestnut Lodge, and then they came to R Street to get me. One of the things Phil had said he wanted to do was to work on farm problems while he was there, so I had asked Buck Nalls to come up to the house in the afternoon. I remember that Phil expressed surprise at my having asked Buck to come, no doubt having forgotten that he had mentioned working on the farm as one of his reasons for going there.

We had lunch on two trays on the back porch at Glen Welby, chatting and listening to some classical records. After lunch, we went upstairs to our bedroom for a nap. After a short while, Phil got up, saying he wanted to lie down in a separate bedroom he sometimes used. Only a few minutes later, there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off indoors. I bolted out of the room and ran around in a frenzy looking for him. When I opened the door to a downstairs bathroom, I found him.

It was so profoundly shocking and traumatizing—he was so obviously dead and the wounds were so ghastly to look at—that I just ran into the next room and buried my head in my hands, trying to absorb that this had really happened, this dreadful thing that had hung over us for the last six years, which he had discussed with me and with the doctors, but which he had not been talking about in recent weeks, when he was obviously most seriously thinking about it. The sight had been so appalling that I knew I
couldn’t go back in, so I ran to call Buck and our caretaker, William Smith, for help. They had heard the gunshot and appeared immediately.

I finally went back upstairs to my bedroom and used a direct phone to the paper. There was a much-loved phone operator named Molly Parker who had been at the
Post
almost fifty years, and luckily she was there. I told her what had happened and that I needed help. I made a call to Dr. Cameron, and then just sat and waited. The next thing I can remember is the arrival of the local police, whom, I suppose, Buck and William had called. Finally, Alfred and Jean Friendly arrived, bringing Don with them. Don and I walked along the road, consoling and sustaining each other.

What I was agonizing about was that I had let him leave the bedroom alone. I can only say that he seemed so much better that I stupidly was not worried enough. It had never occurred to me that he must have planned the whole day at Glen Welby to get to his guns as a way of freeing himself forever from the watchful eyes of the doctors—and the world. He left no note of any kind. I believe that Phil came to the sad conclusion that he would never again lead a normal life. I also think that he realized the illness would recur. As Kay Jamison has written, “There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness.” However he himself defined his illness, Phil was well aware of the damaging effects of it on others and on him. I think he felt he’d done such harm the last time around that he just couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t fix everything. It was unendurable to him not only that he couldn’t make any of it right but that he might cause more hurt again. I concluded all of this only later; at the time, I could barely deal with the reality of what had happened and begin to handle the shock to all of us.

Essentially I had gone through losing Phil twice. First he left, and there was all the embittering agony of that time since Christmas. Then to have that horror over, to have him back, was an impossible dream come true. But that, too, was now over, and a very different kind of grief consumed us all.

It took most of the afternoon before we could leave Glen Welby. Al took charge—informing authorities, dealing with the practicalities, seeing that family and close friends knew. Someone, I suppose the local coroner, came and removed the body. One oddly distinct vignette in my memory is of a strange man walking into the library where Don and the Friendlys and I were sitting. We looked at him, puzzled, and he said, “I’m from the
Washington Evening Star
and they sent me down to check on the story that Mr. Graham is dead.” I just nodded, and Al took him out of the room.

Finally, we got into the Friendlys’ car to go back to R Street, with Don and me sitting together in back. About halfway to town, I asked the rhetorical question, “What’s going to happen to all of us?” Al turned
around and pointed at me without saying a word, distinctly meaning that I had to do it. But the whole notion went right past me, as did most everything else that day.

When we got back to the house, some friends had already arrived, and more and more gathered. Finally, there was almost a wake of people—not one of whom I can remember except for Lorraine Cooper. I went to bed late that night, after everyone had left. Years later, Ed Williams told me that he had come over even later that night—he had no idea at what time—and walked right in the open back door. He had gotten very drunk and was looking for me. Distraught, he walked all around the blackened first floor, found no one, and left.

The next day, the nightmare of the reality began to set in. Phil’s death was the most unbelievable and awful shock to all the children, particularly the younger ones. Lally and Don, at least, were more aware of his illness and its implications; Bill and Steve, on the other hand, faced the suddenness of the loss without any preparation for an ending to the difficult months of separation.

Bill, then fifteen years old, flew home from camp. Lou Eckstrand, our housekeeper and sort of sitter, went to get Stevie. Don flew with Charlie Paradise to Idlewild Airport in New York, to meet Lally and Luvie Pearson, who had also been on the trip with Mother, and who accompanied Lally home. My mother wasn’t up to the trip and stayed on the yacht. She sent me a heartfelt and sad wire, saying she needed us to come to her and urging me to return with Lally and Luvie:

Don also met Scotty and Sally Reston and brought them back, too, on the company plane. They had come home from Europe as soon as they heard. In one of the many phone calls in those difficult days, I had urged the Restons not to interrupt their trip, assuring them that I needed and wanted them, but later, and begging them not to come then—to which they replied, “We are coming.”

T
HE NEXT FEW
days were what everyone goes through even with normal deaths, let alone the suicide of a prominent individual. Letters and
telegrams and flowers began flooding in. I think I read very few of the letters then, but I read each of them carefully later. In an odd way, being active and making arrangements have a numbing effect and help get you over the cold realization of what has happened and the loss you are facing. Many people helped so much—especially the two older children—both with arrangements and with emotional problems and issues. Phil’s father had had a series of strokes and had been quite ill—I’m not sure whether he was even told of Phil’s suicide. He died several months later. Bill Graham was his usual wonderful self, helpful to me in every way.