I don't know why I don't remember the early incarnation of the story of these three young men from New York in about 1980. I mean, I was still living in the State, but perhaps, just out of law school and newly licensed, looking for a job, I was so pre-occupied, and I just missed it. Three boys, identical triplets, had each been adopted by different families. Though they each knew they were adopted, they had no idea, nor did their parents, that they had siblings.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
Nor, as it turns out, were they or their adoptive parents told they were part of a troubling, and still largely secret, experiment about nature versus nurture.
It all started out looking like it would have a happy ending. Robert goes to his first day of class at a community college in Sullivan County, New York. Everyone seems to know him. Everyone calls him "Eddy". This Eddy would be a sophomore, except one of Eddy's friends knows that Eddy isn't coming back to school and that this newbie isn't Eddy. But physically, he is his doppelganger. He figures right away, he must be Eddy's twin. Robert and Eddy are introduced, and, unbelievably, the story of the twins runs in the New York papers and reveals, a third boy, David.
Identical? Yes. And no. One, seems to me was shorter than the others. And although features were much the same, as you begin to see them in photos and home video and in old television shows (they were on all of them), you see they have different expressions. They definitely had different upbringings, one in an upper class home, one in a middle class home and one in a lower middle class home. They shared certain traits, body movements, tastes in food and drink, and style, as well as some interests, which the public craved seeing as something of a circus magic. It was all very harmless.
Except it wasn't. As the families sought more information, specifically on why the boys were separated at birth by the Louise Wise Adoption Agency (now defunct, it specialized in the adoption of Jewish children)--they were told that it was because they believed no one would adopt all three--it became clear that there was a buried truth. A sinister truth? Certainly the consequences seem sinister, whatever were the motives of the agency, and the Jewish Board of Children's and Family Services and The Neubauer Child Development Center who were conducting some kind of longitudinal study on the development of the three boys and approximately thirteen other pairs (not clear if there were other triplets). There were mysterious home visits from time to time by agents related to the adoptions. The families were told generally that it was being done in all adoptions to follow up on the adoptees. Nobody in those days, the early 1960s, asked questions. These were the people who looked after you right? They wouldn't lie to you, right?
When the boys were presented to the world, things about them looked relatively normal. Well, normal, except that one of them had gotten into legal trouble in an incident where someone was murdered--but his tangential involvement had not resulted in imprisonment. But now the boys were inseparable. They were inseparable until they started a business together, a restaurant, and then the differences in their personalities began to manifest themselves. They didn't know one another, not really. They hadn't grown up together. Robert left the partnership.
And then Eddy, who was ultimately diagnosed as manic depressive, was even hospitalized at one point, shot himself in 1995 leaving behind a wife and child.
Whatever this study was, it was never published, but over the years things leaked out--for example, it seems that some if not many of the birth parents had mental illness of one kind or another. And, each of the boys had in their teen years psychological struggles. Not all of the parents could handle it. Eddys adopted father speculates that there must have been something he failed to teach his son.
Whatever it all was about, none of the people consented to being subjects of the experiment, of the study. The leader of the study, Dr. Peter Neubauer, was a student of Anna Freud, born in Austria, well renowned child psychiatrist, never spoke of the study. He died in 2008 in his 90s. A couple very tangential individuals, one a psychologist and the other a woman who had been an assistant of the doctor, had little to offer, other than notes and a slight discomfort at the ethics of the whole procedure, and perhaps a sense of irony that the experiment was largely performed under the aegis of Jewish institutions. And there is the added stipulation by Neubauer, upon his death and the bequest of his papers, including the raw material of the study, that nothing be released until the year 2066, which has to raise hackles and all kinds of theories, none of them cheerful.
Since the release of the movie, and the naturally intense questioning of the conduct of scientists and caregivers, documents have been made available. They provide some information. But since none of it was put together in a cohesive form, conclusions as to purpose and outcome remain ambiguous. And then much was redacted.
Really, there aren't any answers, I suppose. Only questions. Were they harmed by the uncompleted study? You can answer yes, easily. Or no. The two remaining siblings note, in articles about the film, that they have had relatively normal lives. But what if they had been raised together by one set of adoptive parents? Would Eddy still be alive today? Or was his genetic disposition too much to overcome? Or was his having a perfection driven adoptive father one of the triggers for his inability to cope with his manic depression? Would Robert be so sad?
What bothers us? What bothers me? Powerful people took and held secret control over aspects, if not large dimensions, of many lives. More than that. These were people who thought of themselves as good. They probably were "good" in all other aspects of their lives.
But that's what we fail to understand. Human beings, all human beings, regardless of race, color, or creed are capable of victimizing others. There is never a good reason. But there are always justifications.
No comments:
Post a Comment