“No,” Hammond said after a beat. “I won’t belabor the point, but looking over your high school and college records I see that you were not involved in any extracurricular activities. No sports, no clubs, not the debating team, or the trap and skeet squad. Can you tell us why?”
McGarvey leaned over to Paterson. “Is this necessary, Carleton? What the hell is he looking for?” “Leadership qualities, and they can ask anything they want to ask.” McGarvey turned back and shook his head.
“None of that interested me, Senator.” “What did you do with your spare time? Scouting, fishing, hunting, camping?” “I wasn’t in the Scouts, but I did fish and hunt with my father. I helped around the ranch, and when I was fifteen I learned how to fly-fish.” “You were a loner even then,” Hammond said, and before McGarvey could say anything, Madden sat forward, a file open in front of her. “Were you large for your age, Mr. McGarvey,” she asked. “I mean in school, were you bigger than the other kids in your class?” “I don’t understand the question.”
“Oh, it’s simple. I’d like to know if you were the big kid on the block. You know, the class bully.” McGarvey smiled and shook his head. “I was big, but I wasn’t the bully. My father drummed into my head from the start that fighting never solved anything. We had one rule in our house, and that was: no hitting. My father never even spanked me.” “What if you did something wrong? Did he send you to bed without supper?” Brenda Madden asked with a smirk. “He would explain to me what I did wrong and tell me that he was disappointed in me.
That’s all. That was worse than a beating.” “That’s a curious view for a man who, along with his wife, worked on nuclear weapons at Los Alamos. Wouldn’t you think?” “No.” “No hitting,” Brenda Madden mused, as if she found the notion quaint. “And no involvement in the glee club, no homecoming king, or football team excuse me, I forgot, no hitting. But you didn’t even join the cheer-leading squad. Or was it because you were barred from those activities?” Paterson’s hand shot out and clamped over the microphone. “What’s she getting at?” “I’d almost forgotten,” McGarvey answered. “Mr. McGarvey?” Brenda Madden prompted. Paterson hesitated a moment, then removed his hand. “No, I was not barred from after-school activities. It was a mutual agreement between my parents and the school board. It was a small town, and I was a good student.”
“But you agreed not to play sports. Why?” “I was involved in an after-school fight. It was a long time ago.” Brenda Madden held up a Finney County Department of Juvenile Justice file. “There were four of them. Football players. It was strongly suspected that you had used some sort of a weapon. They believe that it might have been a baseball bat. All four of those boys ended up in the hospital, two of them in critical condition.” Senator Hammond was beaming. Some of the other senators, however, looked either uncomfortable or puzzled. “One of them is still confined to a wheelchair,” Brenda Madden hammered. She looked directly at the television cameras. “But I find it terribly odd that nothing happened as a result except to bar Mr. McGarvey from after-school activities. The families of the four boys didn’t even sue. Certainly your parents had enough money. They owned a rather substantial ranch. In fact they were wealthy by the standards of those days. Yet no lawsuits. Unless payments were made under the table.”
She smiled viciously. “Which was it, Mr. McGarvey? Payments under the table, or were the families simply terrified of retribution from a loner. Maybe by today’s standards a Columbine High School odd duck.”
“Objection,” Paterson broke in. “I assume that those are sealed juvenile court records, Madam Senator.” “That’s of no consequence “
“There was no weapon,” McGarvey said. “You don’t have to answer to such an obvious smear tactic,” Paterson warned. He was angry. Madden and Hammond were loving it. “You were saying, Mr. McGarvey?” Madden prompted again. “I didn’t use a weapon.” “You hurt those boys with your bare fists?” “Yes.” Madden looked to Hammond, but he shrugged.
This was her ball, he would let her run with it. “Over what? Were you arguing over something they said to you. Did they call you a name?”
“They were gang-raping an eleven-year-old girl in the woods behind the school. I stopped them.” Brenda Madden’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. “We’ll check that,” Hammond said. He shuffled some files.
“Now, moving-” “If Senator Madden had done her homework, she would have discovered that the four boys were sent to juvenile detention until they were twenty one. One of them died in a knife fight in prison, one of them committed suicide shortly after he got out, and the other two, so far as I know, are still alive. I never followed up.” Except for a few sniggers in the audience, the chamber was silent. “It’s not something I’m proud of, Senator Madden,” he said. “But I don’t like bullies. Never have.” “What sort of chores, Mr. McGarvey?” the committee’s vice chairman Senator John Clawson, asked. He was the senior Republican from Montana, a Westerner, tall, outdoorsy, who felt more comfortable in jeans than in a business suit. He was a rancher.
“On the ranch?” McGarvey asked. Hammond broke in. “I think that we have spent sufficient time on Mr. McGarvey’s youth.” “Indulge me, Tom,” Clawson said easily. McGarvey shrugged. “Mostly feeding cattle.” “While they were out on the range. Probably during the winter when the grass was scarce for them. You rode in the back of a truck or hay wagon, and tossed hay bales to them.” “Something like that.”
“That’s not an easy job,” Clawson said to Brenda Madden. “I did it myself as a kid. Builds up your muscles, gives you a huge appetite.
Puts on pounds real early.” He smiled. “No mystery there.” “I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “At least you have one friend,” Paterson said in an aside to McGarvey. “I would like to move on, if possible,”
Hammond said. “There are a few areas of concern that I’d like to touch on today. If we can get to them we’ll meet in camera tomorrow.” There were no objections. “You joined the air force directly out of college, finished OCS and were commissioned a second lieutenant in October.
Subsequently you attended the Air Force Intelligence Officers schools at Lackland Air Force Base and Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, and then were assigned to embassy duty in Saigon.” Hammond looked up from the file he was reading from. “Is all of that correct?” “Yes.” “What was your job in Saigon?” “Senator, I don’t know if that material is still classified. I’ll have to check on it for you.” “It’s not classified,” Hammond said. He passed a document to one of the Senate pages, who brought it to the witness table. It was a release of documents form under the Freedom of Information Act. Paterson looked it over and gave it to McGarvey. The release contained a list of twenty-one separate operations for a period between the summer of 1970 and the winter of 1972. McGarvey had been there for most of that time.
“Recognize any of these?” McGarvey glanced through the list, and he knew immediately which operation Hammond would home in on and why.
“Most of them.” “Operation Phoenix-II,” Hammond said. “Were you involved with it?” “Yes, I was,” McGarvey said. Hammond had not disappointed him. “Could you tell us about it?” “It was a South Vietnamese military operation. Captured VC and North Vietnamese regular army prisoners, especially officers and noncoms, were brought in from the field to a divisional headquarters in Saigon, where they were extensively debriefed. The results were collated and the information was shared with special U.S. and South Vietnamese field units.” “What kind of information?” Hammond asked. “What were they looking for, specifically?” “They were trying to find out the names, ranks and locations of high-ranking North Vietnamese officers.” “For what reason?” “They were targeted for assassination.” “Were you personally involved in any of these hit squads?” Hammond asked. “Did you assassinate any of the targeted officers?” McGarvey glanced again at the list. “Phoenix-II was the fact-finding mission. The field operations themselves are still classified.” “But you were involved, weren’t you,” Brenda Madden said, unable to contain herself. “You were right up to your elbows in blood over there. It must have been a grand time.” McGarvey counted to five, maintaining as close to a neutral expression on his face as he could. But Senator Madden must have seen something, because she flinched. “Fifty thousand American men and women were killed in Vietnam, Senator. I can’t believe that it was a grand time, as you put it, for anyone over there.” He shook his head.