Comment by sengstrom
12 years ago
A little gem from the article: "It was an extremely ugly, long (2 years!) divorce hearing: it made the newspapers because of Bell’s allegations of “extreme cruelty” by Feynman, including the notion that he spent all of his waking hours either doing calculus and playing the bongos."
That quote omits the actual alleged "extreme cruelty":
"...the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly working calculus problems in his head as soon as awake, while driving car, sitting in living room, and so forth, and that his one hobby was playing his African drums. His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he attacked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture."
Still sounds kind of vague. What, precisely, does the word "attacked" refer to?
11 replies →
Reading the letters would help. A physical attack. "Choking"
But I would highly doubt her credibility having read her smear letter and the questioning methods they did those times, and the four years needed for the divorce.
p64: from an "Los Angeles Times" report 7/18/56 "His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture."
The other citations left out the choking part literally: "...the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly working calculus problems in his head as soon as awake, while driving car, sitting in living room, and so forth, and that his one hobby was playing his African drums. His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he attacked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture."
I wonder what she wrote on the deleted 13 consecutive pages attachment at the end about his "Evidence of Disloyalty" and "Personality and Character", that the even the FBI decided to delete it. And a second questioning about 2 specific points brought nothing specific, so it was only this famous single letter. I find it interesting how she made up the numbered list of arguments which sound like FBI wordings, probably influenced by the questioning method.
She is summarized by the FBI as "She said that her personal feeling is that FEYNMAN is without character or acceptable moral fiber. She ... emphatically he is not acceptable to her as an appointment to any position with the U.S. Government which would require moral character and emotional stability." (p188) And she refused to furnish a signed statement on these allegations.
if only we could all live in a world where the highest form of domestic abuse was calculus and playing drums.
At that time, in those jurisdictions, you could only get divorced under very precise circumstances. One of the few ways was for one spouse, typically the woman, to assert "extreme cruelty."
I don't know any more about this divorce than anyone else here but I do know that at the time people did whatever it took to fit in the required "extreme" criteria.
It was also a matter of mutual agreement; sometimes the husband and wife would agree to accuse each other of crap like that. You know you have terrible public policy when couples are incentivized to slander each other in order to separate amicably.
Another common ruse was setting up a fake adultery with the help of an accommodating friend. One spouse would take a picture of the other spouse and the friend coming out of a motel room. Instant grounds for divorce.
It said "including", not "exclusively", and continued loud music is a well-known psychological torture used in detainee interrogation...
There's a big difference between blasting music in someone's face for hours and playing an instrument regularly.