Tape #12 Dr. Michael E. DeBakey and

Don

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

‘DR. DeBAKEY:

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DR. DeBAKEY:

Schanche, Houston 8/13/72

About Liotta's background?

He's an Argentine. He took his medical work in
Argentina and did some work there in the kind of

an inadequate way, really, on...working on a pump,
an artificial pump, but it was very crude and ina
poorly controlled scientific....

Now this was in Argentina?

Then he came here as a fellow, actually he came
here from , he'd had a year, I think, up in Cleveland
and wanted to spend some....to get some training in
surgery, in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, and
he came in as a fellow, you see, we couldn't take
him as a resident. He didn't have the proper back-
ground, | ~

Did he have a surgical residency?

No, he never did. He's typical of many of the South
Americans really who first have very little in the way

of ethical dicipline, and secondly many have very poor

and inadequate ‘medical backgrounds, Thirdly, they
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are very sloppy in their thinking, particularly in
relation to any scientific matter, it's hard for them

to get the concept that you're supposed to have with

precise data. It's one of the most difficult things

when I had to work with him, to get him to be
precise in his data. He was always very vague
about it. This was terribly frustrating for

Dr. Hall, who was the..... To show you how
lacking in ethics he was, he sent an abstract, it's
in that....

Yeah, I saw that, right.

He sent an abstract to.....

Explaining he'd done ten calves before he'd even
done the first one. :-. Ho
Yeah, hadn't even done the first one. And giving
the results. Then when they questioned him about
it, well, he said, I had to get something in the
program. And I said, well, °° you can't submit

data that you haven't even started to collect, how

can you do that. Well, he said, he thought that
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could be taken care of by the time he got.....you
know, just sloppy thinking. No understanding that
what he did was wrong.

You didn't see that abstract until.....

No, I didn't know it, until the program came.....

Well, it was after the program came out. When I

called his attention to it, that's the answer he gave me.
Even so, that was like a week or two after when he
and C€ooley.....

I've forgotten, the dates are there. Anyway, I had

to wire them and told them I had to withdraw the
program, It's incredible. And this the way.....

you see, you talk to him, it's like trying to reach

_ out and grab hold of something and it keeps getting

away. Like a piece of sponge rubber, you just,
nothing solid to get hold of. You just can't talk
to him in any precise way and this was always the
incredible part of our discussions. He sat right
there in the chair in my office and told me that,

yeah, he had agreed to work with Dr. Cooley and

.
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to put this in a human patient. And I said, well,
how can you possibly advise him to do that when
you know none of the calves survived even a day?

Well, he didn't ....he said, actually he wasn't sure

that he recommended that to Dr. Cooley. And I said,

well, you took the pumps over there and you admit

you took them over there in your briefcase, virtually
stole them from the laboratory. Yeah, because

Dr. Cooley wanted them. He began then to put more

of the blame on Dr. Cooley, so he was the one
responsible for putting it in the patient, which he was.
But Dr. Cooley obviously believed what he said, because

he never saw the animals, he didn't know anything about

“what took place.

Well Cooley did see one of the animals because one of
the assistants said that they described him coming out
of the film room......

I think he came over, yeah, I think he came over

one night, late at night and they photographed an

animal, One of them said that that happened.

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But even so, there the data was very clear. These
animals couldn't survive and nobody has yet been
able to get an animal to survive very long, It's

just incredible. What is even more incredible is

his statement to me that we ought to have one
available in every operating room, and if the

patient isn't getting off the table, put him on it.
Well, I said what are you going to accomplish?

Oh, you can do a lot of research that way. And

I said, well, you can do that research on animals,
can't you? What are you going to accomplish ?

And he said, oh, but you'd be using human beings.
And I said, well, I know, but do you think it's
ethical to prolong the death of a human being? How
do you communicate with a person whose mind works
like that? That's the incredible part.

When he came here as a Fellow, what was his major
emphasis. He just wanted to learn something about
cardiovascular surgery.

Yeah, sure. He wanted to learn something about

cardiovascular surgery.
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~6—

But his primary interest and background was in trying
build a pump.
Well, his prim--- he wanted to do that. He had
attempted to work in that field, but he didn't really
have much in the way of a scientific background or
training to work in that field, and his ‘mnowledge of
‘physiology, for example, was primitive. He didn't
even know how to collect data. (Phone)
He just back from his travels about the world, and
he made a great film that we are very pleased with
in Sweden, he's now cutting it. He's had pretty
active....some travels are pretty hectic, I guess
he did, that's what I heard. He wants, he may be
able to-come and visit with me. They want to film
this little film clip for the Muscular Dystrophy.
They're going to come down and do it. He wanted
me to appear on his Labor Day Telethon, I did it
last year and the year before, it's always fun to
be with him. But unfortunately I'm going to be in

Greece at that time.
Tape # 12

SCHANCHE:

"DR, DeBAKEY:

Well, back to Liotta. What led you to keep him
here and put him to work. You must have had
SOME. eoeee

Well, let me put it this way, when a man shows

a desire and interest to work in research lab, we

“try to make it available, and he did demonstrate

an interest in working in the lab and in doing this
kind of work there is a lot of sort of technical work
that has to be done, leg work. And you've got to
have some kind of technician to do it. So when he
indicated his:desire to work, we put him to work

in the lab. Dr. Hall, who then was with me, also
had just completed his training. Completed his
training in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, and
was well trained and had had considerable training
in physiology. So that he was a well trained
physiologist and had some scientific dicipline. So that
he was really in charge, I put him as director, and
he had Liotta and several other people, as a matter

of fact working under him, technical assistants, putting
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together the material, the equipment, doing the
particular pieces of experimental work on animals,
and doing certain experiments. He was, while
‘he was not a good scientists, he was a hand.

You have to have these hands to do a lot of the

amall pieces of sare of technical assisting things.
And that's all he wanted, he never wanted anything
else.

So Hall was. the primary worker. Hall left at the
end of 1968. Why did he. leave?

He got this very good offer from the Southwest
Foundation, which gave him a better job, more money
and an opportunity to sort of set up his own lab and
his own shop, so to speak. I-encouraged him to
take it. I thought it was a good....I hated to see
hie go, but at the same time, you can't advise a
man not to take an advance in his activity. He's
done well,

Well, when he left, that left Liotta alone there,

Yes, it left him alone, I hadn't been able to fill the
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job, but not entirely, because I was still supervising ©
it and directing it, even. directing the animal ex-
periments. This particular experiment, actually

we started before Dr. Hall left. He and I, in fact

I drew out the design, which actually is in one of

the papers, of how to put it together, before

Dr. Hall left. We started working on the design and
actually made a few models before Dr. Hall left.

So that all he had to do was to continue to.work on
the design which we..... He really had no innovative
concept at all. He was really quite a dull person.

I had already made up my mind that as soon as I

got a new director, I would get rid of him. But he

precipitated the necessity of getting rid of him, which ~~

really made it a lot easier. I felt sorry for him, even
when Dr. Hall would come to me and say, we've got
to. .do something about him, I can't continue to work
with him. I sort of pleaded with Hall to try to do
what he could to keep him on and at least for the

rest of this year and give him a chance to find

.
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something else to do, because he had no where to go.
Had he been....had anyone indicated to him that his
days were numbered?

I think he sensed it. He sensed it I'm sure, I

hadn't told him, because I hadn't given him a

“definite date.

Do you think that was a factor in his action?

I don't know, because you see, this, he started to

work with Dr. Cooley actually before that happened.
He started to work with Dr. Cooley, or at least he
told me, that they'd made an agreement to work

together secretly some four months before this

seceurred. Which, of course, would indicate that

he didn't realize that I was trying to get rid of him,

or I wanted to get rid of him, because [ hadn't said
anything to him and I don't think Dr. Hall had either,
except from time to time Dr. Hall would say I'm
going to speak to Dr. DeBakey about you. And I
think he may have had some sense of relief when
Dr. Hall left. Because Dr. Hall was the one that

put. the pressure on him all the time.
Tape #12 -ll.

DR. DeBAKEY: But I knew that he had to go, because as soon as
we got a new director, he would probably....
Even the people over there began to recognize that
there was something funny about him.
SCHANCHE: You, at some point prior to the animal experience,
a told ‘him that you did not think a ‘should use animal
or human valves, which he wanted to do, right.
DR, DeBAKEY: Yes, well, this is typical. I told him and Dr. Halil
| told him the same thing, that we'd been through that
and knew that that wouldn't work, it's not satisfactory.
What is more, if you're going to build an artificial
heart, you've got to build an artificial heart with
artificial valves. So I said, well, this is silly to
moron sean -- do something like this which leads nowhere, and
besides I'm certain that they wouldn't work satisfactorily,
but he insisted upon doing and went ahead anddid it.
These are the kind of things that used to irritate Hall.
And, of course, it didn't work. So I had to get after
him about that and then to my amazement he put in

the wrong kind of valve. I told him that those were
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the wrong kind of valves and that they too wouldn't
work.
Was that that Wan------ valve?

Yeah. So that's typical of the way he behaved when

Dr. Hall was here. He was in a sense almost

stupid about it. Just couldrit carry out proper
instructions. He used to get Hall so frustrated

and irritated, ‘You give a man directions , but if
you're going to stay there and do it, you may as
well not have him. But the reason you have him

is so that you can do something else.

One of the witnesses described him as a very good
plastics technician. Was he good at this sort of thing?
No, he really wasn't. He really wasn't doing any
of the plastics, that was done by the girls, they got
to be pretty good at it. You see, these things are
made using plastic materials because they're easy

to work. They can't possibly serve any long term
function, because they won't wear, but they're just

easy to work with, He was really not a good technician.

4
 

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When he was here as a Fellow in cardiovascular
surgery, we learned then that he was not a good
technician, as a matter of fact, one reason that I
was willing to let him work in the laboratory was
because I could see right off the bat that he would
never be a surgeon. He was just poor with his
hands. To some extent I think it was because he
never had any real training with his hands in
surgery, and secondly, there are just some people
who are inept. He was not a good technician for
anything really if he was going to be using his hands,
Was he an amiable sort?

Yeah, very.

So that he got through on this quality. ee
Yeah, he was very amiable and kind of ‘dull-like
you know, you'd give him hell and there wasn't a
response,

What did he look like?

Well, he was a kind of a heavy set, short---not
short, but about moderate, medium size, sort of

thick body.

Dark?
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~ DR, DeBAKEY: ~~

 

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Not dark complexioned, but brunette. He was a
.»ss.she had a rather dull-looking face. He had a
kind of a stupid look on his face. He didn't have
any real life in his face. Dull-looking face, we have

pictures of him.

“Well, right after the incident, he and Cooley did

two things: one, they substituted the paper on that
operation for the one that you had pulled from.....
and another, they applied for permission from the
committee on human experimentation.

Well, that was a later thing.

Yeah, well, that was not long after this. Within a
couple of months.

Well, you” see, when I fired him, he went...Cooley
hired him. And Cooley at that point was trying to
develop a big program for experimental artificial hearts.
And put him in charge of it. And it again shows how
lacking in understanding of what it takes to do the job,

because Cooley had never had any experience in

experimental laboratories and somehow he had the

.
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the impression that Liotta had done all of this and
that he was very good at it. So he thought by
hiring him he could get him a program going right

away and it would show that he was really working

on the artificial heart. Well, of course, that proved

to be, that proved to be a great mistake. It wasn't
long before Cooley found out he couldn't do anything.
He put him, now I'm told all of this, because I don't
know except through second-hand accounts, so he
tried to use him as an assistant in surgery and he
bungled everything he did so badly they had to make
him quit operating, you know, even assisting. So
they put him in the catherization lab, working with
the people in catherization. He bungled that so badly,
he killed a couple of people, and so they threw him
out of that. There wasn't....they couldn't find any-
thing he could do, so they finally had to get rid of him.
Again, it shows how little he knew about this whole

program,
 

 

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Well, in trying to get the committee's approval of
experimenting with human subjects, was this just
something Cooley did for the record or was he

«did he honestly think that he could get approval?

I really don't know.

It's quite clear he had to have your.wsignature as
department chairman on it. |

Oh, sure.

Did you think he honestly expected you to approve ,
you would approve that?

Well, I don't know. what he expected. I think he
thought that by doing this, by showing that he was
developing an experimental program, that he might
have approval after the fact. Well, of course, my
reasons for disapproving it were-clear and-I gave
the arguments. Simply shows again how little he
really knew about the program, There was not
difficulty at all in getting this confirmed by the
committee because they had already, the research

committee already knew what was involved, they

a
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knew what the guidelines were and they knew this
didn't meet the guidelines. So how could you do it.
There was no, you know, if you read my letter,

my comments, there was no way that anyone could
argue this fact. These were facts. Again, you
see, it simply demonstrates how ignorant he was
about scientific experimental work, if he had any
sense at all, any understanding or appreciation of
good scientific experimental work, he would know.
better than to do what he did, but he didn't.

He was so, in a sense, so inherently, almost megalo-
maniac, about what:he: could or couldn't do, that he
didn't think he. needed any peers. This is absurd.
How did he get the St. Luke's committee to go along
with him?

Well, there wasn't a member of that committee that
knew any more than he did. That's one thing and
the second thing is that that committee is a, merely
a window-dressing committee, they don't really

function. They never have and the reason is they've

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never done any research over there, like we do here.
So they aren't even, let's say, knowledgeable in
research,

One thing that sort of astonishes me is the number of

people who seemed aware of what Cooley and Liotta

were up to , but didn't tell you. Didn't report this.

Well, I don't agree with you and that really astonishes

me too, but you've got to keep in mind that most of

these people are pretty second rate people to begin

with. They are mediocre people and secondly they

are the kind of people that don't want to get involved

in anything, they're afraid to tell me, simply because

they were afraid to get involved. So they avoided

telling me. That's the measure of their mediocrity, really.
Well, two of them at Rice, Dr. Hellums and Mr. O'Bannion,
both knew two days before that Cooley was going to
implant this in a human being and both wouldn't have
anything to do with it. I would think that one of them
would have called you with some concern and said, hey,

do you know what's going on over there.

.
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Well, I would have thought so, too. I can't
understand that. But again I polint out to you...
They're responsible enough: to ....they didn't

want to get involved.

But they're not....they're pretty mediocre people
and you've got to accept the fact that they are
mediocre and that I've known all along. That's
what you had to work with. They are really not very
high grade of people,

Well, what's been the state of the artificial heart
project since then?

Well, it has moved, I think, reasonably well. I would

say that we have a much stronger program now because

we have been able to get better people into it and we © UT

are ....we have a pretty active program. One of the
most active in the country.

Who's directing it now?

Dr. John Kennedy. I brought him down to direct it.

He's a very good man, doing very well with the program.

He's a scientist, he deals with scientific......] think

‘
 

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he's done extremely well. But, it's a far cry from
being anywhere near ready for human use. We
cant keep these animals alive, the most we can

do is a week. They begin to deterioate from a day
to a week after the thing is implanted. So, that
we're a good ways yet from solving the problem. ~
That's the first thing. Secondly, we're a good
ways from having materials that will last. Materials
themselves will usually break down. It's really a
tough challenge.

Still the blood interface problem, too.

That's still present, exactly. That's still a big

problem. It's going to take time to finally resolve

all of these problems, but you've got to keep working

at it, you will never resolve them otherwise. It's

the only way to do it, In the meantime, there are

a number of spin-offs. from it. We also are better
equipped to do mechanical assistance. We understand
that better, we have better techniques for that.

So that that's doing a lot better. It will be quite
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a long time before that problem is fully resolved.
We're active, we have a program, I think our
program is a bigger program and a better program
in terms of research, than it's ever been.

Cooley had no program. This whole thing......
why ere. Absolutely, ... nee
A grand case of grand theft.

Well, sure, it was a grand theft and also you can't
help but feel that part of it was a publicity stunt,
because they had the TV people there, they had the
news people there and they were all ready, they
had the movie, they had everything , they were all
set. So, it was plain. The only extraordinary
thing to me isthat even the, some of the local news
people here knew about program, were thoroughly
aware of our program, they knew Cooley had no
part of it, and wasn't involved in the program. And
you'd think that they'd begin to question, you know,
where is this. What is this, how many hours did

you work on it, how many animals did you work on

and so on. It was amazing. ° Just shows the quality
 

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of the news media here and the news reporters.
Well....I'm not really acquainted with any of the
.+e+ebut, I guess you don't have the top flight....
reporters and medical writers here, do you.
They're pretty second rate. Very second rate.
you knee, to be very honest with you, I think,

at least my experience with news media people
would indicate to me that you've got the same
sort of bell curve in everything else, and that you
have only a small, very small percentage of

top flight people and the rest of them really are
either mediocre or even worse. Always amazes
me when I got to someplace and they want, the
TV people there. and the news reporters there, and ~~~ --—-->-
they don't even know what questions to ask you.
They don't know enough about it to ask you an
intelligent question about it. A good many of
them substitute, want to substitute for an intelligent
news report something sensational. That's a

substitute for lack of being able to do a good job.

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-mistakes, -

~23~

That's true of all.....

Well, that's true in all areas. I'm sure it's true
among lawyers and bankers and everybody else.
You've got people.....

Journalists fix it so they can usually survive their

In the Karp case, Cooley's report on

that, on the two operations, he makes it very,

an obvious effort to make it seem that Karp recovered
consciousness and was happy and talking and in a
splendid state of mind after the first operation, with
the pumps in him.

That's not true. See, again, that's being dishonest.
Even his report is dishonest.

Well, I noticed in the investigating committee's report
they spoke of Karp as being semi-comatose.

Yeah,

In that period and then comatose after that.

That's right. You see, when they....well, he was
He was not

comatose when they transplanted him.

he was virtually dead when they did the transplant,
 

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Because his kidneys were...had already died.
His reaction was typical, The animals did the
same thing. Right afterwards they look like
they are alive, they look like they react, for a

few hours, and now we can keep them looking

like that for a few days, but they all do the same

things. Their kidneys go out, their lungs go out,

their brains go out, and it's a very progressive
deterioating kind of phenomenon, Once that occurs,
once you start that deterioation, there's no way ta
come back, no way to bring them back. The argument
that he used, and I think you may have seen it in one

of the papers, was that he did this in order to save

___this man's life, hoping that he could then have a donor.

Well, now that is an invalid argument, because you
never know when you can get a donor. And the only
way then, if you're going to do that, the only way
that you could do it, would be to do it when you
have a donor available, and then transplant. So if

you're going to do that, why not just transplant it.
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That is the....now we've had patients, for example,
who are ....who have waited for weeks and weeks
for a donor and then died, because we didn't have

a donor. A donor is an accident, you can't alter

the accident or can you predict when it's going to
occur. It's a very special accident. It requires~--

a very special kind of accident to a relatively

young person, An accident which simply destroys

the brain. So to say that he planned to just use

this as an emergency measure, waiting for a donor
merely indicates that he was simply planning to do it.
Not to save the man's life, because if he was going
to operate on him to save his life, he could be....
he waited a month to operate on him and at the time
he operated, he wasn't any worse than he was when
got in.

There was one perplexing thing in the report and that
is that the patient did not want a transplant.

He didn't , that's right. He didn't want a transplant.

Had he ever agreed to this?
 

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- That's a serious question. Nobody can be sure.

He handled it himself, and he said that he finally
did agree to it, but he had made this tlaim before.

I don't know any more about it-than what people

have told me, so I have to go by what others have

said.

In the animal. work that Liotta did, the last calf

that he kept alive »as a cadaver for 44 hours,
curiously in his false abstract he said for periods

of from 24 to 44 hours, didn't he. D6 you suppose

he did that just to cover up his tracks in that abstract?
The fact that he needed one 44 hour figure to.....
Well, I'm not so sure that, I wouldn't want to say

for certain, because I had said , I had told him, ©

_you see, I had to get to him, I would go over each

animal as the animal experiment, then I +..we would
go over thenext animal,and I told him, I said, now
on one of these animals what I want you to do is to
continue to pump the animal even though the animal

is dead neurologically, Because we want to see how

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long we can actually pump the animal and keep a
pressure going and too we want to also test the
mechanical equipment, and thirdly, I wanted to

find out what effect this had on the blood for that
long. So we could get blood studies. Now the
interesting thing that he didn't do....he did it ~
but then he didn't get the data,

Then he didn't do the blood studies?

No. I raised almight hell about that. So it may
well....he may have been doing it with that purpose
in mind too, I don't know. He was very peculiar
in mentality really.

Did he have to have your authorization before
doing an animal experiment in each:case?
Yes, oh yes.

I notice that Cooley did actually pay for two of those.
No, he didn't,

He had bills of sale in there, you know, the charges.
No, no, But they never were paid. He tried to do

that, and sent this over to the Business Office....
Tape # 12

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:
SCHANCHE:
DR, DeBAKEY:
SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

-28-

All the correspondence is there,
Yeah, he tried, but he didn't. The Business Office
called me about it and said he was paying for two....

and I said what for? This was all after this

happened,

But the dates on them are in February, three months
before.

I know... I know, they were post dated,

Oh, you mean, then that stuff came in afterwards,

That shows again how dishonest he was. It's incredible.
He's hard to believe.

That's what I'm saying, it's hard to believe all of this.

It's incredible. The Business Office called me and said

‘now did “you authorize this, and I said, well, of course

not. It's ridiculous. They said well, they've sent over
the funds to pay for two calves. And I said well, why
two? Why didn't they want to pay for all of them?
Again, it's just incredible, it's hard to believe what
took place,

The scene when you learned about this, you were in

%

Washington,
Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

-29.

Yeah, you see, I had left to go to Washington for
a meeting of a special committee on the artificial
heart as a matter offact, I was a member of the
committee. And I hadn't the slightest idea that

this was taking place, and when I arrived in

‘Washington it was the first I knew about it-that-- |

evening, The next morning all the members of

the committee knew about it and asked me about it.
Who told you that evening, did someone call from
down here?

I think, if I remember correctly, I got in-to

the hotel....

Was that the Hay-Adams?

The Hay-Adams. And I'm trying to remember

but I think someone did call me from down here

to tell me about it. I've forgotten who. But,

I did get the word that night, but I didn't get any.....
I didn't know the facts about it. So the next morning
when I got to .....well, actually the next morning
on the television news they had a picture of the

artificial heart and Liotta and Cooley there and
 

Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:
DR, DeBAKEY:
SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

~3Q-

there was the pump, the one we made in the
laboratory. They had been using it on their own.
It was obvious. You could look at the pictures

and see. It's just incredible.

So you were at the Hay-Adams and you learned
more detail in the morning.......

No, all they knew was what had been presented in
the news and I've forgotten who said something.

I don't remember, one of my associates here called
me.

Did you debate telephoning Cooley or Liotta? .

No. That wasn't important now, I knew that.
Because. they knew they had done something that
was really dishone st.

Well, the next morning where was your meeting?
At NIH. In Bethesda,

What did people say? Did you set the scene?
Well,they asked me about it and I said I don't know

anything about it, gentlemen, I don't know more than

you know. I left Washington,...I left Houston last

.
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

-3i-

night and arrived here, and found out about it last
night just ina phone call that it occurred and that's
all I knew. They were anxious to go into details.
And they were particularly intrigued that Cooley had
done this because they hadn't associated him with
this work at all. I said, no, he hasn't done any
work on it, I just don't know. Finally when I got
back, well Cooper was anxious to get all the details.
Cooper was.....+....you too on this.

Yeah, that's right. And he wanted to get all the
facts. And I said, now you write me a letter and
tell me specifically what you want, and I'll get it

for you when I get back. So he wrote me as president

' of the college to get the facts’ and particularly to get

the facts relating as to whether or not this was, had

been approved by the research committee, because

they have the responsiblity. The funds are approved

only on the basis that they follow the guidelines.

Well, of course, it hadn't been approved by the committee

at all. That put us in great jeopardy because, you see,

‘
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

~32-

because the committee was responsible. That's when
we had to establish an investigating committee and
Iimmediately recognized that it would be best for
me to just pull out of the whole thing because I
knew that there would be few......that DeBakey is
trying to persecute Cooley, you see. So I got out
it completely and had nothing to do with the investi-
gation in any way. Mr. McCollum appointed the
committee and appointed the committee and the .
trustees and the board of the faculty, the board of
trustees and the faculty asa second committee to
review the findings of the committee and to make

recommendations about what action they should take.

_And that's when the committee recommended that he

‘be removed from the faculty. That's when we were

forced in a sense by the NIH reviewing committee
that came down, they sent another committee to
investigate the whole school, and that reviewing
committee made a report which substantiated our

reviewing committee, but in addition to that, the NIH
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

-33-

wanted some kind of assurance that this wouldn't.
happen again, That's when we developed the
mechanism of having every faculty member sign

a statement, He was told by intermediaries that

the faculty committee had recommended that he be

dropped from the faculty, in other words dismissed.

So he used this as an excuse to resign. Well,

from the standpoint of our board and faculty, it

didn't make any difference what excuse he used to
resign, as long as he was off the faculty, that's all.
The school wanted it, because the school was only
concerned about what would happen to the school

in terms of research funds. By getting rid of him

we then had reassurance on the part of everybody

that we had taken all the action that we needed to

take. They wanted to know what action were we taking
about this, we just couldrit let it go unattended. That's
when he wrote his letter and you saw my letter, didn't
you in response to his.

During that same time period, another Baylor faculty

4
Tape # 12

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

-34.

member transplanted an eye, that must have been
an unwanted embarrassment to top off....
Oh, Jesus, and how. I don't know what got into

this young fellow. He's a kind of nice boy, very

obviously lacking in judgernent and I don't know

' what got into him to believe that this could be done

successfully. Because you can't transplant the

eye without in,a sense transplanting the communications
to the brain, the nerves, | Everybody knows that
doesn't work, So un.........that this man save,
well, he tried to claim that what he was doing

was trying to transplant an eye so that it would act
as a false eye but look like an eye. Well, of course,
that was absurd too. No way that you could get that
to take, it would be rejected too. Well, the whole
thing, you know, was nonsense, and then he made

the great mistake of telling the reporter something
that she claimed he didn't tell them. They claimed

he did and he got into controversy there, We really

were very much embarrassed about it.

‘
Tape # 12 -35-

SCHANCHE: What happened to ....what action did you take in
that case?

DR. DeBAKEY: Oh, he was censored, given a year in which he was
not to engage in any research activities of any kind
on a sort of probation period and then finally he
— ‘really sort of taken off of the full time staff.

He still had the clinical appointment, but he ....

SCHANCHE: He's still here.

DR.DeBAKEY: Yeah. It's hard to believe that a professional man
with any sense of ethics and any sense of knowledge
about the field would do things like this. It's hard
to explain, very hard to explain.

SCHANCHE: Well, to have two of these disastrous events right on
top-of each other-like that, didn't that kind of shake

your faith in your own ability to control the faculty’?

DR. DeBAKEY: Well, it shook my faith in human beings, I must say,
It was very depressing. Very definitely. You see,
Don, frankly, the medical profession is like any
other group of people, they have the same bell curve,
with a very small percentage who are really top notch

in quality, now unfortunately the general impression is
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

=36-

that all doctors are top notch in quality. The
truth of the matter is that they're made up of
people like the people they come from in that

society. And in that society you've got people

of all qualities and all characters and all spectrum

“of ethics, Those that are very high in ethical

character to those that are really little or none,
actually to the criminal areas. So in among

the medical profession you have this too. I think
I would hope and believe that among the medical
profession you perhaps have a little higher quality,
at least of educated people who've been exposed to

better standards, but there still remains that segment

that is very flexible, and whose avarice and greed

bends their ethics easily.

Wow the.....

‘And then you have those who really are sort of
ignorant enough, and yet ambitious enough, to believe
they can get away with certain things and they try to

do SO e
Tape # 12

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

~37-

The guy who did the eye operation, I gather he

also had the .......to get the approval of the
committee....

No, not only that , but he hadn't done any research.
He was like Cooley, he didn't have any research
background either. That's what's incredible.

It's just like that, now you take Cooley, performing
that operation where he transplanted that ram's heart,
now, first that shows @ great...e.

I've seen that. referred to in some places as a pig's
heart and......

No, it was a ram's heart. It was in the newspapers.
It showed a picture of it, They tell some funny stories
about how the ram kind of slipped away from them and
they had to run around and catch him. But that illustrates,
you see, the fact that a person is ignorant.

But the report said, Mike, that the ram got away and
they couldn't get his heart out so they shifted to a pig
because they couldn't control the ram. The operation
actually was with a, according to the news reports,
was a pig's heart. Tried the ram, but the ram was

kind of rambunctious for them,
rape # 12 ~32.

DR. DeBAKEY: Well, I'm a little vague on the details of that now,
I'd have to go back and get the....

SCHANCHE: You know, even thinking about a ram's heart is
pretty stupid.

DR. DeBAKEY: Why, sure. They had a ram there, that I know,

- " because people have told me, people saw the ram

there, but even so, I mean, it simply shows a lack ,
well, again, thre are two things lacking, one is
ignorance, lack of knowledge, and the other is ethics.
You know, you wouldn't, no ethically sound person
would do a thing like this. This is the worst kind

of experimentation, on a human beings. And then

to hide behind wanting to save somebody's life by

-doing this, that's even worse, that's being doubly . 0.000.

dishonest. If he believed that he was trying to save
somebody's life that way, then he is more ignorant
than he should be. He shouldn't be doing this. kind
of work if he's that ignorant. It's really just that
simply.

SCHANCHE: One last question about Liotta. Liotta wrote a very
Tape # 12

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SGHANCHE

DR. DeBAKEY:

-39-

bitter and accusatory letter to the editor of whatever
publication it was that you finally published the .
research report on the animal experiments. Disclaiming
eeeee accusing you of stealing his notes and misinter-

preting them and so forth. And I didn't find any

7 response to that and wondered if there was any.

I don't know whether there was....whether the editor
prepared a response, I'll have to check that to see.
Atvthe time that I saw it, I said disregard it, we
have the signed statements of every single co-author
on that paper, that everything in there is correct.
So I had their signed statements and I did this

purposely, Idon't do this as a routine. You just

_take it for granted, but I sort of deliberately must

admit put him in the position he was in in the paper
because I wanted to assign him in a sense the status
that he had. You see, he had contributed nothing to
this program, except as a.technical assistant.

Did you write that paper?

I wrote every damn word of it. Of course. Listen,
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

~40 ~

e
I wrote most of everything else. Virtually every

other paper, the ones which we even gave him,

_all the previous papers where we gave him and

tried to help him a little bit, you know, as I do

with most of my people. To help them get some

kind of bibliography, I'M put their names first
on a paper, and frequently will put my name
last, and yet I've written every damn word of it.
Now either Hall or I wrote everything, he, of
course, couldn't write at all. There was nothing
he could do really well. My attitude towards the
letter was to ignore him.

Let's shift now to just the whole subject of heart

transplantation. You're not doing it now and I

gather you'’. have a.....

No, you see, our position on the transplantation

is essentially this and it. was in that editorial which

I wrote. |

Yeah, I want copies of that editorial. I've made a note

of it.
Tape # 12 ~41

DR, DeBAKEY: Didn't I give a copy to you?

SCHANCHE: I have a copy of it over there, but I want a copy
of my own, so I'll have a copy of it.

DR.DeBAKEY: Well, why don't you just take a copy of it?

SCHANCHE: Have you got one?

DR.DeBAKEY: Let me just look here. I was going through some

~ things here and I may have---no, that's not it.
You've seenthat article that I....did I give you a
copy of the thing that was in Saturday Review on
medical research?

SCHANCHE: Yeah,

DR. DeBAKEY: I wrote that before I had actually done a single case
and yet that was done really with the purpose of setting
in a sense my point of view. Which in a sense re-
‘presents our point of view on the basis of our own

experimental work and the experimental work of others.

It's really in a sense almost prophetic, because if we

take the clinical experience that we've had and others

have had, or let's say, everything I've said in.there

has proved to be true. And it simply goes to show

that if you have enought facts, whether they are

experimental. or clinical, you can make pretty good
Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

-42-

projections. You don't have to be a prophet

except in the sense that you can make prophetic
statements on the basis of what the facts show.

In other words, you in a sense, can make a

better guess about what the future holds. Now,

our position is at the moment still the same. We

have not stopped doing heart transplants, what we

have done is found that we don't have the indications
to do them, as we had before. That's one. Two:

we find that the need to do them is really not as
pressing as it was because we have moved ahead
in....the greatest need was in coronary surgery,

we've moved ahead in really applying better methods

in dealing with coronary disease now than: we-could
before. Secondly, the procedure of cardiac transplanta-
tion interms of what you can accomplish makes the
-.-.limits its application even more stringently, because
now we do know clinically what the experience experi-
mentally had shown. We've confirmed it clinically.

So that you would have to say to a person who needs

‘
Tape # 12

DR.DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

~A3 m

a cardiac, because you can't treat him with anything
else, now, you're chances of surviving more than

a year are perhaps one in five. About 20%.

Well, he might say, well, what:are my chances of
surviving a year if I don't have it? It's very difficult
to say. Some may survive two or three years if ~~
they don't have it. . Unless a person is actually

dying, well, now under those circumstances, you

don't have a donor. So the combination of having

the need and a donor come so rarely, we don't...

just haven't had that experience. We've had patients

die because there just wasn't anything else we could
do with their heart, but we didn't have a donor to
transplant,

But you've stopped actively looking for them, right?

No, not entirely, because we're still doing kidney
transplants, and so we're still using the same donors.
And when we have a donor for a kidney who might also

provide a heart, we often we need at that moment.

So the indication has become so restricted, so to speak,
Tape # 12
DR, DeBAKEY:
! - SCHANCHE:

| DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

END OF SIDE

-44-

that the occasion to do one really has virtually not
eccurred, That is to have the combination of factors.
During that brief period in 1968 the occasion seemed

to occur frequently.

Yes, but the reason for that was that we weren't

able to do for these patients what we can do for them
now in the way of coronary, you see, they were
virtually all coronary artery disease patients, there
was only one congenital case, and one patient with....
and he was dying and that almost an accident, there
was a good example.

That was the Yugoslav boy.

Yeah, that was 4 good example of having all the things
happen at the same time. The donor arrived that after-
noon, the patient was dying, and within a few hours
after the donor arrived we were transplanting his
heart. He wouldn't have survived that night. He was
dying in his room. But that was a good example of

a combination of facts,

Well, does the future hold for transplants, from all

that you now know......

A
Tape # 12

SIDE B

DR, DeBAKEY:

-SCHANCHE:
DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

-45-

.e.ein any program because it allows for research,
and it's a sort of gateway for research. It's useful
in that sense. And of course kidney transplants, now
that's different, and I point that out in the editorial.
There 1. think it does have ‘some usefulness and I
think it may be more useful in the future, because
you can transplant kidneys, you have a wider range
of donors, you have a larger period of time, you
can even preserve them, so that there is a wider
range of donor availability, the logistics there is

a different problem. It's the only organ we can

transplant with any degree of success.

Other than the cornea. cece ccnteta te waste sense tents tavtiwe sia te wuts

‘Well, the cornea is not an organ, it's just.... tissue.

Well, do you see a time coming when immunology will
reach a state where you won't have rejection?

Yeah, that's possible, yeah,

Wouldn't that then make the operation more ....

You'd still have your donor problem, of course,

‘
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKREY:

SCHANCHE:

-46-

Still have the donor problem and it would certainly
be, let's say, more, yes, it would have greater
usefulness, but it still wouldn't have wide usefulness,
The donor problem would still be the major problem.
You're still confident that the artificial heart will
become a reality? —

Yes, you see, there isn't any good theoretical reason
why it shouldn't. It's not like, let's say, immunoligically
let's say the rejection problem, there are some
theoretical reasons why it may not be solved, until
you can solve the true genetic basis for it. Well,

if you can....the trouble with that is if you reach
that point where you can change the genetics of tissue,
then, of course, you can do other things. You can do
things which may avoid the necessity for a transplant,
in terms of the disease itself. My feeling is that
theoretically you have a better chance of achieving

an artificial heart than you have in transplantation.
There's no theoretical reason why you shouldn't be

able to do this.

Is this mostly a question of money at this stage?
Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

- SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

-47-

Well, it is a question of money, I wouldn't say

it's mostly that, but it certainly a......

In other words, if we went at this as a national

commitment, like we did for space or the moon

shot, and you put in three to five billion dollars

a year on it, there's no question in my mind it

would be solved in five years. But you've got to

have money like to mobilize the total resources

of the country.... you've got metallurgists, you've

got plastic chemists, and so. on, working on those

other things because there isn't the money for them

to work on this. That's what the space people did,

they just polled all of these people in industry and

elsewhere to work on various aspects of it.

As it's ‘going now, even though it's fairly extensive
work, it's still a relatively small program, eee

Not as far as the national program is concerned,

you see, it ....I'd say something like two and a
half billion dollars for total research monies are

available, you're spending about five or six million

dollars.
Tape # 12

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

~-48~-

Is that it, I thought it was about ten million.

No, nowhere near that,

How much of that is being spent here?

About close to $375,000.

Figures of two and three million dollars in the
investigation of the members, they're talking ‘about |

all the research money in cardiovascular research.
No, no. In terms of the artificial heart program,
they're talking about the grant which was over a
period of say, four to six years the total monies
granted, It amounts to around $375,000 a year.

Well,. draw me a picture of what you see to be

the future of medicine in terms of developing

artificial body hearts and prolonging useful life. _
Well, you see, it's very difficult to draw that kind

of a picture. People like to think in those simplicity
terms, but that isn't...that's not reality, that's not
the way things develop. The way things go in medicine
is based largely upon, the direction of medical services ,
medical care and health delivery, is largely dependent

upon what knowldege, what knowledge brings it.
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

-49.

In other words, what are the scientific, what are
the fruits of science in investigation. Depending
upon what those are, will be shaped the way medical
care goes, You take this to illustrate the point,

let's assume that science within the next five years

brings us a way of temporarily stopping the circulation
and all metabolism of the body for a temporary period,
so that a person could essentially go into hibernation.
This is an animal who hibernates, goes into hibernation,
the heart may beat once or twice a minute. The circu-
lation is slowed down to almost stopping. If that should
become possible for a matter of several hours or longer
then you could reverse the process at will, the whole
concept of anesthesiology would be wiped out.- There is
a speciality that would disappear. Now, let's assume
that science finds a way to prevent arteries from
becoming arteriosclerotic. There is a whole area of
medicine, both in internal medicine and surgery, that
would be wiped out.completely. Now, these are the

kind of developments that could take place and nobody

‘
Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY :

-50-

can say when they'll occur, but they're possible,
they're conceivable, they're possible. That would
shape greatly the whole field of medical practice.
Certainly.

That would reduce so much the need for certain

~ things, like an artificial heart. - Let's take another

illustration, let's assume that the work in genetics
proceeds to the point where it can actually be
manipulated so that one could predict genetically
whether or not there is going to be any birth defects,
congenital defects. The whole field of congenital

heart disease would disappear. My feeling is that
rather than try to predict what the shape of medical
care is going to be like, that is whether we are going
to have artificial parts for the body, whether there is
a need for, let& say an artificial heart or artificial lung,
and so on, that I certainly would hope and I believe
that before we have all of these things , we're going
to have these other developments take place which will

eliminate the need for these things. And that's, I think,
Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

- SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

~5]~

a much more effective way of dealing with the
problem and in spite of the fact that we may not....
direct our funds for research along these lines,
Research has a way of proceeding frequently to
develop these kinds of activities. Even by people
who are not directing them toward that ultimate... 7
goal, the person who is working in genetics may not
really be directing his research with the purpose
of trying to eliminate congenital heart disease.

He knows little about it.

Yeah. And th....if you go back over the history of
medicine, you'll find in general these are the big
developments that have influenced the practice of
medicine.

Well, you think the great breakthroughs will occur
in medical biology rather than ......

Clinical...oh, yes, certainly, no question about it.
Definitely, and this is what's happened in the past.
The future can best be prophesied by an analysis
of the past and that's why it's so important to look

back and see what has taken place in order to

.
Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:
SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

-52-

determine as much as you can what is going to
happen in the future. Now you take in the field

of polio, we had extensive centers for victims of
polio and you remember the Sister Kenney program
and so on, and the polio March of Dimes program,
they had, they were virtually wiped out, and there
were these people, who had. a tremendous investment
in this, all of a sudden now they were wiped out
because there was a polio vaccine developed, They
had almost to turn around to find something else
to do. Because here was a whole field of activity
that was wiped out completely, all by this break-
through, really , in science. It gave them
specifically the cause and then the development of
the vaccine. oe
Weren't the results of a famous.....almost gone
into.....to combat pneumonia, wasn't there, in the
thirties, at regional centers.....

Oh, yes, that's right. Yeah.

This was wiped out by penicillin, wasn't it?

Exactly. Completely.
 

Tape # 12

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeR AKEY:

~53-

These are the things that are going to shape
medical practice in the future.

‘So you would like to be put out of business.
Yeah, of course, And we will be, someday, I

think. There's no question about it, this whole

field, -

You still need these things, assuming that all of
these remarkable events, advances, you will still
need the.....because you will have all kinds of
injuries....

Well, sure. There'll be surgeons still needed
because you've got trauma and until all that occurs
of course, you still have a great need for the kinds
of things we're doing and we need to improve them
let's say, refine them, make them less risky.

So we need to work on what we're doing, no question
about that. WhatI'm talking about how, what the
future holds in terms of things that will be practiced
ten or fifteen years from now. I think that we'll see
some very great developments, no question about

in my mind, scientists are going to continue to work.

*
Tape # 12

DR. DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

SCHANCHE:

DR, DeBAKEY:

~54.

They'll be trying to solve these problems,

We're very close to that kind of genetic under-
standing right now.

Very close. Absolutely. And there are some genetic
defects they can predict now. They can predict at
least in terms of let's say the odds. So that's why
they've set up these genetic counseling services,
and I think they're great things. I can visualize
the time when they may not be able to at least
prevent all of these things, but they can predict
their occurance withreasonable accuracy. And if so
I can visualize the time when they'll have to pass

laws and say you can't have a child, you've got the....

the odds are..too great ....that you're going to have a

defective child and society will have to take care of it.
You have licenses for marriage.

It's really going to raise...... problems, isn't it?
Yeah, sure it is. You have licenses and you have
laws, for example, that you've got to take a test, a
blood test before you can get married. Well, somebody

says that's an invasion of privacytoo. But that's also
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55.

necessary for the protection of society. Now, if we
have enough: facts to be able to predict with reasonable
accuracy two people getting married and having a child
and bring him into this world with a high percentage
of accuracy and a high incidence of defects, shouldn't
be allowed ‘to bring that child in., because society has
to take care of that child, it's a burden on society.

So you're justified to be in control of that.

Speaking of child....let's leave medicine and go back
to your childhood. in telling me about your early
years, you didn't mention friends, playmates and so
forth. Who were your close friends ? Can you give

me some names.

-Well, I guess one of my closest friends was a fella

by the name of Peewee Hines, Ed Hines.

Peewee?

Yeah, we called him Peewee, that was his nickname,

He was the son. of a Presbyterian minister and lived
just a few blocks from us and we were in class together.

We got on together very well, I used to play, he played

‘
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-56-

in the band and so did I. We played music for the
church on Sunday evenings.

What did he play?

He played the coronet. I played the saxe.

He was one of. my closest friends, but I had lots

of playmates, friends in school.....

What did you do? ‘What were the pleasures of
boyhood in that part of Louisiana at that time?
Well, we played baseball, we hunted andfished,
and we played other games, football, baseball;
we played pool, we had a pool table.

At your house?

Yeah.

Were you good?

Pretty good.

Do you ever shoot now?

Well, I have one in my home now, that a doctor gave
me that I operated on, it's one of those old fashion
types, real ly sort of a collector's item now,
Carved....

Ornate.

Yeah. We just recently had it redone. The children

‘
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-57~

play with it, they play on it, and their friends.

I occasionally will play with them, but I haven't

played in so long that I've lost my touch with it.

Did you ever triumph, like running a hundred

straight balls in straight pool?

Well, yeah, when I was a youngster, my brother

was much better, he really was quite a player.

He played at it quite intensely and I used to play

just for the fun of it. I wouldn't play often I

liked to do a lot of other things. He was quite

good, though. Sometimes, I'd play with him

and we'd play a game called fifty no count.

Ya. had to run fifty points or you didn't get any~-

thing. And we'd play three or four games like

that and the fella who ran the highest count

though he didn't make fifty, won the game,

even

the

three games out of five, or something like that.

We used to play eight ball. But, you see,
a lot of things as a kid, I was very active.

chores, worked....

I did

I did
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What were your chores?

Well, I worked in the store after hours, I delivered, -
I cleaned the store, and I kept the books when [ got
a little older. By the time I was twelve, fourteen
years of age, my father taught me how to keep books.
I was pretty busy. And I gardened, in my vegetable
garden, I won the first prize regularly. Wé used to
have what they called the tri-parrish contest and
they'd come around and look at your garden and the
products of it and I was pretty good at it.

What would you grow in it?

Oh, I grew everything. Corn, tomatoes, peppers,
okra, radishes,

Where was the garden?

In the back yard. We had a big yard,

How large was the yard.?

Oh, we had a yard that was quite large, you see,
There were only three houses in our whole block, so
I guess we had a yard that was something like maybe

a hundred fifty feet frontage and two: hundred feet depth.
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-59-

Well, your garden was what about twenty by
thirty feet?

Oh, it was larger than that. It was about fifty
by a hundred, It was a pretty good size garden,

and I kept it spic and span.

Oh, yes, you had to,to be in'the contest. You had
to do everything yourself. And I kept it absolutely
spic and span, and precise, the rows, you could take
a string and see the rows were right straight down
that string and things like that. That's the way
they....the criteria for whether you won or not.

It's sort of like a 4-H Club contest.

Yeah, exactly. So I really, with all this, I was very

active, always. And it was fun.

When you went hunting, did it bother you to kill animals?
No. I wasn't aware of that at that time, it didn't
bother me at all, because everybody did it, you know.

It was fun shooting and the fun came from being able

to hit your mark.
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Would you go and camp out?

Yeah, oh, yes. Sometimes we'd camp out for three
days, four days. We'd go up the river, for example,
in the summer fishing and we'd go camp up the river,

way up.

_ Who would go? Tell me about a fishing trip.

Well, there would be maybe three or four or five

of us.

You and Peewee and who else?

Oh, several other boys. I can't think of their names now.
And we'd go up the river and we'd take packs with us

and stay overnight and you know, in the summer time

it was hot. We didn't have to have too much, at

night it would cool off a: bit so that you could sleep

. easy under a net, we always had to carry a net because

of all the mosquitos.

All the bugs.

Yeah, the bugs. And we'd fish and cook our fish.
What kind of fish would you catch?

Perch and what we called goggle eye, a form of perch.

And catfish, and we'd clean them and cook them ourselves.

s
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Very tasty, fresh fish.

Well, that's kind of Tom Sawyerish.

Well, you see, you've got to keep in mind, this is
life in a small town , a country town, you had to

make your own amusements. We didn't have television.

' We'd maybe go to a movie about once every two or

three weeks or something like that.

That was before talkies, wasn't it?

Oh, it was, silent movies. So you made your own
amusements, and what time you had left between your
chores and school, you had to amuse yourself by
what you did. We used to make our own toys, for

example. Pop-guns, we used to make them ourselves.

And what we called at that time, sling-shots, We made

them, we didn't buy them in the store, they didn't sell
them.

Those pop-guns, do you mean rubber band jobs?

No, the pop-guns, what we called pop-guns, was, you
took a cane, I guess you'd call them reeds, we called
them canes,‘ their wild growing canes, and we'd cut

them at the ends and you had a hollow tube, then you
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-62-

a piece of wood and you shaped a stem to fit that
tube, and you had a handle and it fitted it almost
perfect---almost perfect. Then you would mash the
end of it a bit and thread it so that you had the

treads of it coming back and that acted as a kind of...

when you wet it, wet it with spit and that acted as _

a good suction seal, it fitted in tightly and with the
moisture, it sealed it. And we'd take these china

berries and fit them into this and shove one to near

the end of the tube, then you'd take the thing and pull

it back and you were ready now to pop it out of there
and you'd shove that end through and the air compression

would shove that thing out of there. You know, pretty

accurate for a distance of say fifteen, twenty feet.

That's pretty ingenuous. I've never heard of a.....
like that.

Yeah, we made them, used to make them, Of course,
there were plenty of china berries, ‘in the summer time
there were.....we 'd go up in the trees and fill your

pocket and then start shooting. Some of these guns
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-63-

were pretty fancy. You'd get you a good long
CANE. ceoee

Usually they'd not run over a foot, foot and a

half long?

No, that's about the length, most of them were
much shorter than that. About eight inches,

but you'd sometimes get a good long one and
we'd, you know, put our initials on them and
make little fancy things on them, they got to

be quite a nice job, you know. This was the

way you amused yourself, because we didn't have

a lot of money, nobody did to buy toys. We got
those at Christmas, then you didn't get many.
Usually they bought you things you'd wear. That
was the time you got your Sunday suit, so that
your parents had to be very careful what they
bought you for Christmas. They couldn't buy you
too much stuff that was a waste of money. So life
was a much simpler form, took a much simpler form

in a little small country town like that. I'm sure
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there are many, I'm sure there are hundreds of
communities just like the one I grew up in all

over the country. In a way, it's a shame that

there has not been developed a substitute for that

to conform with our ‘present existence.

You don't even have any country anymore.

No, that's what I say, no, you don't have any
country either, There is no substitute for the

kind of childhood activities, activities that a child
engaged in that kept him busy in a healthy manner.
He was occupied, and now there isn't anything to
occupy him, for him to take the initiative.

Nothing challenges his ingenuity and.....

No, that's right. And I think this is one of the _
great needs, I don't know how you'd get at it, maybe
there ought to be some way.

Television isn't it,

No, -definitely not. You see, it's too passive. A
child has a lot of energy. You've got to challenge
and channel that energy. To be sure there are some

games that do it, but you can't use games for the
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-65~-

whole thing, it's not a total substitute. And there
aren't enough chores for them to do. The more
complex urban life, like a large city, especially
a city where people live mostly in apartments,

there is very little that child can do.

“Yeah, there is very little place to play.

Where did you play baseball, for example?

Oh, we had empty lots all around the place

And there was of course the playground at the school,
both at the grammar school and the high school, a
big playground and we played there.

Did you play things like tennis, also?

Yeah, Well, we were more inclined to take on
rougher games. of course, baseball was very
popular then and all sandlots had their own baseball
team, in fact, I almost lost my eye playing baseball. |
How? |

Well, I was catcher and I caught without a mask,
largely because I had gotten away with it and secondly

because a well-fitting mask cost a lot of money in
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those days. So most of us caught without a mask.
I was too close to the batter, I got braver and
braver as I got away with it. If you were far
enough away, you could put.. .your reactions were

good enough to take care of it....a ball that was

“just tipped and I was too close. The batter tipped

the ball, and just hit me right there. Right in

the eye and I couldn't see out of that eye for some
ctime Actually they have never completely recovered...
never did completely recover normal sight in that eye.
What did you do about it?

Well, there wasn't anything to do at the time.

We did....the doctor saw it and decided the eye ani

put something over it, an eye patch. I did recover
most of the sight in it and as time went on I
compensated and I've had 20-15 vision ever since.

So I just had my eyes examined just recently, _Dr. Paton
examined me, gave me a new set of glasses, mostly
for distant vision, and he said that you've got excellent

eyesight, 20-15, best you can get,
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So you weren't handicapped?

No, I never was handicapped. No, thank goodness.
What other things did you do?

Well, I read a lot. I used to go to the library and

I always had three or four books from the library
that,.....and I'd read about everything.

Was Peewee Hines a reader,also? Were your friends
as intellectually curious as you were?

No, not as much. I guess I was much more intellectually
curious than my associates, I think, because I did a
lot more reading than they did. This was always
apparent in my class, too, because I had a much
broader general knowledge about things than any of my
classmates, Whenever a teacher asked a question if
there was anyone in the class that could answer, I was
the one that answered. This was because I read a lot.
They didn't read obviously as much as I did. I was
always getting books out of the library to read. My
problem was that my parents were determinedthat I

get to bed and they used to force me to get to bed
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because I wanted to read some more, I wasn't
sleepy. You know, 9:30, 10:00 o'clock came
along and I was still wide awake and wanted to
read some more and they insisted that I go to
bed.', It used to irritate the hell out of me and I
used to resent’ that.

They expected you to turn your lights out?

Oh, yeah.

You had electricity during that time.

Oh, yes, but not , for example, I think I was about,
I must have been about nine or ten years of age

before we got electricity. We had gas, and I can

still remember.....

Did you read by gas light?

Yeah, sure. I still remember lighting the gas.
The mantel?

And the mantel, yeah. We did. I can remember
putting that mantel on and using it, and I think I
must have been about eight or nine when we got

electricity. But we had electricity, my father put
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..-efather decided that he wasn't going to wait until
the whole town could be electrified.

You had your own generator.

So we had our own generator, yeah. So we had elec-
tricity long before ‘anyone in our neighborhood had
electricity. ‘He was very....-you know, he was

very productive, my father was. He was always
looking for something new and had a great interest
in new things. New developments, scientifically and
so on, anything that.....

He also became fairly well-to-do, didn't he?

Fairly well-to-do, yeah. Not a rich man, but

certainly very comfortable, quite comfortable.

He was a very successful.,..in his business and so

on. He could have, if he had, I'm sure if he had

been a person who wanted to ....who was just interested
in making a lot of money, he could have made more
money, but he was very energetic, but he was....sand
he was very active, and very successful in his business

enterprises, but I don't know, I just know that we were
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always very comfortable, even though we lived
rather simply. We had no difficulty, for example,
during the Depression. The Depression years, I
can remember at college, I was in college during
the Depression, and I can remember very well
sharing. my lunch money with some of my class-
mates. They didn't have any money, and yet I

had enough. I never suffered from needing anything.
IT wasn't, to be sure, extravagant either. But I
was one of the few people who had a car in those
days. That was rare, you know. When I asked
my father and told him that I would like to have a
car, he gave it to me, so I had a car. This was
after the Depression, really was after I got into
medical school that I got my car.

You told me once that your father followed the kind

of sleep schedule that you do now, that is he slept

. very little.

That's right. He was up at four o'clock in the morning.

He'd. get up......
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didn't,

-7l-

But he still wanted you in bed with the lights out .....
Well, I was a child and he felt that wasn't good for
me, just like he didn't think I ought to drink coffee.
And I really didn't drink coffee until I was in college.
We didn't drink coffee, the children, no the children
It was considered almost evil for a child to drink
coffee at that..... when I was a kid.

Yes, that 's right.

It would stunt your growth.

Well, all kinds of things that were bad for you,

so I didn't drink coffee. I acquired a taste for it
after college. But the one thing I never did acquire

a taste for at all is alcohol. It is very interesting.

Did you ever try? I mean, as a student.....

When I went to college, oh, yes. Sure, when I went
to college I. was seventeen and I was wanting to try

everything. I was very eager to find out about life,

and New Orleans was a good place to find it out.

A lot of my classmates were older and more
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experienced than I and many of them lived in
New Orleans, so they knew all about the city.
I was eager to try all of these things. The
strongest thing I had ever tasted, except as

medicine, we had alcohol, we had whiskey in

“the house, but my father was a teetotaler and he

wouldn't touch it.

What ailments....was the whiskey used for?

To cover up the taste of castor oil, Can you
imagine a better way of bringing up a child to

get off of whiskey. Even today, that's one reason
I can't stand the taste or odor of whiskey, because

I easily associate it with castor oil. So ...it's

repulsive to me. So, I took it when I got to college

with the boys, because I wanted to be a part of the
gang, and I sure as hell didn't want to be ostracized
in any way,so I'd drink this terrible rot-gut whiskey
that they had and it just made me sick. Didn't do

a thing for....

That was Prohibition, wasn!t it?
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Yeah, But it didn't do anything for me, it just
made me sick. So I just decided I couldn't do

it. I finally found I could have a good time without
doing it. It didn't bother me a bit.

What did you do on your first night out in the big

~ city?

I went downtown really. Went downtown with the
boys and we just ..... .

To the French Quarter?

Oh, yes, and I saw these cribs for example, they
took me down there, I had never seenthat before.
They told me that these were whores, prostitutes.

And I was ashamed, in a sense, to inquire, I thought

they obviously knew what this was all about and I

didn't. So I just sort of kept my mouth shut and
went along trying to find out more about it, faked

a little bit. And gradually, you see, I progressively
learned about what goes on. They had some dirty
shows that they put on and I saw some of those

things. But, you know, it's interesting isn't is, you'd
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never really, I guess I didn't ever get the kind

of kick the other people have. Somehow I suppose

I had some sense of, because I had been so
disciplined, I had some sense of guilt about it

all. And while I learned about it, I didn't find
myself attracted to.....

Not pleasures you could partake in.....

No, it didn't constitute any great pleasure for me.

I was a little ashamed of it. I just had this sense
of guilt about it, and so it wasn't long before I found
myself avoiding going down there with them to do
these things. I'd do the other things and I'd go: to
the speakeasy with them, too, because that was kind
of fun, you know. They had these little bands, combos
and so on, and I'd go down there with them and sip
a beer. I could get by with that, it wasn't very good
beer, either. But I'd sip it and they had somebody
singing.

Did you develop a taste for jazz?

Oh, yes. Well, I had already developed a taste for
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jazz before I had ever.....you know, I played
jazz. So we already played jazz before I left
Lake Charles, and I loved jazz. So I loved to

go down to the bands.

Who were some of the musicians, do you remember?

Most of them were Negroes. They had come white
musicians, but I don't remember the....well, of
course, they had some big name bands, they used
to come down there and we'd go down and see them,
Eddie Duchin and names like that. But they had a
lot of small bands, especially in these speakeasies
and very good, and they still do. Absolutely, sure.
Even, it was even kind of better in those days.
Much more commercialized now than it used to

be in the French Quarters.

Because it was more informal.

Yeah. That's right. Those people used to play
for very small amount of money. If they made
maybe ten dollars a night, that was a big thing for

them. Well, today, they are all seeking money.

4
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~76-

So they are all playing for money, not so much
for the fun of it. It's changed a great deal.
When you were a kid, were you ever a collector?
In anything, stamps or butterflies, or anything

like that.

“No. No, I didn't. I never had the bug of collecting.

I've never done a collection. I think, to be a collector
of any kind you've got to be.....well, you've got to
disregard all the aspects of life, and as I was growing
up, I was much too interested in everything going on
around me and I was....there were very few things
that didn't interest me. Things that I didn't want

to find out more about. So, I never could concentrate

on one single thing. I never got the bug of collecting

stamps or butterflies or pebbles or anything. It
never did appeal to me.

In your group of playmates, were there girls, too?
Or was it a society structured male and female.....

Yeah, sure. No, there were girls, We would have

some parties where girls and boys were mixed in the
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parties, but these were often programmed by the
older people. You know, they were church parties.
We had a boy scout party, where the girls....of
the families of the boys would come, sometimes
sisters,and , sO we... there was a mixture and

I used to like to be with the girls, too. We used
to date, Never in the fashion kids date today, for
instance, it was so informal. You'd walk the girl
home and then go to here house and sit down on
the swing for a few hours,something like that.

It wasn't as much....you didn't have the opportunity,
you see, you didn't have a car to go out in and
things like that. |

Did you have proms and dances?

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. But these were all sort of
sponsored , |

When did you first put on a tuxedo and give a girl
a corsage?

Oh, I would say, after I was, well, actually we

didn't wear them. The formal attire in those days
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was a white linen suit. We put on a white linen

suit and got all dressed up that way. After about

a couple of hours you didn't look like much either.

We didn't have air conditioning. That's the way
We.ees.. we didn't get into that kind of dress.

This occurred only after I was in college, some of

the formal dances we occasionally had to wear a

tux. And then the Debutantes dances and things like
that, this was much later.

Were you politically active as a.....?

No. |

Was your family?

No. Had no political sense of any kind.

Politics of that era in Louisiana sort of passed you

by.

Completely. Even the period of Hewey Long. Louisiana
is very political-minded state, but I never was involved
in it and I never got any interest in it at all. And my
father wasn't either. He wasn't politically involved.
No, I don't think I really became aware of politics

in the sense that I am aware of it now until after the war.

8
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-79-

And then only because I was really interested only
in what it....in what I found it could do for what
I was interested in in medicine. I wasn’t concerned
about, I'd say the politics of being a Democrat or

Republican. I was a Democrat because my father

was, we grew up in that environment.

Everyone was a Democrat.

Yeah, I had no sense of, you might say, political
concern or interest, but, I don't think any of my
associates did, my classmates and so on. The
youth of that generation was really not politically
involved.

Well, for very good reasons, only....almost everyone
was quite provincial at that time,

Yeah, sure. Exactly.

It's very hard to see beyond the town limits of y our
own town.

Absolutely. That's exactly right.

I think we've just about done two hours, Mike,

END OF SIDE B.