Mr. Specter. Well, perhaps I can rephrase that.
During the course of the polygraphic examinations, he is subject to certain checks on truthfulness, at least to some extent.
Dr. Beavers. I see what you’re getting at now.
That would be an assumption, I think, on both our parts that I wouldn’t make as to why he didn’t answer. It possibly could have been his trying to protect in some way an answer from the polygraph.
I felt it equally likely that it was the fact that it was the second time through on the same question which he had answered first and then there had been a lot of thinking going on, was a great deal more opportunity for uncertainty.
Mr. Specter. So, you think his first answer that his family and counsel were in danger, indicated to some extent at least, a delusional state, and then after he had had an opportunity to consider it, that he became uncertain because of the greater opportunity to focus on what in your opinion was a delusion to start with?
Dr. Beavers. Yes. This thing to me is complicated, maybe because—for example, if I can digress for a moment.
Mr. Specter. Yes; feel free to do that.
Dr. Beavers. Chief Holman has told me a number of times and I have seen it in a sense, he feels that this man has tried to seem delusional. On the other hand, at times it is quite obvious that he is trying to seem sane and becomes quite truculent and angry at people who imply that he was in fact of unsound mind.
One of the things I think that is extremely obvious in any of this man’s discourse over a period of time is the marked ambivalence, that is, the mixed feelings which are strong but on both sides of almost any position that he has taken.