*The Following account of Elliot’s persecution draws heavily on J. A. Peebles, “Infringement of Academic Freedom by Press Innuendo and Hearsay: The Experience of Dr. Peter Elliot,” in the Journal of Academic Law and Psychiatry 52. no. 12 (1979): 19—38.
referring to the unpublished paper. But the University Information Office was now “too busy” to issue the release.
On June 11, the Berkeley faculty scheduled a meeting to consider “issues of ethical conduct” within the university. Eleanor Vries announced that the PPA had hired the noted San Francisco attorney Melvin Bell “to free Amy from subjugation.” Bell’s office was not available for comment.
On the same day, the Project Amy staff had a sudden, unexpected breakthrough in their understanding of Amy’s dreams.
Through all the publicity and commotion, the group had continued to work daily with Amy, and her continued distress—and flaring temper tantrums—was a constant reminder that they had not solved the initial problem. They persisted in their search for clues, although when the break finally came, it happened almost by accident.
Sarah Johnson, a research assistant, was checking prehistoric archaeological sites in the Congo, on the unlikely chance that Amy might have seen such a site (“old buildings in the jungle”) in her infancy, before she was brought to the Minneapolis zoo. Johnson quickly discovered the pertinent facts about the Congo: the region had not been explored by Western observers until a hundred years ago; in recent times, hostile tribes and civil war had made scientific inquiry hazardous; and finally, the moist jungle environment did not lend itself to artifact preservation.
This meant remarkably little was known about Congolese prehistory, and Johnson completed her research in a few hours. But she was reluctant to return so quickly from her assignment, so she stayed on, looking at other books in the anthropology library—ethnographies, histories, early accounts. The earliest visitors to the interior of the Congo were Arab slave traders and Portuguese merchants, and several had written accounts of their travels. Because Johnson could read neither Arabic nor Portuguese, she just looked at the plates.
And then she saw a picture that, she said, “sent a chill up my spine.”
It was a Portuguese engraving originally dated 1642 and reprinted in an 1842 volume. The ink was yellowing on frayed brittle paper, but clearly visible was a ruined city in the jungle, overgrown with creeper vines and giant ferns. The doors and windows were constructed with semicircular arches, exactly as Amy had drawn them.
“It was,” Elliot said later, “the kind of opportunity that comes to a researcher once in his lifetime—if he’s lucky. Of course we knew nothing about the picture; the caption was written in flowing script and included a word that looked like ‘Zinj,’ and the date 1642. We immediately hired translators skilled in archaic Arabic and seventeenth-century Portuguese, but that wasn’t the point. The point was we had a chance to verify a major theoretical question. Amy’s pictures seemed to be a clear case of specific genetic memory.”
Genetic memory was first proposed by Marais in 1911, and it has been vigorously debated ever since. In its simplest form, the theory proposed that the mechanism of genetic inheritance, which governed the transmission of all physical traits, was not limited to physical traits alone. Behavior was clearly genetically determined in lower animals, which were born with complex behavior that did not have to be learned. But higher animals had more flexible behavior, dependent on learning and memory. The question was whether higher animals, particularly apes and men, had any part of their psychic apparatus fixed from birth by their genes.
Now, Elliot felt, with Amy they had evidence for such a memory. Amy had been taken from Africa when she was only seven months old. Unless she had seen this ruined city in her infancy, her dreams represented a specific genetic memory which could be verified by a trip to Africa. By the evening of June 11, the Project Amy staff was agreed. If they could arrange it—and pay for it—they would take Amy back to Africa.
On June 12, the team waited for the translators to complete work on the source material. Checked translations were expected to be ready within two days. But a trip to Africa for Amy and two staff members would cost at least thirty thousand dollars, a substantial fraction of their total annual operating budget. And transporting a gorilla halfway around the world involved a bewildering tangle of customs regulations and bureaucratic red tape.
Clearly, they needed expert help, but they were not sure where to turn. And then, on June 13, a Dr. Karen Ross from one of their granting institutions, the Earth Resources Wildlife Fund, called from Houston to say that she was leading an expedition into the Congo in two days’ time. And although she showed no interest in taking Peter Elliot or Amy with her, she conveyed—at least over the telephone—a confident familiarity with the way expeditions were assembled and managed in far-off places around the world.
When she asked if she could come to San Francisco to meet with Dr. Elliot, Dr. Elliot replied that he would be delighted to meet with her, at her convenience.
3. Legal Issues.
PETER ELLIOT REMEMBERED JUNE 14, 1979, AS A day of sudden reverses. He began at 8 A.M. in the San Francisco law firm of Sutherland, Morton & O’Connell, because of the threatened custody suit from the PPA—a suit which became all the more important now that he was planning to take Amy out of the country.
He met with John Morton in the firm’s wood-paneled library overlooking Grant Street. Morton took notes on a yellow legal pad. “I think you’re all right,” Morton began, “but let me get a few facts. Amy is a gorilla?”
“Yes, a female mountain gorilla.”
“Age?”
“She’s seven now.”
“So she’s still a child?”
Elliot explained that gorillas matured in six to eight years, so that Amy was late adolescent, the equivalent of a sixteen-year-old human female.
Morton scratched notes on a pad. “Could we say she’s still a minor?”
“Do we want to say that?”
“I think so.”
“Yes, she’s still a minor,” Elliot said.
“Where did she come from? I mean originally.”
“A woman tourist named Swenson found her in Africa, in a village called Bagimindi. Amy’s mother had been killed by the natives for food. Mrs. Swenson bought her as an infant.”
“So she was not bred in captivity,” Morton said, writing on his pad.
“No. Mrs. Swenson brought her back to the States and donated her to the Minneapolis zoo.”
“She relinquished her interest in Amy?”
“I assume so,” Elliot said. “We’ve been trying to reach Mrs. Swenson to ask about Amy’s early life, but she’s out of the country. Apparently she travels constantly; she’s in Borneo. Anyway, when Amy was sent to San Francisco, I called the Minneapolis zoo to ask if I could keep her for study. The zoo said yes, for three years.”
“Did you pay any money?”
‘‘No.
“Was there a written contract?”
“No, I just called the zoo director.”
Morton nodded. “Oral agreement. . .“ he said, writing. “And when the three years were up?”
“That was the spring of 1976. 1 asked the zoo for an extension of six years, and they gave it to me.”
“Again orally?”
“Yes. I called on the phone.”
“No correspondence?”
“No. They didn’t seem very interested when I called. To tell you the truth, I think they had forgotten about Amy. The zoo has four gorillas, anyway.”
Morton frowned. “Isn’t a gorilla a pretty expensive animal? I mean, if you wanted to buy one for a pet or for the circus.”
“Gorillas are on the endangered list; you can’t buy them as pets. But yes, they’d be pretty expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“Well, there’s no established market value, but it would be twenty or thirty thousand dollars.”
“And all during these years, you have been teaching her language?”
“Yes,” Peter said. “American Sign Language. She has a vocabulary of six hundred and twenty words now.”
“Is that a lot?”
“More than any known primate.”
Morton nodded, making notes. “You work with her every day in ongoing research?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Morton said. “That’s been very important in the animal custody cases so far.”
For more than a hundred years, there had been organized movements in Western countries to stop animal experimentation. They were led by the anti-vivisectionists, the RSPCA, the ASPCA. Originally these organizations were a kind of lunatic fringe of animal lovers, intent on stopping all animal research.
Over the years, scientists had evolved a standard defense acceptable to the courts. Researchers claimed that their experiments had the goal of bettering the health and welfare of mankind, a higher priority than animal welfare. They pointed out that no one objected to animals being used as beasts of burden or for agricultural work—a life of drudgery to which animals had been subjected for thousands of years. Using animals in scientific experiments simply extended the idea that animals were the servants of human enterprises.
In addition, animals were literally brutes. They had no self-awareness, no recognition of their existence in nature. This meant, in the words of philosopher George H. Mead, that “animals have no rights. We are at liberty to cut off their lives; there is no wrong committed when an animal’s life is taken away. He has not lost anything
Many people were troubled by these views, but attempts to establish guidelines quickly ran into logical problems. The most obvious concerned the perceptions of animals further down the phylogenetic scale. Few researchers operated on dogs, cats, and other mammals without anesthesia, but what about annelid worms, crayfish, leeches, and squid? Ignoring these creatures was a form of “taxonomic discrimination.” Yet if these animals deserved consideration, shouldn’t it also be illegal to throw a live lobster into a pot of boiling water?
The question of what constituted cruelty to animals was confused by the animal societies themselves. In some countries, they fought the extermination of rats; and in 1968 there was the bizarre Australian pharmaceutical case. * In the face of these ironies, the courts hesitated to interfere with animal experimentation. As a practical matter, researchers were free to do as they wished. The volume of animal research was extraordinary: during the 1970s, sixty-four million animals were killed in experiments in the United States each year.
But attitudes had slowly changed. Language studies with dolphins and apes made it clear that these animals were not only intelligent but self-aware; they recognized themselves in mirrors and photographs. In 1974, scientists themselves formed the International Primate Protection League to monitor research involving monkeys and apes. In March, 1978, the Indian government banned the export of rhesus monkeys to research laboratories around the world. And there were court cases which concluded that in some instances animals did, indeed, have rights.
The old view was analogous to slavery: the animal was the property of its owner, who could do whatever he wished. But now ownership became secondary. In February, 1977,
*A new pharmaceutical factory was built in Western Australia. In this factory all the pills came out on a conveyor bell; a person had to watch the belt, and press buttons to sort the pills into separate bins by size and color. A Skinnenan animal behaviorist pointed out that it would be simple to teach pigeons to watch the pills and peck colored keys to do the sorting process. Incredulous factory managers agreed to a test; the pigeons indeed performed reliably, and were duly placed on the assembly line. Then the RSPCA stepped in and put a stop to it on the grounds that it represented cruelty to animals; the job was turned over to a human operator. for whom it did not, apparently, represent cruelty.
there was a case involving a dolphin named Mary, released by a lab technician into the open ocean. The University of Hawaii prosecuted the technician, charging loss-of a valuable research animal. Two trials resulted in hung juries; the case was dropped.
In November, 1978, there was a custody case involving a chimpanzee named Arthur, who was fluent in sign language. His owner, Johns Hopkins University, decided to sell him and close the program. His trainer, William Levine, went to court and obtained custody on the grounds that Arthur knew language and thus was no longer a chimpanzee.
“One of the pertinent facts,” Morton said, “was that when Arthur was confronted by other chimpanzees, he referred to them as ‘black things.’ And when Arthur was twice asked to sort photographs of people and photographs of chimps, he sorted them correctly except that both times he put his own picture in the stack with the people. He obviously did not consider himself a chimpanzee, and the court ruled that he should remain with his trainer, since any separation would cause him severe psychic distress.”
“Amy cries when I leave her,” Elliot said.
“When you conduct experiments, do you obtain her permission?”
“Always.” Elliot smiled. Morton obviously had no sense of day-to-day life with Amy. It was essential to obtain her permission for any course of action, even a ride in a car. She was a powerful animal, and she could be willful and stubborn.
“Do you keep a record of her acquiescence?”
“Videotapes.”
“Does she understand the experiments you propose?” He shrugged. “She says she does.”
“You follow a system of rewards and punishments?” “All animal behaviorists do.”
Morton frowned. “What forms do her punishments take?”
“Well, when she’s a bad girl I make her stand in the corner facing the wall. Or else I send her to bed early without her peanut-butter-and-jelly snack.”
“What about torture and shock treatments?”
“Ridiculous.”
“You never physically punish the animal?”
“She’s a pretty damn big animal. Usually I worry that she’ll get mad and punish me.”
Morton smiled and stood. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “Any court will rule that Amy is your ward and that you must decide any ultimate disposition in her case.” He hesitated. “I know this sounds strange, but could you put Amy on the stand?”
“I guess so,” Elliot said. “Do you think it will come to that?”
“Not in this case,” Morton said, “but sooner or later it will. You watch: within ten years, there will be a custody case involving a language-using primate, and the ape will be in the witness-box.”
Elliot shook his hand, and said as he was leaving, “By the way, would I have any problem taking her out of the country?”
“If there is a custody case, you could have trouble taking her across state lines,” Morton said. “Are you planning to take her out of the country?”
“Yes.”
“Then my advice is to do it fast, and don’t tell anyone,” Morton said.
Elliot entered his office on the third floor of the Zoology Department building shortly after nine. His secretary, Carolyn, said: “A Dr. Ross called from that Wildlife Fund in Houston; she’s on her way to San Francisco. A Mr. Morikawa called three times, says it’s important. The Project Amy staff meeting is set for ten o’clock. And Windy is in your office.”
“Really?”
James Weldon was a senior professor in the Department, a weak, blustery man. “Windy” Weldon was usually portrayed in departmental cartoons as holding a wet finger in the air: he was a master at knowing which way the wind was blowing. For the past several days, he had avoided Peter Elliot and his staff.
Elliot went into his office.
“Well, Peter my boy,” Weldon said, reaching out to give his version of a hearty handshake. “You’re in early.”
Elliot was instantly wary. “I thought I’d beat the crowds,” he said. The picketers did not show up until ten o’clock, sometimes later, depending on when they had arranged to meet the TV news crews. That was how it worked these days:
protest by appointment.
“They’re not coming anymore.” Weldon smiled.
He handed Elliot the late city edition of the Chronicle, a front-page story circled in black pen. Eleanor Vries had resigned her position as regional director of the PPA, pleading overwork and personal pressures; a statement from the PPA in New York indicated that they had seriously misconstrued the nature and content of Elliot’s research.
“Meaning what?” Elliot asked.
“Belli’s office reviewed your paper and Vries’s public statements about torture, and decided that the PPA was exposed to a major libel suit,” Weldon said. “The New York office is terrified. They’ll be making overtures to you later today. Personally, I hope you’ll be understanding.”
Elliot dropped into his chair. “What about the faculty meeting next week?”
“Oh, that’s essential,” Weldon said. “There’s no question that the faculty will want to discuss unethical conduct—on the part of the media, and issue a strong statement in your support. I’m drawing up a statement now, to come from my office.”
The irony of this was not lost on Elliot. “You sure you want to go out on a limb?” he asked,
“I’m behind you one thousand percent, I hope you know that,” Weldon said. Weldon was restless, pacing around the office, staring at the walls, which were covered with Amy’s finger paintings. Windy had something further on his mind. “She’s still making these same pictures?” he asked, finally.
“Yes,” Elliot said.
“And you still have no idea what they mean?”
Elliot paused; at best it was premature to tell Weldon what they thought the pictures meant. “No idea,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Weldon asked, frowning. “I think somebody knows what they mean.”
“Why is that?”
“Something very strange has happened,” Weldon said. “Someone has offered to buy Amy.”
“To buy her? What are you talking about, to buy her?”
“A lawyer in Los Angeles called my office yesterday and offered to buy her for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“It must be some rich do-gooder,” Elliot said, “trying to save Amy from torture.”
“I don’t think so,” Weldon said. “For one thing, the otter came from Japan. Someone named Morikawa—he’s in electronics in Tokyo. I found that out when the lawyer called back this morning, to increase his offer to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Elliot said. “For Amy?” Of course it was out of the question. He would never sell her. But why would anyone offer so much money?
Weldon had an answer. “This kind of money, a quarter of a million dollars, can only be coming from private enterprise. Industry. Clearly, Morikawa has read about your work and found a use for speaking primates in an industrial context.” Windy stared at the ceiling, a sure sign he was about to wax eloquent. “I think a new field might be opening up here, the training of primates for industrial applications in the real world.”
Peter Elliot swore. He was not teaching Amy language in order to put a hard hat on her head and a lunch pail in her hand, and he said so.
“You’re not thinking it through,” Weldon said. “What if we are on the verge of a new field of applied behavior for the great apes? Think what it means. Not only funding to the Department, and an opportunity for applied research. Most important, there would be a reason to keep these animals alive. You know that the great apes are becoming extinct.
The chimps in Africa are greatly reduced in number. The orangs of Borneo are losing their natural habitat to the timber cutters and will be extinct in ten years. The gorilla is down to three thousand in the central African forests. These animals will all disappear in our lifetime—unless there is a reason to keep them alive, as a species. You may provide that reason, Peter my boy. Think about it.”