The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [7]
How did the FBI agent respond?
He says, “Well, I’ll tell ya, if that’s the case you need to go to the Secret Service office since they deal directly with the president.” So I asked him, how do I go about that? He looked at his watch and said, “Well, Mr. D’Arpino, drive up to San Francisco and go to the federal building there, and on the sixth floor you’ll find the Secret Service office. If you leave now, barring any traffic, you should be able to make it before they close.” So that’s exactly what I did! I got in my car and drove up to San Francisco, went to the federal building, got in the elevator and went up to the sixth floor, and sure enough, it was the Secret Service office!
They let you in?
Oh, sure. I met an agent, about six feet tall, and I told him my story about wanting to see the president. He immediately asked me, “Mr. D’Arpino, is the president in any danger?” I said, “Not that I know of.” So he hands me a piece of paper with a phone number on it and says, “Well, then, here, call the Washington, D.C., White House switchboard operator and talk to the appointment secretary and see if you can make an appointment to see the president. That’s how it’s done.”
Well, I couldn’t believe it! It was going to be that simple. So I called. And I called. And I called again. And again. I never got through. So now I was stuck. I didn’t know what else to do. Since I was a navy veteran, I went over to the Veterans Administration hospital and told them everything that I had done so far. As you can imagine, they tried to talk me out of it. “Now Mr. D’Arpino, why would you want to see the president?” Then they asked me to leave, but I was at the end of my options and I didn’t know what else to do, so I took inspiration from those protestors the FBI guy was asking me about. I just sat down there at the VA hospital and refused to leave!
It was a sit-in!
Yeah. Then the clerk there says, “Come on, Mr. D’Arpino, if you don’t leave I’m going to have to call the police and I don’t want to do that. You seem like a nice guy.” So I go back and forth with this guy. I remember his name was Marcy because that’s my daughter’s name. Five hours later he comes back and says, “You’re still here, Mr. D’Arpino?” I said “Yup, and I’m staying here.” He says, “Now doggone it, Mr. D’Arpino, if you don’t leave I really am going to call the police.” I said, “Marcy, you gotta do what you think is right, but I’m staying here.”
So he called the police. Two officers showed up and they ask, “What’s the problem?” Marcy replies, “This man wants to see the president.” So the one cop says, “Mr. D’Arpino, you can’t stay here. This is government property. This is for veterans.” I say, “I’m a veteran.” He says, “Oh, wow, okay, well…” Then he asks Marcy, “Is he causing any problems? Is he doing anything wrong?” And Marcy says, “No, sir, he’s just sitting here.” So the cop tells him, “I have no jurisdiction here.” So they all kibitzed for a while and then decided that they would take me up to meet some people who could help me at Agnews State Hospital.
Now, as you can imagine, I had no idea what was going to happen once I entered a state mental institution. At first they talked to me for a while and they could see I wasn’t crazy or anything like that, so one of the cops escorted me to my car and said, “Here you go, Mr. D’Arpino, here’s your keys. If you promise that you will never try to see the president, you can just go home now.” But I was still insistent on seeing the president, so they said they were going to hold me for seventy-two hours for observation. That was my biggest mistake. I thought I could just leave after that if I wanted, but no.
You spent three days in a mental hospital? What did you do?
They sent in several psychiatrists to talk to me, deciding that I needed additional observation and that I would need to appear before a superior court judge along with two court-appointed psychiatrists to determine if I would be committed to the mental institution for longer