MICHAEL CRICHTON

4. The dreams are the first sign of incipient dementia. This was the mostfeared possibility. To train an ape effectively, one had to begin with an infant; asthe years progressed, researchers waited to see if their animal would grow up tobe bright or stupid, recalcitrant or pliable, healthy or sickly. The health of apeswas a constant worry; many programs collapsed after years of effort andexpense when the apes died of physical or mental illness. Timothy, an Atlantachimp, became psychotic in 1976 and committed suicide by coprophagia,choking to death on his own feces. Maurice, a Chicago orang, became intenselyneurotic, developing phobias that halted work in 1977. For better or worse, thevery intelligence that made apes worthwhile subjects for study also made themas unstable as human beings.But the Project Amy staff was unable to make further progress. In May, 1979,they made what turned out to be a momentous decision: they decided to publishAmy’s drawings, and submitted her images to the Journal of BehavioralSciences.2. Breakthrough“DREAM BEHAVIOR IN A MOUNTAIN GORILLA” WASnever published. The paper was routinely forwarded to three scientists on theeditorial board for review, and one copy somehow (it is still unclear just how) fellinto the hands of the Primate Preservation Agency, a New York group formed in1975 to prevent the “unwarranted and illegitimate exploitation of intelligentprimates in unnecessary laboratory research.” *On June 3, the PPA began picketing the Zoology Department at Berkeley, andcalling for the “release” of Amy. Most of the demonstrators were women, andseveral young children were present; videotapes of an eight-year-old boy holdinga placard with Amy’s photograph and shouting “Free Amy! Free Amy!” appearedon local television news.31