Don Cullivan

Don Cullivan is a former Army acquaintance who becomes one of the few people to offer Perry Smith friendship after the killings and his arrest. Remembering Perry from their service together, Cullivan writes to him, travels from Massachusetts to testify as a character witness, and meets him for a meal in his cell. His importance lies less in changing Perry’s convictions than in making a real connection across a profound divide in belief, circumstance, and responsibility.

Army Acquaintance

Cullivan first knew Perry around the fall of 1951, when Perry was assigned to the 761st Engineer Light Equipment Company at Fort Lewis, Washington. They were not close personal friends, and Cullivan knew him for only about eight months, but the years had left him with distinct memories. In a later letter, he recalled Perry as short, solidly built, dark-haired, and almost constantly grinning. Because Perry had lived in Alaska, some of the men called him “Eskimo.”

One early memory came from a company inspection. The men had opened their footlockers, and Perry’s was orderly apart from its inside cover, which was plastered with pin-up pictures. The inspecting officer let it pass. Cullivan remembered that the other soldiers took this as evidence of Perry’s nerve: he had tested a boundary and escaped punishment.

Cullivan also remembered Perry at the pool table in the company day room and regarded him as one of the outfit’s best truck drivers. During a winter field exercise, the unheated Army truck cabs became bitterly cold. Perry cut a hole in his truck’s floorboards so engine heat could enter the cab, although damaging Army property could bring severe punishment. Cullivan, then a cautious and inexperienced soldier, worried about the rule while Perry grinned and kept warm. The episode captured a contrast Cullivan carried forward: his own anxiety about regulations against Perry’s ease in bending them.

He recalled, less certainly, that Perry had bought a motorcycle and had some trouble involving either the police or a crash. More generally, Cullivan remembered a cheerful, cocky soldier who did his Army work well and did not complain much, while also recognizing that there had been a wild streak he had never fully understood. These recollections were not a claim to deep knowledge: Cullivan explicitly allowed that some details might be wrong after more than eight years and a brief acquaintance.

The Letter and Its Purpose

After reading recent news about Perry, Cullivan at first put the newspaper aside. The thought of his former Army companion returned, however, and he decided not to forget him. A mid-February letter, postmarked Reading, Massachusetts, reached Perry with an Army photograph enclosed. Perry did not recognize Cullivan’s name at first, but immediately recognized the young soldier in the picture, with his crew-cut hair and earnest eyes.

Cullivan’s letter combined concrete memories with an explanation of why he was writing. He told Perry that he remembered and liked him, even though they had not been close, and offered to help. He also described how the death of his younger brother from leukemia at seventeen had changed his thoughts about death and what a dying person might be thinking. Cullivan had not known what to say to his brother in his final weeks; now he wrote to Perry because he believed that God had made and loved them both, and that what had happened to Perry could have happened to him.

Cullivan described himself as fairly religious, a Catholic who had not always taken faith seriously. His appeal was not based on certainty about Perry’s response, but on a conviction that neither man stood outside God’s concern. Perry read the letter repeatedly. He remained unconvinced by its religious claims, saying he had tried to believe and could not, yet was thrilled that a sane and respectable man remembered him and called himself a friend. Grateful and hurried, he began a reply addressed to Cullivan. The letter did not erase Perry’s isolation, but it gave him a correspondent whose concern was grounded in personal memory rather than notoriety.

A Character Witness

Perry’s lawyer asked Cullivan to appear as a character witness, and Cullivan traveled from Massachusetts to attend the trial. By then he was a successful engineer with a Harvard degree, a wife, and three children. His decision puzzled observers: he had known Perry only slightly and had not seen him for about nine years. Cullivan acknowledged the cost. The journey used a week of vacation and money his family needed for other things, but he felt he could not decline after offering Perry his friendship.

Cullivan connected that obligation to his religious belief that all souls could be saved. His willingness to appear did not amount to denying Perry’s situation or excusing the killings; it meant standing by the offer he had made when he wrote. At the trial, he occupied one of the seats reserved for special attendees, alongside the press and members of the defendants’ families. His presence turned a private appeal into a public act of support for Perry as a person, while leaving intact the gravity of the crimes for which Perry was being tried.

The Prison Dinner

During a weekend recess, the undersheriff and his wife invited Cullivan to have Sunday dinner with Perry in his cell. Perry welcomed the chance to act as host. He spent the morning cleaning the cell, sweeping and dusting, scrubbing the floor, scouring the toilet, and clearing his desk to use as a dining table. The hosts supplied linen, starched napkins, and their best china and silver. The meal itself was an elaborate spread: stuffed wild goose, gravy, creamed potatoes, string beans, aspic salad, biscuits, milk, cherry tarts, cheese, and coffee.

When the trays arrived, Cullivan was impressed by the feast and asked whether he could say a blessing before they ate. He bowed his head and prayed; Perry did not bow, instead cracking his knuckles. Perry then remarked that any credit belonged to the woman who had done the cooking, and served Cullivan. The exchange made their difference in faith visible without turning the meal into an argument: Cullivan prayed, Perry abstained, and Perry’s attention went to his guest and the food prepared for him.

Their conversation brought out a deeper contrast. Cullivan said that recognizing God as the only reality had given meaning to life and death. Perry responded warmly to the reunion, telling Cullivan that he looked just the same, and praised the host’s cooking. He also described how he and Dick had lost weight on the road, often living on stolen cans of beans or spaghetti eaten cold in the car. Perry called that life animal-like and distinguished his own stealing, which he said occurred when he could not pay, from Dick’s habitual theft. The dinner therefore joined hospitality to an unvarnished account of their past: Cullivan offered a blessing and a theological understanding of death, while Perry offered a place at his table, memories, and his own explanation of life on the road.

Significance

Cullivan’s role develops through a sequence of acts rather than a dramatic conversion: he remembers Perry, writes after seeing the news, accepts the lawyer’s request, makes the costly journey, and shares a meal with him. The evidence does not show that Perry adopts Cullivan’s faith. Instead, it shows that Perry can be moved by friendship while remaining resistant to religious consolation. The relationship’s force lies in that unresolved difference. Cullivan sees a person to whom he once offered friendship; Perry, lonely and cut off from his family and from Dick, receives that offer with gratitude. Their meeting briefly makes room for companionship inside the prison, without dissolving either Perry’s isolation or the consequences of his crimes.