Erica Williams-Connell has reacted testily to claims reported by Professor Selwyn Ryan that her father, Dr Eric Williams, the nation’s first Prime Minister, was bipolar, manic-depressive and paranoid. Williams-Connell reached for a quotation from Saul Lieberman, a late rabbi and scholar of the Jewish study of Talmud, to respond to Ryan’s far-reaching depiction. She cited the following statement of the scholar: “Nonsense, when all is said and done, is still nonsense. But the study of nonsense, now, that is a science.”
In an exclusive Sunday Guardian interview, Williams-Connell demanded: “Where is the proof? It’s scholarly writing without proof. He quotes nameless persons who are now dead, and submits no notes.” She said she was not interviewed for the recently published book, Eric Williams: The Myth and the Man. Williams-Connell conceded: “All Williamses are excessively moody.” But she stoutly refuted the elaborate assertions that her father was severely afflicted with mental ailments. She said: “If all those claims are true, then I must be a basket case.”
According to her, psychiatrist Dr Michael Beaubrun had done a mental evaluation of her famous father, “but he did not say anything approaching that kind of diagnosis.” She further snapped that if her dad “was bipolar, then he was a tremendous example to the mentally challenged.” Williams-Connell also shot down a damning declaration by Ryan about her husband, Jim Connell. The author said that Dr Halsey McShine, a prominent doctor and Williams associate, “confirmed” that the ex-prime minister “believed that the CIA was spying on him and that his daughter’s lover, a white American, was a CIA agent.”
Ryan quoted McShine as stating: “I can’t trust the US Security.” The book stated that for this reason, Williams refused to attend his daughter’s wedding in Miami “when she decided to marry the very man whom he suspected of being a spy.” For her part, Williams-Connell recalled that at the time of her marriage her father sent her would-be husband autographed books and cigars. “Why would he do that, if he felt my husband was a CIA spy?” she queried.
Special stamps
She added that at the time of her marriage in 1979, her father had not travelled for years. Williams-Connell said that “at first” her father had a relationship with her husband. Later, though, “he isolated himself from the people, which is deadly action for a politician.” She further observed: “He surrounded himself with people who told him what he wanted to hear.” Williams-Connell revealed that when she arrived in the country the day after her father’s death, she found a report from his security detail on his dresser that he was facing a threat of being poisoned with his milk.
She said she did not know from where the threat emanated. The year 2011 would be the centenary birth anniversary of Dr Eric Williams. As a result, the committee that has organised the Eric Williams collection is planning myriad observances and projects. Symposia, conferences, lectures, essay competitions and a commemorative stamp are among the items currently being planned. Oxford University is planning a conference on Williams and his work, while his doctoral dissertation is to be printed.
Scholars are also interested in publishing his seminal dissertation Capitalism and Slavery, and Erica Williams-Connell revealed that work is being undertaken on the project with three renowned international scholars. The book has been out of print in Portuguese for 40 years and would be published in that language, Williams-Connell said. A commemorative stamp designed by fifth- and sixth-formers is in the works, with part-proceeds going to the School for the Deaf. Third- and fourth-formers will be given excerpts of Williams’ speeches and asked to dramatically depict them, it was revealed. A Caribbean-wide essay competition is also scheduled.
Would Erica Williams-Connell enter local politics?
“I considered it once, shortly after I fell and hit my head on a pavement in London,” 58-year-old Williams-Connell said, only half-jokingly. But now, her work with regard to the life of her father is her passion. “I am blown away by what it is accomplishing,” she said effusively. She talks of being motivated by profound statements in the visitors’ book, some written by students.
She declined to comment on domestic issues, and said that the country has to decide whether it could have afforded the Fifth Summit of the Americas. But she termed the recent event “a feather in our cap.” She commented favourably on the exchange of pleasantries by US President Barack Obama and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. She speaks proudly of her father’s educational programmes, some of which are still active.
