Editor’s note: Dr. Cyril Wecht, the nation’s leading forensic pathologist and the leading critic of the Warren Commission, for decades, died May 13 of this year. A celebration of his life was held In Pittsburgh on June 30. This was my spoken tribute to him.
As a grad student at Pitt, many, many years ago I knew of Cyril Wecht, of course, and followed his career.
But I never met him. He was one of those legendary Pittsburghers, like Jonas Salk, Roberto Clemente, Myron Cope, Art Rooney Sr., Bill Mazeraski, Roy McHigh.
I never imagined I would meet him.
When I did meet him, decades had passed and I had returned to where I’d started as a journalist.
He was an old man, but not old.
He was still working cases.
Still fully engaged and speaking out nationally.
I think he was delighted and bemused that he was on good terms with an editor of the Post-Gazette.
We exchanged a few emails and phone calls. And at our first meeting, we talked for several hours, with joy and ease, about a wide range of subjects. Great fun.
We met at the old Carlton, where his caricature hung on the wall, and it seems clear to me now what I dimly sensed then – that he was the last bigger-than-life Pittsburgher.
I liked everything about him: His vigor; his unvarnished intellectual honesty and hatred of cant; his disregard for the conventional wisdom and the status quo; his genuine, unfeigned, deep decency, and … his creative mixing and matching of vulgarities.
They were not vulgar in his use, just very real.
Our friendship deepened. We had many more conversations and many dinners with our wives. I got to know Sigrid and Cyril got to know Amy.
Two more qualities become quite evident in those encounters: His wit and his profound love of and pride in his family.
I see him as a prophetic voice – an Old Testament TV celebrity.
Prophets have to go their own way and see what others do not see.
Especially what others do not WISH to see.
Prophets have to have, above all else, courage – simple but absolute. From the Kennedy assassination to concussions in the NFL, he not only saw, but spoke out.
Fearlessly.
As county coroner and medical examiner, he used the power of the inquest to help the poor to discover how loved ones had died, sometimes at the hands of police officers.
Prophets also need a certain amount of irreverence. I recently read the story of Elijah taunting Baal in the First Book of Kings.
Sounds like Cyril, I thought to myself.
I liked everything about him.
His energy.
His resilience.
His stoicism.
His loyalty, especially to his friends and to his Jewish heritage.
He was a gent.
But, most of all, I admired Dr. Wecht for his courage. All these other qualities flowed from it: The willingness to see what was right before his eyes. And speak it.
Courage – simple but absolute.
And courage is for keeps.