Left for Dead

by Peter Nelson

  Hunter’s project won first prize at his school and first place at the county-level competition. In the state finals at the Florida history fair competition in May of 1997, his project was disqualified when his display of three-ring notebooks proved to constitute a minor rules infraction. A girl with a rock collection did better, though Hunter was hard put to understand what rocks had to do with either Triumph or Tragedy. When he failed to win he took it hard, partly because he had the sense he’d disappointed people who’d been counting on him. He wrote notes to over sixty of the survivors when he got home. They wrote him back, telling him they appreciated his efforts to help, and never to give up. If anybody knew about not giving up, Hunter figured, they did.

  A week later, a member of his church had a suggestion. He had an office where a lot of people came and went every day, plenty of foot traffic—maybe Hunter could set up his display in the office for a while? It was better than letting it sit in storage. The office belonged to a man named Joe Scarborough, a friend of Hunter’s parents as well as Florida’s Republican congressman from the First District. The congressman spent the majority of his time in Washington, D.C., but kept an office in downtown Pensacola.

  Two weeks later, Hunter got a phone call from a man named Steve Mraz, a reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. He’d gotten a call from a couple of people who’d visited Representative Scarborough’s office and wanted to write a news story about Hunter’s project and the effect it was having. Pensacola was, after all, a navy town—a lot of the reporter’s readers would probably be interested in learning about the kid out to reverse a fifty-year-old injustice done by the navy to one of its own. The story ran on June 26, 1997, with the headline SHIP BECOMES STUDENT’S MISSION. The piece had all the components of a classic human interest story. The next day it went out over the Associated Press wire and was picked up by newspapers across the country. One of those papers was the Litchfield County Times. Litchfield, Connecticut, was where Captain McVay had lived just before taking his own life. It was also the home of NBC Nightly News anchorman Tom Brokaw, who saw the article on Hunter and thought he’d be perfect for a series Brokaw was doing on ordinary Americans making a difference in American life.

  When a producer for NBC Nightly News named Barbara Raab called and told Hunter they wanted to feature him on a segment they were calling “The American Spirit,” Hunter began to understand exactly how he could help. The facts, he’d always believed, could speak for themselves, and it was his job to help organize and present the facts, even uncover new ones. It wouldn’t matter if no one was listening. He could make people take notice, simply because he was so young, and it was unusual for someone so young to be involved in such a thing. “A middle school history fair project that seeks to correct history,” the papers often said.

  The NBC Nightly News program aired its “American Spirit” segment on August 1, 1997, two days after the fifty-second anniversary of the sinking. The Indianapolis Star had carried a story about Hunter five days earlier when he’d attended his first USS Indianapolis Survivors’ Organization reunion in the city of Indianapolis, accompanied by an NBC film crew. The survivors were old men, some of them in wheelchairs or walking with canes, accompanied by silver-haired wives all better-looking than their men. Hunter was welcomed by survivors he’d only corresponded with or talked to on the phone: Loel Dene Cox (seaman second class) from Comanche, Texas; Harold Eck (seaman second class) from New Orleans; and Woodie James (coxswain) from Salt Lake City, men who shook his hand and treated him like a grandson. When they saw the television cameras following him, they told him maybe he was just what they needed to get this thing done, to clear the captain’s name. Few of them had any interest in looking like heroes, but they welcomed the publicity, simply because injustice is like the shadow cast by wrong—shine enough light on a shadow and it goes away. Hunter was most impressed by a meeting with Adrian Marks, then in a wheelchair, the saving angel who’d landed his Dumbo in twelve-foot seas and risked his own life to save the lives of others. He also met Charles McVay IV, the captain’s son, dubbed “Quatro” because he was the fourth in his family with that name. Quatro told Hunter he was thrilled by what Hunter was trying to accomplish.

  After the NBC news segment with Tom Brokaw, the phone in the Scott household wouldn’t stop ringing. Reporters who wanted to know more called from newspapers all across the country. Eventually Hunter’s story would run in newspapers in eighteen countries. He received calls as well from National Public Radio’s All Things Considered show and ABC World News Tonight. One phone call brought an invitation to visit Honolulu, home of Captain McVay’s son Kimo, who’d been trying to exonerate his father for over fifty years and who told the press, regarding Hunter, “He’s gotten farther in a few months than the survivors and I have in half a century. Now we’re pinning our hopes on him.”

  Kimo McVay turned over all his files to Hunter, giving him letters Captain McVay had written; transcripts of his testimonies at the court of inquiry and court-martial; copies of letters Kimo had written to various congressmen over the years; the dog tags Captain McVay had worn when he was at the Naval Academy, his thumbprint etched permanently on the back; and even Captain McVay’s cigarette lighter, engraved with a picture of the Indianapolis, which Kimo wanted Hunter to have. Hunter visited Honolulu in November of 1997, where he was given a ride on the nuclear submarine USS Indianapolis, namesake to the Indy that had sunk in 1945. After his submarine ride, Hunter felt more resolved than ever that when he grew up, he wanted to join the navy. On November 20, Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris proclaimed it Hunter Scott Day, and the story was carried by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser.

  Every sound bite helped. Where some people seek fame for the rush of seeing their name in print, Hunter appreciated the attention that came his way more because it served two purposes. First, it helped him gather information about the Indianapolis, because people sent him pieces of the puzzle with letters saying, “Dear Hunter—I never knew whom to tell this to until I saw your picture in the paper.” Second, it opened doors. Kimo McVay had worked as an entertainment promoter in Hawaii and knew the value of publicity. When Representative Scarborough suggested that Hunter accompany Kimo McVay and a group of survivors on a trip to Washington to lobby Congress, Hunter accepted. Kimo contacted an old acquaintance in January of 1998, an ex-lobbyist named Mike Monroney, labeled in various magazines over the years as one of the 100 most influential people in Washington, D.C. He’d followed the court-martial in the newspapers when it was happening, and had always felt outraged at the way Captain McVay was treated by the navy. Monroney told Kimo that although he was retired, he’d be happy to help, and ended up helping to draft resolutions, write letters, set up meetings and handle the press.

  What Hunter and Kimo and the survivors were hoping for was some way to clear Captain McVay’s name. They hoped somebody could overturn or reverse the verdict passed down by the court-martial board back in 1945, or expunge the conviction from McVay’s record, or at least force somebody from the navy to admit they’d made a mistake and were sorry about it. Passing a bill in Congress is as simple as writing it up and then getting everyone in both the House and the Senate to read it and then a majority to vote in favor of it; which is to say, it’s not simple at all. First, a bill needs sponsors, senators or representatives willing to go to bat for it by lending their name and their clout. It has to be written in such a way as to comply with all the preexisting rules and codes of Congress, in language that can be agreed upon by as many people as possible, both Democrat and Republican. Then, before it can be brought to the floor, it has to be discussed and voted on in all the relevant subcommittees. In the case of a congressional resolution reversing a navy court-martial, such a piece of legislation would have to be discussed in the Armed Services Committees of both the House and the Senate.

  To move a bill through Congress, all the various technicalities, personal relationships and internecine power struggles have to be finessed, like
a video game such as Myst or Dungeons and Dragons, where the object is to navigate through a labyrinth fraught with peril. The common denominator is that most senators and representatives, regardless of party, want to look good in the newspapers. Some care more about their image than others, but the bottom line is that to get reelected, a congressperson needs all the good publicity he or she can get, and Hunter Scott represented a chance to do the right thing and get good publicity in the process.

  There were five television cameras waiting for Hunter at the airport when he arrived in Washington in the third week in April of 1998. Mike Monroney found that where ordinarily a press agent contacts the media hoping to get some ink or airtime, in Hunter’s case, the media were calling him, asking for interviews and hoping to book Hunter on all the talk shows. In four days, beginning April 21, Hunter met with numerous senators and congressional representatives. Most encouraging were his meetings with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, then probably the most powerful man in Congress, who pledged his support, and with Senators Daniel Inouye (Democrat of Hawaii) and Robert Smith (Republican of New Hampshire), who said they’d help on the Senate side. Hunter and the survivors were discouraged only by a meeting with Representative Steve Buyer, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who sounded like he thought they were trying to rewrite history. Hunter didn’t see why you shouldn’t rewrite history, if what has been previously written is wrong.

  At their meetings with congressmen, Hunter and the survivors essentially told their side of the story, with Hunter taking the role of spokesman, often to the amazement of those present, a twelve-year-old with a better grip on the facts than any of the grown-ups. At the end of each meeting, Hunter boldly asked each congressperson or senator if he could count on his or her support, often in front of news cameras. Hunter had practiced talking about the Indianapolis with his dad, fielding questions and rehearsing to make sure his answers were concise and to the point, both to help him deal with the media and to help him in his meetings in Washington. When Senator Smith asked him if his evidence was solid, Hunter didn’t waver in his answer.

  “As a rock, sir,” he replied, shoving his research across the table to the New Hampshire senator.

  The entire room burst into laughter.

  On the twenty-second of May, Hunter and the others held a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol, where Hunter fielded questions from fifteen different television news crews and dozens of newspaper, magazine and radio reporters, after which Hunter had the honor of dropping House Resolution 3710 into the hopper of the House of Representatives. He was escorted by Scarborough, a Republican, and by Representative Julia Carson, a Democrat who represents Indianapolis, Indiana. At one point the sergeant at arms who guards the door told Representative Carson that children weren’t allowed on the house floor, but Carson whisked Hunter past the guard, explaining that Hunter was her son, even though Representative Carson is African American and Hunter is not. The resolution sought to erase all mention of McVay’s court-martial and conviction from his military records, and to award a Presidential Unit Citation to the survivors. Senator Inouye tried to introduce the bill on the Senate side but ran into difficulty, told by the Senate parliamentarian that Senate Rule 14 prevented Congress from altering military records. Without a companion bill on the Senate side, House Resolution 3710 died with the end of the 105th Congress.

  Hunter and the others regrouped to prepare for introducing differently worded legislation for the 106th Congress. Hunter had made such a good impression on the Speaker of the House that Representative Gingrich invited him to come to Washington to work for him for a summer. Hunter’s dad vetoed the idea, given Hunter’s age, but Hunter was allowed to spend five days in July of 1998 shadowing the Speaker, accompanying him to meetings and so on. A chance encounter in a Capitol hallway with House Whip Dick Armey resulted in Armey, the second-most powerful man in the House of Representatives, offering to have his name added to the list of the reworded legislation’s sponsors.

  Hunter’s notoriety even landed him on The Late Show with David Letterman on August 6 of that year. He’d been on Letterman’s show back in 1994 when he was nine, performing as part of the “Stupid Human Tricks” segment by jumping rope while bouncing on a pogo stick, so the bright lights and the cameras were familiar to him. Letterman had been impressed with Hunter the first time, and was even more respectful the second, perhaps because the talk show host had a history of taking antiauthoritarian positions, championing the little guy against the powers that be. Hunter shared the greenroom with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who autographed a copy of People magazine for Hunter because they’d both been written up in it.

  To keep the initiative alive and present in everybody’s mind, in October Representative Scarborough submitted House Resolution 590 recognizing Hunter’s efforts. It was a chance for members of Congress who’d supported the survivors to speak on the floor about the unfairness of the court-martial and the need to rectify it. Scarborough spoke on behalf of Hunter’s cause, as did Representative Neil Abercrombie from Hawaii. Hunter received more press coverage afterward, and was asked by a reporter what was turning out to be an inevitable question: “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

  “I want to go to the Naval Academy, and I want to be an officer,” he said.

  By the spring of 1999, Hunter, Monroney and the survivors had a new strategy, a pair of joint resolutions altering the language of the previous year’s bill. Hunter traveled to Washington for a third time to meet with senators and congresspeople. With those already on the team, Hunter and the others discussed how the wording of the bill might be amended to make it easier for everyone to vote favorably on it. To those congresspeople he hadn’t met with before, Hunter helped explain the case for exonerating McVay.

  House Joint Resolution 48 was introduced on April 22, with the identical Senate Joint Resolution 26 following a month later. The resolution told the story of the sinking, the struggle in the water and the court-martial, listing all the reasons why the court-martial was unjust, and concluded by stating that it was “the sense of Congress” that the court-martial was “not morally sustainable,” that the conviction of McVay was a “miscarriage of justice that led to unjust humiliation and damage to his military career,” and that “the American people should now recognize Captain McVay’s lack of culpability for the tragic loss.” Section 2 of the resolution went on to say that it was also the sense of Congress that the final crew be awarded a Presidential Unit Citation “in recognition of the courage and fortitude displayed . . . in the face of tremendous hardship and adversity.”

  Representatives Scarborough from Florida and Abercrombie from Hawaii pressed the cause in the House, but the real showdown was going to come on the Senate side when Senator John Warner convened a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which he served as chairman.

  The survivors had two things going for them. First, they had Senator Bob Smith, a passionate conservative from New Hampshire with a reputation for supporting oddball crusades as well as for being the nicest man in Congress. He was the son of a naval aviator who’d perished shortly after World War II when the airplane he was testing crashed. As a survivor of a naval tragedy himself, Senator Smith had thrown himself into the cause with great dedication and vigor.

  The second thing the survivors had going for them was Hunter and, more germane to the hearing, the new material he was bringing with him to submit as evidence for the committee’s consideration, material that people from all over the country had sent to him after seeing his name in the newspapers. He had a report entitled “ULTRA and the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis” sent to him by naval historian Richard A. von Doenhoff, written after von Doenhoff uncovered recently declassified documents in 1992 regarding SIGINT activities during the war. He had a letter from survivor Donald Blum stating that Thomas Brophy had used his influence to push President Truman to initiate the court-martial, something he knew because the Blums and the Brophys were longtime so
cial acquaintances. Hunter had a letter a lawyer named Donald Koughnet had written to Kimo McVay in 1995 explaining that Captain McVay had wanted his friend Koughnet, the judge advocate for the entire western Pacific during the war, to act as his attorney at the court-martial. Koughnet’s letter stated that the “brass” in Washington had interceded to deprive McVay of his choice of counsel (Captain Cady, who defended McVay, had virtually no courtroom experience) and concluded that “As a former Special Assistant to four Attorneys General of the United States, albeit years back, I am well aware of the propensity of governmental departments and agencies to appease public clamor by ‘deep-sixing’ loyal public servants.” Hunter had a letter from Dr. Lewis Haynes, the ship’s doctor, stating that after the war, when Haynes was working at the Chelsea Naval Hospital, he’d had Admiral Nimitz as a patient. Haynes had taken the opportunity to discuss the court-martial, and had heard from the lips of Admiral Nimitz himself, successor to Admiral King as chief of naval operations, that the trial should never have taken place.