by Carl Hoffman
From San Francisco they flew on to Honolulu, where the governor chartered a Pan American Boeing 707 for $38,000 to fly on to Biak, via a refueling stop on Wake Island. The chartered flight left at 1:30 a.m. and offered no respite; reporters packed the plane. Though she’d gotten used to the publicity surrounding the family since Nelson had become governor, Mary felt overwhelmed and angry. “We found ourselves within a new group of strange, staring faces . . . and the sounds of conversation we heard upon entering turned to expectant silence that spread up and down the aisle as we found our seats in the front of the large cabin.
“I didn’t dare ask Father why we had to charter such a large plane or why he felt it necessary to play host to this swelling group of press.
“I think I must have displaced the anger I felt then at Father onto the press. I found myself in a way over my head, in a situation without context, holding on for dear life to Father’s strength and ability to control our family’s destiny and to grasp a victory out from under any shadow of defeat. Sitting beside him, I reached for his hand, for I could feel my own sense of self shrinking, and our fairy-tale mission beginning to fade and break apart. Where was Michael in this press corps’ vision? It was too unsafe to reach for the answer.”
18
November 1961
NELSON ROCKEFELLER (CENTER) AND RENÉ WASSING (LEFT) EXAMINING THE GASOLINE CAN PICKED UP BY THE DUTCH NAVY THAT MAY HAVE BEEN MICHAEL’S.
(Library of Congress)
IF THE OUTSIDE world had barely come to southwest New Guinea, now it was descending with a force and intensity that the villagers had never seen, had never known existed, could never have imagined.
As Nelson Rockefeller and his press pool hurtled toward the island, the portal that Nelson opened that cold day in 1957 was thrown wide as reporters from around the world rushed to New Guinea to join them. All this just as the Netherlands’ minister of foreign affairs, Joseph Luns, was making his case in New York to the UN General Assembly. Jan Herman van Roijen, the Dutch ambassador to the United States, sent a series of cables to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which forwarded them to Governor Platteel in Hollandia. “In connection with the enormous publicity to be expected, I need not point out to you—also with an eye to the still not unfavorable course of the review of the Dutch proposals in the UN—it is of supreme importance to provide Rockefeller and the accompanying reporters the most assistance possible from the Royal Navy accommodations and facilities.” He urged that everything the military and the civilian government could do should be done, on sea and on land. “It should be prevented that Nelson Rockefeller and the reporters accompanying him get the impression that any reasonable option would have been neglected to find the missing person.”
In a second, breathtaking cable the same day, Theo Bot, the Dutch minister of the interior, wrote to van Roijen, Luns, and Platteel. Michael’s disappearance was manna from heaven, the perfect opportunity, and they mustn’t let it go to waste. “As a consequence of the tragic disappearance of Rockefeller junior, the international press . . . gives more attention to Dutch New Guinea than the opening of the New Guinea counsel and the Dutch proposals in the UN could generate,” he wrote. “We should turn this to our advantage as much as possible with an eye to the success of the Dutch proposals in the UN. In particular I’m thinking of: one: as much as possible a unified response of the members of the New Guinea counsel with regard to the future of Dutch New Guinea. Two: self-control and loyalty (Dutch) officials toward foreign guests so that a repetition of Hastings’ experiences [Hastings was a critical Australian reporter] will be prevented. Three: Emphasize modern development of Dutch New Guinea as opposed to picturesque primitivity of south coast and interior. Four: to highlight the idea of ‘nation in the making’ and real practical possibilities with regard to the future of Dutch New Guinea on condition that the UN will give the opportunity to do so by means of sending a committee etc. as proposed by the Netherlands. Of course I will gladly leave the manner of implementation of the above to your insight.”
It was a stunning moment of geopolitical maneuvering. The world’s eyes were now on New Guinea, including Nelson Rockefeller’s, and it was the Netherlands’ chance to show that its colony wasn’t just some backwater full of headhunters, as President Kennedy’s advisers were arguing, but a nation in the making, with a well-oiled government that could make things happen. For Dutch officials, the search for Michael had become part of a larger strategy: to leave no canoe unturned and no patch of ocean unexamined, and to have Nelson Rockefeller return home, if not singing the praises of the Luns Plan directly, at least saying how great the Dutch in New Guinea were. And the same for the international press—whether Michael turned up dead or alive.
AS THE GOVERNOR and Mary winged their way across the Pacific, the search ratcheted into higher gear. On Monday, November 20, a Dutch DeHavilland Beaver and the Neptunes continued combing the sea and coast. A PBY Catalina flying boat was brought in from Lae, in Australian New Guinea. Ken Dresser and missionary pilot Betty Greene swept the coast in their Cessnas. The Dutch patrol boats Tasman, Eendracht, and Snellius scoured the seas. Asmat in canoes were asked to search the rivers. In Biak a Dutch marine tied gerry cans to his waist, jumped in a swimming pool, “and showed that the person involved could make good speed in swimming,” though “if unconscious head goes front forward in the water.” As a test, the navy dropped gerry cans into the water; they were successfully spotted by the radar of a Neptune. The Dutch attaché for New Guinea affairs at its embassy in Canberra, Australia, cabled that he was overwhelmed, that Michael’s disappearance had stopped all other business and reporters had taken over his telephone, that he was scrambling to issue journalism visas and landing permits to chartered airlines to carry them in.
NELSON AND MARY paused briefly in Biak, where they were met by the commander of Dutch forces, L. E. H. Reeser, and told of the search activities to date, including the tests with the gerry cans. After thirty minutes, they boarded a DC-3 to Hollandia, just as Michael had done eight months before, and then met briefly there with more officials. “My daughter Mary and I are very satisfied that the government is doing everything in its power and we are very grateful,” Nelson said before continuing on to Merauke, southwest of Asmat proper.
It is a truism that you can’t really understand a place, can’t grasp it, until you arrive there. You can picture it, or imagine it, but it’s an abstraction. Whatever they imagined Michael had been doing and seeing and feeling in Asmat over the months he’d been gone, the reality of the place began to hit them when they flew over Asmat, staring at the flat swamp through binoculars, and then landed in Merauke. The vastness. The heat and humidity. The utter primitiveness. Merauke might have been the administrative center of the southwest coast of the Dutch colony, but it was “a flat, ugly little settlement,” in the words of Peter Hastings, the Australian reporter who’d been covering Indonesia and New Guinea for years, had met Michael in the Baliem Valley, and had even gone to the movies one night with him in Hollandia. He described Merauke as “comprising a few bitumen roads . . . a hotel of sorts . . . a great sullen river and a dirt road that in the dry season is passable to the Australian border.”
Into this backwater town on the afternoon of November 23 descended a hundred journalists, Nelson Rockefeller and his daughter, and their entourage. It was a mad, sad scrum. Asmat, huge and inaccessible, lay 150 miles north and was not a place the Dutch wanted them to go anyway. Though the governor and Mary had flown ten thousand miles around the world, they weren’t much closer to the action than if they’d stayed in New York.
The journalists were in the same position. They were in New Guinea, but there was nothing to see, to do, to report on, except what was in front of them. And what was in front of them were the Rockefellers, a grieving, exhausted, and overwhelmed father and sister on the edge of one of the wildest swamps on earth. “The story we had all arrived to report was ostensibly the search for Michael,” wrote Hastings, “but in reality turned
out to be however distasteful or harrowing or intrusive, a watching brief on the private and public agony of Governor Rockefeller and his daughter, Michael’s twin sister, Mrs. Mary Strawbridge.”
Jan Broekhuijse, an anthropologist with the Dutch Department of Native Affairs who had been assigned to Gardner’s film project, was flown in and met the governor in Merauke. “He was,” remembered Broekhuijse, “a hurt, broken man.”
It was like a public whipping, a public exposure, one of the world’s most powerful men rendered impotent by geography and culture. “For the first time in my life,” wrote Mary, “I noticed lines of worry creasing Father’s brow and observed moments when he stared off into space.”
Eliot Elisofon spent a day in a Catalina searching. The plane dropped off drums of aviation fuel in Pirimapun, from which the search was being conducted, and for eight hours he alternated thirty minutes on and thirty off, standing at the Catalina’s side window blister, gazing down, looking for anything Michael-related. Asmat filled him with dread. “The coastline here is dismal. Filthy swamps seem to merge with the edge of the sea in a mud flat, deep enough to submerge half the height of giant tropical trees that have been swept out to sea by the numerous rivers that interlace this southern coast like the blood vessels of a plastic man. We have seen giant manta rays, hammerhead sharks, snakes, porpoises and thousands of birds. Our search is not just the water’s edge, we cannot call it the beach since there is none, but also adjacent sea. Even if he made shore the mud is terribly difficult to get through and his excellent physical condition would be no further help in trying to cross the flats. I have been told that a man falling down into the mud cannot get up without help and Mike certainly didn’t have any.”
The search droned on. The governor held press conferences and attended a church service. René Wassing was trotted out to tell the story of his last hours with Michael, whose “restless nature made it impossible to endure our drifting around,” he said.
Wassing’s nervousness, Mary wrote, “mirrored my own deep anxiety and challenged the place where I clung to hope. I remember Rene’s eyes going from one Dutch official to the other as he spoke. I sensed he felt responsible to them and could not be completely present with Father and me concerning what had happened to Michael.”
On November 23, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet had cabled the admiral of Dutch New Guinea: “I can provide patrol planes, a converted carrier with helicopters, and surface units. . . . Please do not hesitate to inform me of any support which might assist you, and I will be pleased to provide it to the utmost of my capabilities. Please pass this to Governor Nelson Rockefeller.”
The admiral responded: “I am considering your kind offer.”
Indonesia objected—and played its card. “The Indonesian minister of Foreign Affairs has suggested Friday that Holland is trying to use the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller as a way to cause the rift between Indonesia and the United States,” reported Reuters. “When asked for comment on reports that a spokesperson of the Dutch ministry of defense had said that the American seventh fleet was prepared to offer a carrier for the search, the spokesman of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that he could not understand why an aircraft carrier was needed for that purpose. ‘We understand what a father feels at the loss of his son . . . ; from a human perspective we understand how everyone is prepared to help in the search. We do not understand why that would require an aircraft carrier.’ ”
The spokesman said that if it was true that the United States was sending an aircraft carrier, it showed that the Dutch colonial authorities were not capable of performing their own duties.
The politics of it all was too hot. On November 24, the Dutch rejected the offer. “After consultations with Governor Nelson Rockefeller we have come to the conclusion that at the moment sufficient means including Australian aircraft and helicopters are available to continue a close search of the area; consequently additional forces will not be required. Your kind words and speedy offer have been a great help for us in our difficult and sad task.”
Though the Rockefellers expressed hope, Dutch officials were increasingly convinced that Michael had drowned before ever making it to shore—or at least that’s what they wanted to believe. The Associated Press reported that officials in Hollandia had “abandoned all hope,” and the New York Times quoted Theo Bot, Holland’s minister of the interior: “There is no longer any hope of finding Michael Rockefeller alive. Our people on the spot consider the situation hopeless.” The likelihood that he could be alive at sea by this time, of course, was nil, but the Rockefellers clung to the idea that he might have made it to shore. “I’m a realist,” the governor said. “If Michael reached the interior of the coast it may be a long time before we hear of it.”
Eibrink Jansen, the resident in Merauke, backed him up: “If Michael reached shore there is a good chance of survival. The natives, although uncivilized, are very kind and will always help you. It’s quite possible they took him to a hut.”
The governor refused to abandon Merauke. He wanted to stay longer, to keep the search going, and he praised his hosts “for having inspired so much loyalty and affection among the Papuans,” reported the Times, “that the natives were enlisting for the search.” Which, of course, was just what the Dutch wanted him to say, and Platteel (who had been instructed by Bot to turn Michael’s disappearance to the Dutch advantage) cabled Bot in The Hague. “Rockefeller enthusiastic about rescue action and help from government. During press conference he emphasized repeatedly his deep admiration and gratitude for government and officials. The person involved is highly impressed by the cooperative attitude of the population which has answered a call from administrative officials to help in droves. He sees this as evidence of a very good relationship between the Papuans and the Dutch officials. Speech Rockefeller recorded by television and reporters. Correspondents complimented me with public praise from Rockefeller about New Guinea government and personally addressed to the governor about unlimited and unconditional assistance.”
Nelson Rockefeller’s continued presence paid off. Also on November 24, two Australian army Bell 47 G2-A helicopters were flown in from Australia by a C-130A Hercules and assembled with floats in Merauke. Using fuel cached in Pirimapun, they fanned out to individual villages and rivers, flying a search grid ninety miles along the coast and six miles inland. Like all outsiders plopped into Asmat, Captain Dick Knight, one of the pilots, saw nothing but “a torrid, hostile wilderness. . . . It was certainly a forbidding area in which to fly, particularly at the ‘low and slow’ pace necessary to conduct any sort of reasonable search peering down into the forest. Each aircraft carried . . . a 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle; and each pilot had a 9mm pistol.”
A third helicopter from a Dutch frigate joined the Australians. And then something: on the same day, November 24, a red Johnson gasoline can for an outboard engine was picked up far to the south by the patrol ship Snellius, and a Catalina and Neptune were immediately directed to the area. The tank was shown to Wassing; that could be one of them, he said, but he couldn’t be sure.
The search had new life. Mary and Nelson flew with Eibrink Jansen by Catalina for a few hours to Pirimapun, where van de Waal showed them around in a starched white uniform, Nelson looking like he was at a country club in a white V-neck T-shirt, white shorts, white socks, and white bucks. Van de Waal took Nelson to the gabagaba hut in which he lived. “Is this yours?” Nelson asked van de Waal incredulously. They stood on the dock and looked to sea. What else could they do?
They landed briefly in the Catalina on the river next to the village of Amanamkai, shook a few hands, then flew back to Merauke. They waited. Held press conferences. Hoped. But Asmat was unyielding, impenetrable. Helicopters, airplanes, ships, phalanxes of Dutch officials and reporters, and ultimately even the great square-jawed governor, the man who brought primitive art to New York, were defeated.
On the morning of November 28, nine days after Michael had swum away from the raft,
Nelson flew to Hollandia, then Biak, and on to Tokyo and home.
19
November 1961
THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY HELICOPTER UNLOADED FROM A C-130A IN NEW GUINEA TO SEARCH FOR MICHAEL ROCKEFELLER.
(Library of Congress)
IF THERE IS a moment that captures the search for Michael, it’s Eliot Elisofon’s description of his hours in the Catalina. He isn’t really in Asmat at all, but above it, encased in an aluminum tube, gazing at what to him appears to be a deadly and forbidding land. It’s not hard to read his letter and wonder how anyone could live at all in the world he describes. It doesn’t seem habitable: the sea is full of sharks; the shore is mud so deep a man falls in it and can’t get up. But no reporters ever went anywhere in Asmat, not even to Agats. Nelson and Mary never spent a single night there.
To the Dutch officials in Merauke, Hollandia, and Amsterdam, and to the Rockefellers and the reporters covering the tragedy, Michael vanished into a great mire, an environment so hostile and remote that they threw up their hands and surrendered. He was simply gone. They looked at the mud and swamp and jungle and projected their own disconnection: no one could survive in that. Never mind that the Asmat had been living in the mud for generations. They walked in it. Rolled in it. Covered their bodies with it. And all that ocean and all those sharks. Never mind that the Asmat had been swimming in it and boating in it for as long as there had been Asmat. Michael must have been gobbled up by sharks or grown tired and drowned, and that’s what the official cause of death became: Michael Rockefeller was taken by sharks or drowned. It was neat and tidy, and it fit the way Westerners looked at the world. And it worked for the Dutch government, which wanted the outside world to believe New Guinea was full of eager future citizens of the world, not Stone Age headhunters who practiced cannibalism.
