 |
| Michael |
In November
l961 Michael Rockefeller ,
son of Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, disappeared on an
anthropological expedition
in what was then Dutch New Guinea .
Rockefeller ,
described as an aesthete, had wanted to
study architecture but was forced to yield to parental pressure and took up
economics. While at Harvard
University he heard of an
expedition of anthropologists and a film crew to the Baliem
Valley of Dutch New Guinea to make a record of tribes whose primitive
agricultural society was
yet untouched by western culture.
He joined the expedition telling his
parents he wanted to do something
romantic and adventuresome while there
were still far away frontiers
to explore .
By Peter Simon
While on the expedition he was informed that his
parents were going to divorce. He returned home to New York, told his
parents he was going to be an
anthropologist , and then flew back to
Hollandia , the capital of Dutch
New Guinea. There he teamed up
with Dutch ethnologist
Dr Rennie Wassing and they went on a two month field trip
gathering material for the New York Museum of Primitive Art .
They travelled aboard a catamaran powered by two
l8 horsepower motors-collecting artefacts , carved shields , canoe
figureheads and shrunken heads. They also
planned to record chants and war
cries .
A large
wave swamped their catamaran
near the Eilander River . The
two clung to the vessel ; Michael decided to try and swim 11 miles to shore . Wassing pleaded with him
not to go because of the obvious danger, the waters containing
crocodiles and sharks. Despite those pleas, Rockefeller tied his glasses to his
head, strapped empty fuel
cans over his shoulders for
flotation, and swam off …never to
be seen again .
The catamaran
was eventually found drifting
and Wassing raised
the alarm. When Bowditch heard about the disappearance of Rockefeller he proposed
flying to the area from Darwin to
search for him . He felt that because he had served near that
area during the war, he might know
some of the natives , a very long shot. Rupert Murdoch, who owned the Northern Territory News
, had promised to have the first story from the area and
discussed the matter with
Bowditch and a top executive , Ken
May.
A major problem
was getting approval from Dutch authorities to fly into Merauke , the nearest place to where Rockefeller had last been seen.
If no quick approval could be given for landing at Merauke , Bowditch suggested he
could parachute into the area . “ It was my lust to get the story that made
me suggest the parachute jump, ” Bowditch explained.
The problem
was discussed with
light plane operators in Darwin .
They indicated a willingness to fly to
Merauke, as long as he could
get Department of Civil Aviation and
Dutch approval for the flight.
To prepare himself for a daring
and dangerous assignment
should the green light be
given , Bowditch obtained a parachute
and brought it back to the NT News
office.
During the
evening , with the help of many
cans of beer, Bowditch
demonstrated the technique of parachute
jumping to reporter Les Wilson. Bowditch , parachute on back,
would mount his desk, jump and roll. Laughter also flowed when
he said that the parachute canopy,
opening with a jerk , would probably snap his old
bones. The vision of
a fractured Big
Jim landing in
the jaws of crocodiles intent on
extensive mastication added to the
madness of the evening. Wilson had a few jumps himself
with the parachute strapped to
his back. It was another memorable evening in the
newspaper office which had witnessed many strange nocturnal events , including this writer trying to throttle the editor.
It was finally decided that
Sydney reporter Brian
Hogben and photographer
Ron Iredale would fly from Sydney
to Merauke via Port Moresby , New Guinea . Bowditch said Murdoch and May probably came to the conclusion that it would have been too
risky and possibly very expensive
if Bowditch had perished
carrying out his dare- devil
parachute drop.
Nelson
Rockefeller senior flew to Port Moresby
with Michael’s twin sister in a
chartered Boeing 707 and a party of
17 Pressmen. A TAA Catalina
was made available for the search party at Merauke . A huge
land, sea and air search , which
included the Royal Dutch Air Force , failed to find any trace of Michael.
It was felt certain that he
either drowned or had been taken by a
a crocodile or a shark.
The
disappearance was front page news in
Australia and America . From New York reporter Zell
Rabin wrote that Hogben’s reports had been
given prominence in major
American newspapers.
President Kennedy asked the Australian
Prime Minister , Mr Menzies, to help in
anyway he could and RAAF
Hercules transports with helicopters were
sent from Queensland to join the search. An offer was made to
send a
US aircraft carrier , but Rockefeller said it was not needed. Convinced that there was little hope of finding his
son , he returned to America .
Before he
left he personally thanked many of the people who participated in the
search for his son, including the
Australians. Many indigenous
people had taken part in the hunt
and one of the richest
men in the world stood with
naked locals thanking them for their efforts in trying to locate his son .
Wild rumours
circulated about the fate of Michael
Rockefeller . One story claimed
he made it ashore and hailed a
party of warriors whose village
had recently been attacked by Dutch soldiers killing
several of their tribe in a so
called “ pacification” campaign.
According to this report he had
been killed and eaten .
There was even a
bizarre suggestion that Rockefeller’s head had been shrunk by tribesmen and his
glasses placed around the neck. In his
observations of the area in which
he had worked, Michael Rockefeller
recorded the tragic impact
of western culture. He said the area was filled with a kind of tragedy where many of the villagers had reached the point where they were beginning to doubt their
own culture and crave western
things . The west, he said, thought in terms of
bringing advance and opportunity
to such a place . In actuality it
brought cultural bankruptcy which would
last for many years. The area, like
every other corner of the world , was
being sucked into a global
economy and a world culture which
insisted on economic plenty as a
primary ideal .
