 Years ago, air and sea search parties from many different nations descended on a small area of the South Pacific in a desperate search for a young adventurer who not only enjoyed a high personal profile but was also a media darling. No, this wasn’t Amelia Earhart. [For more about the Earhart disappearance, see Amelia's Shadow: The Search for Earhart and Noonan on Nikumaroro Island.] The year was 1961 and the missing person was Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson Rockefeller, the Massachusetts governor and millionaire.
Michael was only twenty-three when he joined an expedition organized by Rene Wassing, a Dutch anthropologist. Michael seemed more than willing to escape a life of money and privilege to live among Stone Age natives in the jungle of New Guinea. He and his colleagues spent most of their time studying and trading with the Asmat tribe, a group of people known for headhunting and cannibalism. [For more about cannibalism, see the enewsletters Who Ate Jean Francois? or Among the Headhunters.] On November 18, 1961, Wassing, Rockefeller and several guides were on an art buying trip with the Asmat people when rough seas overturned when the dugout canoe they were traveling in. The guides swam to shore to find help, but when no rescue parties had materialized the following morning, Michael announced that he too would swim to land and seek help.
“I think I can made it,” were his famous last words.
Rescue parties picked up Wassing the following day, but there was no sign of Rockefeller. His family and the Dutch government organized a massive search effort, but no sign of the young man was ever found.
There were several theories as to what happened to Michael. The most obvious was that he either drowned or was killed by the sharks or the saltwater crocodiles that infested the area. But more recently, author and journalist Milt Machlin investigated another theory altogether. In 1968, Machlin claimed that he was approached by a shadowy Australian smuggler called John Donahue who stated that he had met Rockefeller just weeks before in the Trobriand Islands, about a thousand miles from where he disappeared. Donahue described Rockefeller as having a long red beard and hobbling about due to poorly healed broken legs. Rockefeller, Donahue insisted, identified himself and asked for the smuggler’s help to escape the natives with whom he was living.
 The story went on that after Rockefeller swam ashore from the overturned canoe, he wandered through the mangroves for several days. One night, he broke his legs when he climbed a tree to sleep and the branches broke beneath him. He lost his glasses at the same time. After several weeks of living off the land, Trobriand tribesmen finally captured Rockefeller. The Trobriand were a skilled seafaring people who often made long trips along the coasts of the numerous islands in the area. The Trobriand apparently held onto Rockefeller because of his unusual appearance. Native tradition stated that odd-looking people were good luck, as they scared away jungle spirits. As a result, Rockefeller was kept by the natives as a half-guest, half-prisoner.
Despite Donahue’s shaky reputation, criminal history and disturbing lack of proof, Machlin set off for Kanaboora, an island so remote that it didn’t even appear on most maps. Did he find Rockefeller? No. Did he find any physical evidence that Rockefeller or any other American male ever lived on Trobriand? No. Is Machlin convinced that Donahue’s story is true? No. After conducting his own investigation, Machlin concluded that the millionaire’s son probably made it ashore and was killed by local tribesmen in retaliation for the deaths of some of their brethren by Dutch authorities. But this theory is also unsupported, as no trace of Rockefeller has been found to this day.
[This information was originally transmitted as an enewsletter in January 2006.] |
