A browse through magazines in the Latitude19Health Medical Centre waiting room on Magnetic Island suddenly caused palpitations when one unexpectedly brought back vivid memories of a major 1961 international news event-the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller , son of billionaire New York Governor , Nelson Rockefeller, in what was then Dutch New Guinea.
A January-July 2013 Club Marine article about the West Papua Raja Ampat Islands (now part of Indonesia) , described as a wild and raw out of the way place to visit, contained different hearsay scenarios for what happened to Rockefeller, including a claim that a local chief had killed him .
By Peter Simon
I was working on the Northern Territory News at the time of the disappearance , and the editor, James Frederick Bowditch, who had been in the Z Special Force commando group in WWll , proposed flying from Darwin in a small plane and parachuting into the search area to try and find Rockefeller.
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Northern Territory News: Editor parachuted inside
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In the Little Darwin biography of "Big Jim" Bowditch , I wrote that to prepare himself for that dare devil flight , he brought a parachute into the old tin bank News office in Smith Street, strapped it on his back , and practiced jumping off his desk and rolling , as he had been taught to do so in wartime . I was present when he brought the chute to the office for the first time . Kiwi reporter Les Wilson joined in the desk jumping during beer consumption one evening , a time when there was a tendency for numerous frivolous acts to take place on the premises .
Bowditch quipped that when the parachute canopy opened with a jerk after he jumped from a plane it would probably snap his old bones . Further laughter ensued when it was suggested he would float down into the jaws of a waiting crocodile.
Rockefeller, 23 , described as an aesthete , was on a Harvard University anthropological expedition when he disappeared. While on the trip, he was informed his parents were going to divorce. He returned to New York , told his parents he was going to be an anthropologist instead of an economist. Flying back to Hollandia, then the capital of Dutch New Guinea, he teamed up with 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 collecting artefacts-carved shields, canoe figureheads and shrunken heads. They also planned to record chants and war cries.
When the vessel was swamped by a large wave , Michael decided to try and swim 11 miles to shore, despite the fact that there were sharks and crocodiles. With his glasses tied to his head and empty fuel cans over his shoulder for flotation, he swam off ...never to be seen again .
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Classic Bowditch photograph by Kerry Byrnes
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When Bowditch heard about the disappearance , he proposed flying from Darwin to search for him. The NT News had been bought the year before by Rupert Murdoch and there were many telephone calls between Bowditch , Murdoch and Ken May at Murdoch headquarters down south .
Murdoch had promised to have the first reports from the search. There was doubt that the Dutch would grant permission for a plane to land. A well known Darwin light plane pilot was keen to make the flight , but said he would have to have Civil Aviation Authority clearance or else he would be in trouble. It was then that Bowditch came up with the plan to parachute into the area.
It was eventually decided it would be too risky and dangerous for Bowditch to make the parachute jump. Sydney reporter Brian Hogben and photographer Ron Iredale flew from Sydney to Merauke in Dutch New Guinea , via Port Moresby , New Guinea.
Nelson Rockefeller flew to Port Moresby with Michael's twin sister in a chartered Boeing 707 and a party of 17 pressmen. An Australian TAA Catalina was made available for the search party at Merauke . RAAF Hercules with helicopters were sent from Queensland to help. President Kennedy offered to send an aircraft carrier.
Convinced there was no hope of finding his son , Rockefeller, one of the richest men in the world , flew home after thanking searchers .Wild rumours circulated about the fate of Michael Rockefeller ...One 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 on sight. Another bizarre report claimed he made it ashore , was captured , killed , his head shrunk ,his glasses placed on top.
In his observations of the area, Michael Rockefeller had recorded the tragic impact of western culture . The area, he wrote, had filled with a kind of tragedy where many of the villagers were beginning to doubt their own culture and crave western things . The west , he continued, thought in terms of bringing advance and opportunity to such an area. In actuality it brought cultural bankruptcy which would last for many years. The region , 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.
Years after the event , a New York publication ran a beat up report about the Rockefeller disappearance in which it had Jim Bowditch and reporter Les Wilson practicing parachute drops- not in the Northern Territory News office - but in places all over New Guinea as they searched for Rockefeller.
