What Really Happened to Michael Rockefeller
A journey to the heart of New Guinea's Asmat tribal homeland sheds new light on the mystery of the heir's disappearance there in 1961
He was 23 years old, the privileged son of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, seven months into the adventure of a lifetime that had transformed him from clean-cut student to bearded photographer and art collector. One moment his boat was being tossed by the waves, just as ours was, and the next he and his Dutch companion were clinging to an overturned hull. And then Rockefeller had swum for shore and vanished. No trace of him was ever found, despite a two-week search involving ships, airplanes, helicopters and thousands of locals prowling the coasts and jungle swamps. The fact that such a simple, banal thing had happened to him made what was happening to us feel all the more real. There would be no foreboding music. One bad wave and I’d be clinging to a boat in the middle of nowhere.
The official cause of Michael's death was drowning, but there had long been a multitude of rumors. He'd been kidnapped and kept prisoner. He'd gone native and was hiding out in the jungle. He'd been consumed by sharks. He'd made it to shore, only to be killed and eaten by the local Asmat headhunters. The story had grown, become mythical. There had been an off-Broadway play about him, a novel, a rock song, even a television show in the 1980s hosted by Leonard Nimoy...
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| Michael Rockefeller (standing, on the right) with his family |
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