Thomas Anthony Dooley III | |
|---|---|
 Thomas A. Dooley, M.D. | |
| Born | (1927-01-17)January 17, 1927 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | January 18, 1961(1961-01-18) (aged 34) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Notre Dame |
| Occupations | Physician, author |
Thomas Anthony Dooley III (January 17, 1927 – January 18, 1961) was an American physician who worked inSoutheast Asia at the outset of American involvement in theVietnam War. While serving as a physician in theUnited States Navy and afterwards, he became known for hishumanitarian andanti-communistpolitical activities up until his early death from cancer. After his death, the public learned that he had been recruited as an intelligence operative by theCentral Intelligence Agency, and numerous descriptions of atrocities by theViet Minh in his bookDeliver Us From Evil had been fabricated.
Dooley has been called "a key agent in the first disinformation campaign of the Vietnam War," garnering support for theUS government's growing involvement there.[1] Dooley, one critic said, is an example of "celebrity sainthood" and the "intersection of show business and mysticism occupied the space where Tom Dooley was perhaps most at home"; nevertheless, he "helped to pull American Catholicism away from its insular, angry anti-Communism" and he lived a life that does not "invite facile judgment."[2]
Dooley authored three popular books that described his activities inVietnam andLaos:Deliver Us From Evil,The Edge of Tomorrow, andThe Night They Burned the Mountain.
Dooley was born January 17, 1927, inSt. Louis, Missouri, and raised in a prominentRoman CatholicIrish-American household. He attended St. Roch Catholic Elementary School andSt. Louis University High School; at both he was a classmate ofMichael Harrington.[3] He then went to college at theUniversity of Notre Dame, but completed only five semesters of course work.[4] In 1944, he enlisted as ahospital corpsman in the United States Navy, serving in a naval hospital inNew York City. In 1946, he returned to Notre Dame, but left without receiving a degree. Later, on June 5, 1960, Notre Dame presented him with an honorary degree.[5] He entered theSaint Louis University School of Medicine. When he graduated in 1953, after repeating his final year of medical school, he joined the Navy. He completed his residency atMarine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, and then atYokosuka,Japan. In 1954, he was assigned to theUSS Montague, which was traveling toVietnam.[6]
In May 1954, theGeneva Agreements divided Vietnam at the17th parallel north into two political zones. People north of the 17th parallel lived under theViet Minh government, and those south of the 17th parallel lived under the government ofNgo Dinh Diem.Hanoi andHaiphong remained free zones until May 1955. In August 1954, Dooley transferred to Task Force Ninety, a unit participating in the evacuation of over 600,000 North Vietnamese known asOperation Passage to Freedom. Here he served as a French interpreter and medical officer for a Preventive Medicine Unit in Haiphong. He eventually oversaw the building and maintenance of refugee camps in Haiphong until May 1955, when the Viet Minh took over the city. He returned to Yokosuka, Japan in June 1955.[6]
Dooley was assigned to themedical intelligence task force sponsored by theMilitary Advisory Assistance Group, whose leader,Lt. Gen. John W. O'Daniel, was an active ally of Ngo Dinh Diem. His official duties involved collecting samples for epidemiological work, "but his primary role was as a liaison between the refugee campaign...Operation Passage to Freedom and American reporters and politicians with an interest in Southeast Asia." In return for his work as a "spokesman", the doctor was awarded the highest presidential honor by Diem.[4] During this period, he wrote numerous letters to his mother, many of which she shared with reporters; the letters were then printed in the local press, including theSt. Louis Globe-Democrat.[7] Most of the letters exaggerated his personal contribution to the refugee work.[8] Despite his self-promotion, he "was indefatigable in taking care of his patients."[9] Concerning the "self-aggrandizement" aspect of his personality, he said that to be a humanitarian in the modern world "you've gotta run it like a business. You've gotta have Madison Avenue, press relations, TV, radio...and of course you get condemned for being a publicity seeker"; he argued that being able to care for 100 people per day, between 1954 and 1958, with MEDICO later treating 2,000 per day, justified this approach to humanitarianism.[10]
Dooley was soon recruited as an operative by Lieutenant ColonelEdward G. Lansdale, head of theCIA office inSaigon. He was chosen as a symbol of Vietnamese-American cooperation, and was encouraged to write about his experiences in the refugee camps. The CIA,USAID, and several other agencies "conducted fund-raising campaigns for the refugees" later described in his books.The Pentagon Papers would later note that he "significantly aided" in the gathering of intelligence information.[11]
William Lederer, author ofThe Ugly American, helped initiate this phase of Dooley's career. Lederer, who was at the time serving as a Navy press officer attached to the admiralty, appreciated the eloquence of Dooley's situation reports, and suggested that he write a book.[12] Immediately prior to publication, he and Lederer spent two weeks living together polishing the manuscript.[13] Lederer was also on "special assignment" for the CIA during this period.[14]
In 1956, Dooley's bookDeliver Us from Evil became a best-seller, establishing him as an icon of American humanitarian and anti-communist activities abroad. His vivid accounts of communist atrocities committed on Catholic refugees were not verifiable. It has been alleged that Dooley was passing along descriptions of events that had been created by Landsdale and his team.[15] In 1956, U.S. officials who were stationed in the Hanoi-Haiphong area during his tour of duty submitted a lengthy report to the U.S. Information Agency holding thatDeliver Us from Evil was "not the truth" and that the accounts of Viet Minh atrocities were "nonfactual and exaggerated." However, these reports remained classified for nearly thirty years.[16] James Fisher allows that the U.S. Information Agency report was "valid," but he also argues it "must be viewed with some suspicion" because they were preparing to "discredit Dooley" as "an insurance policy against a renewed outbreak of anti-internationalism."[17]
Dooley's book featured exceptionally gory tales of religious persecution. The doctor claimed the Viet Minh jammed chopsticks into the ears of children to keep them from hearing theLord's Prayer and regularly mutilated Catholic instructors. Most sensationally, he fabricated a story of the Viet Minh pounding nails into the head of a priest—"a communist version of the crown of thorns, once forced on the Savior of whom he preached." He also claimed that Ho Chi Minh's forces had "disemboweled more than 1,000 native women in Hanoi." Thirty years after his death, in response to a journalist's question, Lederer said that "the atrocities the doctor described 'never took place."[16] At the time, however, Lederer brokered a deal withReader's Digest to publish Dooley's claims[1] and he used him as the "real-life model" for Father John Finian, a heroic character inThe Ugly American.[18] Critics noted the book's ability to describe horror and suffering, but one noted that "His book is less happy when he attempts to fill in the historical background." Dooley's grasp of the geo-political situation was superficial.[19]
Commenting on these allegations, Seth Jacobs[20] wrote that although Dooley "may have exaggerated or fabricated," this was not done to make his book more sensational. Instead, these atrocity stories grew out of a period of immersion in refugee life, from September 1954 to May 1955, a period during which he drove himself so mercilessly that he went from 180 to 120 pounds, "nearly died of malarial fever, acquired four types of intestinal worms, and suffered so acutely from sleep deprivation that he frequently hallucinated." Whereas Dooley had previously avoided responsibility, now "he could not get enough of it": he regularly performed major surgery and lobbied pharmaceutical companies.[21]
Dooley was on a promotional tour for this book when he was investigated for participating inhomosexual activities.[22] It seems that what the Navy discovered about his private life resulted in a negotiated agreement that he would announce he was leaving the Navy in order to serve the people of Vietnam.[12]
After leaving the Navy, Dooley and three former Navy corpsmen established a hospital nearLuang Namtha,Laos, with the sponsorship of the International Rescue Committee.[23] At this time, theInternational Rescue Committee had a secret working relationship with the CIA in Southeast Asia, coordinated byJoseph Buttinger.[14] In an article entitled "Why I'm A Jungle Medic," printed inThink magazine, June 1958, he said they chose Laos because the country, with 3,000,000 people, had only one "bonafide" doctor.[6] He explained to the Laotian Minister of Health that he wished to work in an area near theChinese border because "there are sick people there and furthermore people who had been flooded with potent draughts of anti-Western propaganda from Red China."[24]
Dooley founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals atNam Tha,Muong Sing (five miles south of the Chinese border), andBan Houei Sa. The plan for MEDICO was that it would build, stock, supply, and train staff for small hospitals; after 16 months, MEDICO planned to turn over these hospitals to the host country's government.[6]During this same time period, he wrote two books,The Edge of Tomorrow andThe Night They Burned the Mountain, about his experience in Laos, including further descriptions of atrocities he said were committed by communist soldiers. In the latter book, he voiced strong political opinions about theLaotian crisis of 1960, defending the right-wing coup led by "one of his closest friends,"Phoumi Nosavan. He also wrote that the rigging of elections "cut through the red tape and kibbosh you get involved with in Asia," asserting that "Democracy, as championed in the US, does not translate well into Lao...Not yet."[25]
While Dooley was providing medical care to Lao refugees, he also collected intelligence for the CIA, tracking civilian movements, and he provided cover forUnited States Special Forces medics who posed as civilian doctors.[11][26] Dennis Shephard, a physician who worked with him, claimed that he would round up as many of his former patients as he could whenever potential sponsors came to tour theVientiane clinic, giving the impression that he had a full and active clinic. Shephard remembered local CIA officers coming by often to find out if Dooley had picked up anything about the movement of Chinese troops, as well as to ensure that the weapons he had brought up with his medical supplies were well-hidden and secure.[12] Shephard helped him establish a clinic atVang Vieng;[27] His obituary records that he was a guest when he was featured onThis Is Your Life and that he traveled with him "from village to village, where they treated illness and injuries, and taught Laotians about sanitation and medication."[28][29]
In 1959, Dooley returned to the United States for cancer treatment. He agreed toFred W. Friendly's request that hismelanoma surgery be the subject of aCBS News documentary.[30] On April 21, 1960,Biography of a Cancer was broadcast;[31] it was hosted byHoward K. Smith, and included the surgery and an interview with him.[32][30] In response to Smith's suggestion that his attitude toward his cancer was "blithe", he replied: "I'm scared to death of this thing becoming maudlin; I'm scared to death of somebody saying 'a clutching, agonizing sort of a thing'...I don't want anyone to get sloppy over this; I don't like anything that says 'a dying doctor's anguish bit'; that's stupid." He proceeded to say that he agreed to the televising of his surgery to help reduce American ignorance and fear of cancer, and so that he could promote MEDICO.[33] After the surgery was performed, he described it candidly and revealed that his prognosis was bad; he died less than a year later.[34]
According to James Fisher's comprehensive biography, Dooley remained a devout Catholic until his death. At his funeral, U.S. Sen.Stuart Symington described him as "One of those rare Americans who is truly a citizen of the world."[7] After his death,John F. Kennedy cited his example when he launched thePeace Corps.[35] He was also awarded aCongressional Gold Medal after his death.[36] He was buried inCalvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
In 1961Gallup Poll named Dooley the third most admired man in the world according to the American public, behind only PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower andPope John XXIII.[37] Later, his legacy became intertwined with controversy surrounding the Vietnam War. As a result, writers continue to struggle with the doctor's record of philanthropy and the later American war in Southeast Asia.
During the height of the Vietnam War, when attention began to be given to thepropaganda aspect of Dooley's work,one journalist charged that he was responsible "for helping to create 'a climate of public misunderstanding that made thewar in Vietnam possible.'"[38] More than a decade later, after examining more than 500 unclassified CIA documents, another writer argued that although he did provide the CIA with some information, he never initiated contact with them, he took no money, his motivation was patriotism, and he hoped this would afford him "more freedom to do his work and a little less harassment."[39]
Despite Dooley's problematic descriptions of Southeast Asia, Prince Souphan of Laos said that he was "known to his grateful Lao admirers as 'Thanh Mo America' (Dr. America)".[40] He himself was frequently critical of United States actions in the region. He observed: "We are hated in most of the Orient. ... They think freedom means freedom of the capitalist to exploit the Oriental people. No Americans have ever gotten down to their level."[7] At the same time, he opposed concrete reforms to foreign aid in Laos when Congress proposed them, defending the "first-class administrators" at the US embassy. He also rejected all compromises with communists, even when the Laotian public supported them, going so far as calling the popular neutralist leaderKong Le "an idiot."[41][42]
MEDICO depended primarily upon volunteers and private donations; by 1960 over 2000 physicians had applied to serve as volunteers, and new teams for medical assistance were established inHaiti,Cambodia, andAfghanistan.[43] According toTed Hesburgh, Dooley refused Dwight D. Eisenhower's offer to use government funds to assist in his work. Eisenhower did, however, personally raise funds for MEDICO. After Dooley died, funding for MEDICO dried up and it was taken over byCARE.[44]
Dooley's principal biographer, James Fisher, wrote that he "tried never to forget what this man's toil and suffering meant to untold people of all backgrounds."[45] Nearly four years after his death,The New York Times wrote that his work was "more active than it was even at the time of his death."[46] Although medical experts criticized his approach as naive and simplistic,[47] numerous people have been inspired by Dooley to do similar work:
The Dr. Tom Dooley Foundation has an endowed scholarship at the St. Louis University Medical School intended "to inspire students to follow the footsteps of Dr. Tom Dooley."[58] Dooley is memorialized at the University of Notre Dame's Grotto of Our Lady, with astatue as well as an engraved copy of a letter he wrote to former Notre Dame presidentTed Hesburgh.[5][59]
william lederer, cia, lansdale.
edge of tomorrow, dooley, claims.
Kong le idiot.
His efforts to provide health care were simplistic and violated most of the principles of international health work, even at that early stage [...].
