Decades After Michael C. Rockefeller Mysteriously Vanished, Questions About His 1961 Death Resurface (Exclusive)

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Michael C. Rockefeller, son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared in 1961 while on an expedition in New Guinea
His body was never found and the story of his disappearance remains shrouded in mystery. The story has resurfaced once again now that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has renovated and reopened a wing in his name
His surviving twin, Mary Rockefeller Morgan, spoke to PEOPLE about the weight of the loss in 2014When his boat capsized 10 miles off the coast of New Guinea back in 1961, Michael C. Rockefeller, 23, decided to swim to land and get help. He was never seen again.
At the time, Michael, one of the five children born to Nelson Rockefeller, one-time governor of New York, and his wife, Mary, had traveled to the island of New Guinea to collect art and artifacts. Years later, his father, continuing his family's longtime support of the arts, donated much of the collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Over the years, Michael's disappearance became the stuff of legend, including speculation that he'd been murdered and eaten by cannibals, a theory his family, who believes he drowned, has long refuted.
Sixty-four years after Michael's disappearance, the Metropolitan Museum has renovated and reopened the Michael C. Rockefeller wing. 'I feel like the reopening of the wing is the fulfillment of father's dream,' Michael's twin sister Mary Rockefeller Morgan, 87, recently told the New York Times. 'And Michael's dream.'
Back in 2014, she gave a rare and poignant interview to PEOPLE about her twin, as shared below.
On Nov. 19, 1961, Michael C. Rockefeller, 23, a son of then-New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, vanished off the coast of New Guinea. An heir to the Rockefeller oil fortune, he'd traveled there as part of an anthropological expedition and remained to collect art from the Asmat tribe, hunter-gatherers who lived in virtual isolation from the modern world.
His disappearance made headlines worldwide — a son of immense privilege gone without a trace. But the loss emotionally shattered his twin sister, Mary. The two youngest of Nelson Rockefeller's five children from his first marriage were so close, says Morgan, "we completed each other." Therapy helped her accept Michael's death, presumed to be from drowning after his catamaran capsized, though clouded in speculation that he was murdered and eaten by cannibals — a theory she disputes.
"There is no direct or conclusive evidence of how Michael died," says Morgan, a psychotherapist specializing in twin bereavement and grief counseling. Her pain resurfaced earlier [in 2014] when Carl Hoffman's book Savage Harvest retold the cannibal story. Her own book, When Grief Calls Forth the Healing, was updated and reissued.
Morgan spoke to PEOPLE's Liz McNeil at her New York City home about her brother, his legacy and the pain of his loss.
"We were in the same crib until we were about 2½, and Michael, the adventurous one, climbed out. Michael was very inquisitive and independent. He was fascinated with beautiful things, pulling me over to look at something: a rock, when we were toddlers, or later a painting.
"We understood that being from the Rockefeller family was a big responsibility, but also something we felt to be a burden, because we didn't really know who we were as individuals. This desire to express who he was was one of the reasons he went to New Guinea [in April 1961] as part of a Harvard University expedition and why he wanted to find out about people who lived in a totally different way. The expedition was going to make a film on Indigenous people who had never seen White people; he became fascinated with them.
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"I had a premonition that he would not come home. But there was no chance of dissuading Michael. In his letters home, he was completely thrilled about what he was doing. He felt very comfortable with the people. He would sit in the fields and talk to the children. He was fascinated by their culture and how their art sprang from everyday life. He bartered for art objects with tobacco and axes. They were a pre-Stone Age culture and had no way of making implements except out of wood, or bones of people or animals.
"On Nov. 20 my father came in with a cablegram for me and my brothers and mother to read. I knew deep down for one terrible moment that Michael was gone. I thought my father was the person who would solve everything, and we would go to New Guinea and find him. I could just picture Michael, disheveled, having surmounted any obstacle and wondering why we were so upset.
"We left that night. [Nelson Rockefeller chartered a 707 plane to New Guinea.] Father knew the local people would be frightened. They had rarely seen a plane before. He knew if he had any chance of finding Michael, it was going to be that these Indigenous people would find him in their canoes. We were incredibly moved by the amount of people who came out over this vast expanse of jungle from their small villages and went to search for him.
"We were there about 10 days. I accepted that Father and the Dutch officials felt that it was time to call the search off. I wasn't old enough to question their decision. The prevailing thought was that he had drowned. In a seaplane over the dense jungle coastline, I realized how unbelievably difficult it was to make it to shore. Michael's companion, anthropologist Rene Wassing, who survived and was later rescued, told us that their catamaran had begun to get swept out to sea. After a day of trying to paddle, and having lost all their food and water, Michael realized the only thing that could possibly save him was if he swam to shore. Rene didn't swim and knew he would never make it. So Michael started off for the shore. Nobody has ever seen him since.
"There have been many tales over the years about his disappearance — articles, movies, books, a play — all about mainly one story: that he made it to shore and was killed and cannibalized. New archival research makes it clear that the Dutch government didn't want cannibalism talked about. They didn't want to feel like they hadn't been able to control these people. Nobody knows what happened to Michael, and that leaves our family in a terrible place of not knowing.
"At the time I think my father was in shock, just like I was. We held on to each other, but we really didn't talk about it. When I came home and saw my mother, I hugged her. She hugged me back. Then she gently pushed me away and said, 'Mary, the one thing we must understand is that we cannot cry.' She didn't say it, but I knew what she was thinking: We could not fall apart. I think that was part of that sense of responsibility as a member of the Rockefeller family. It was hard, but I followed her lead. I repressed my tears and denied Michael's death for years.
"I wanted him to be alive so much that sometimes I thought I saw him in a crowd. When you don't know how the person died, it prolongs the grieving and the healing. There were times in my life where I really couldn't function. I had to get therapeutic help. Six years after Michael's death even my therapist told me I had to move on. To him, it was time to move on with my 'wonderful' life — I had so much to look forward to. But it was like half of me was gone. It took me 27 years to heal. Twins feel an enormous bond. I later worked with twins who lost their twin in the 9/11 disaster. Deep down, I wanted to share my story too. I wanted to do some good and show that we can eventually heal.
"Slowly I began to have memories of Michael that didn't bring tears and pain. Today he feels so present. He left for me his incredible curiosity and his ability to embrace life. I love to go to the Metropolitan Museum and look at the art he collected — it's a wonderful thing when you think he was only 23 years old. And it stands as a tribute to the Asmat people that the sculptures are part of one of the great traditions of art in our world. Michael died doing what he loved. But he is bigger than his death. My family and I hold him in our hearts, and we are so proud of his legacy."
For more information on Michael C. Rockefeller's art collection, please go to metmuseum.org/essays/the-asmat.
Read the original article on People