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Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Decades After Michael C. Rockefeller Mysteriously Vanished, Questions About His 1961 Death Resurface (Exclusive)
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. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "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 Read the original article on People
New York Post
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
The Met's new wing honors a vanished Rockefeller — who may have been kidnapped and eaten by cannibals
Dissatisfied at being remembered merely as oil barons, real estate tycoons, political bellwethers, and lavish philanthropists, at some point the Rockefellers began to specialize in dramatic exits. Politician Nelson, at least as Johnny Carson would tell it, died doing what he loved best: his aide and alleged mistress Megan Marshack. But it was Nelson's son, Michael Rockefeller, whose tragic ending added 'eaten by cannibals' to the family lore. Advertisement 7 Young Michael Rockefeller died on an expedition to New Guinea in 1961. It's unknown if he drowned or was captured and consumed by tribesmen. ASSOCIATED PRESS His story has again captured the imagination of New York with the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a refresh that took four years and $70 million. First opened in 1982, the 40,000-square-foot wing now displays 1,726 artifacts — including the collections of the former Museum of Primitive Art — with the latest scholarship and technology. Advertisement 'We have the finest surveys of art from these three areas of the world – sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the ancient Americas in a U.S. museum,' Alisa LaGamma, the curator in charge of the wing, told The Post. The wing also houses more than 400 items Michael collected on his travels — though whether or not it contains pieces created by the very tribe that might have brought about his death is still open for debate. In March 1961, Michael — a newly minted Harvard history and economics cum laude and the son of the Governor of New York at the time — joined the Harvard-Peabody Expedition to New Guinea. Its mission was to study the Ndani people of the Baliem Valley in the remote western portion of the island. But the 23-year-old Rockefeller had an ulterior motive: The stripling anthropologist was on an adventure to trade fish hooks, axes and pouches of tobacco for great masterpieces of tribal art. 7 His story has again captured the imagination of New York with the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a refresh that took four years and $70 million. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement The art would be sent back home to his father's innovative Museum of Primitive Art — a groundbreaking effort to extol the fetishes, tools and handicrafts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania in a townhouse mansion at 15 West 54th Street. At a time when these objects of cultures were rotting in museum ethnography cabinets, the new home would place them at eye level with Western fine art. In September 1961, the young Rockefeller returned to New Guinea accompanied by Dutch anthropologist René Wassing. This time he would venture deep into the jungle swamps of South Papua inhabited by the Asmat people, famed for their well-endowed bisj pole woodcarvings — and for their cannibalistic headhunting. On November 19, 1961, while sailing the coast of Asmat, their boat overturned. Wassing could not swim, but shore within sight, Rockefeller decided he could make it with an improvised floatation device. He was never seen again. 7 The 40,000-square-foot wing now displays 1,726 artifacts. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement Of course, the official explanation for Michael's disappearance was drowning, and, in 1964, a Westchester County judge declared the descendent of John D. Rockfeller legally dead. 'All the evidence, based on the strong offshore currents, the high seasonal tides, and the turbulent outgoing waters, as well as the calculations that Michael was approximately 10 miles from shore when he began to swim, supports the prevailing theory that he drowned before he was able to reach land,' Michael's twin sister Mary Rockefeller Morgan writes in her 2014 book, 'When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin.' But the stewpot was the better story. Almost immediately after Michael's disappearance, rumors spread that he was alive and had gone native — or that his skull had been found in the clutches of headshrinkers. In 1962, missionaries claimed to have met villagers who confessed to his killing in the village of Otsjanep. 7 Michael travelled to New Guinea shortly after graduating from Harvard. This is supposedly the last picture of him ever taken. AP 7 Michael's father, Nelson (sitting down), was the governor of New York at the time. His immediate family also included mother Mary Todhunter Clark, twin sister Mary and brothers Rodman and Steven. Getty Images 'It was cocktail party lore all through the 60s, 70s and 80s,' publicist R. Couri Hay, whose family had a house near the Rockefeller's retreat in Maine at the time, told The Post. 'I was a kid but I still remember. Nobody could believe it. It became kind of a funny threat. My father would say that if I wasn't good he would send me away to be eaten by cannibals like Michael Rockefeller.' In 1977, the documentary filmmaker Lorne Blair wrote in an article in the girlie mag Oui, claiming that he had found the man who had consumed Michael. Advertisement A slippery private sleuth named Frank Monte told anyone who would listen that he found Michael's skull and was paid royally by the Rockefeller family for it. National Lampoon had a heckle. Leonard Nimoy hosted a TV special in 1978 called 'In Search of Michael Rockefeller.' Dozens of books, podcasts, documentaries and magazine articles have tried to prove the cannibal theory. Novels, short stories, rock songs and even an off-Broadway show have mined the incident for subject matter. 7 Journalist Carl Hoffman makes the best-researched argument that Michael was indeed likely killed and ceremonially eaten by three Asmat tribesmen in his 2014 book 'Savage Harvest.' 7 Michael is pictured on a small motorboat in New Guinea in 1961. The photo was brought back by a companion on his Harvard expedition. AP Advertisement Journalist Carl Hoffman makes the best-researched argument that Michael was indeed likely killed and ceremonially eaten by three Asmat tribesmen in his 2014 book 'Savage Harvest.' 'In a perverse way,' he writes, 'it seemed to level the playing field that this scion of American power could have been not just killed but consumed, cooked and digested and shat out by his opposite — wild men who had nothing, no power, no money, no influence.'
