Nationality American Role Physician Name Thomas Dooley | Known for Humanitarianism Occupation Physician | |
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Born January 17, 1927 ( 1927-01-17 ) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. Books The Night They Burned the Mountain, Deliver us from evil, The Edge of Tomorrow, Dr. Tom Dooley, My Story | ||
Thomas Anthony Dooley III (January 17, 1927 – January 18, 1961) was an American who, while serving as a physician in the United States Navy and afterwards, became famous for his humanitarian and anti-communist political activities in South East Asia and the United States until his early death from cancer. He authored three popular books that described his activities in Vietnam and Laos: Deliver Us From Evil, The Edge of Tomorrow, and The Night They Burned the Mountain. The book jacket of The Edge of Tomorrow states that Dooley traveled "to a remote part of the world in order to combat the two greatest evils afflicting it: disease and Communism".
Contents
- Early life
- Humanitarian author and intelligence operative
- CIA recruitment and Deliver Us From Evil
- Naval discharge Laotian activities and death
- Importance and Legacy
- Decorations
- Media Appearances
- Publications
- References
After his death, the public learned that Dooley had been recruited as an intelligence operative by the Central Intelligence Agency, and numerous claims of atrocities by the communist Viet Minh in his book Deliver US From Evil had been fabricated. He has been called the "key agent in the first disinformation campaign of the Vietnam War," garnering support for the US government's growing involvement there.
Early life
Thomas Anthony Dooley III was born January 17, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in a prominent Roman Catholic Irish-American household. He attended St. Roch Catholic School and Billy, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Michael Harrington. He then went to college at the University of Notre Dame in 1944 and enlisted in the United States Navy's corpsman program, serving in a naval hospital in New York. In 1946, he returned to Notre Dame, but left without receiving a degree. In 1948, Dooley entered the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. When he graduated in 1953, after repeating his final year of medical school, he reenlisted in the Navy. He completed his residency at Camp Pendleton, California, and then at Yokosuka, Japan. In 1954, he was assigned to the USS Montague, which was traveling to Vietnam to evacuate refugees and transport them from communist-controlled North Vietnam to non-communist South Vietnam as part of Operation Passage to Freedom.
Humanitarian, author, and intelligence operative
In May 1954, the Geneva Agreements divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel north into two political zones. People north of the 17th parallel lived under the Viet Minh government, and those south of the 17th parallel lived under the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Hanoi and Haiphong 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 as Operation Passage to Freedom. Here Dooley served as a French interpreter and medical officer for a Preventative 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.
CIA recruitment and Deliver Us From Evil
While Dooley was working in refugee camps in Haiphong in 1954 and 1955, he was recruited as an intelligence operative by Lieutenant Colonel Edward G. Lansdale, head of the CIA office in Saigon. Dooley 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 US agencies conducted the fund-raising campaigns for the Catholic refugees who Dooley engaged with. The Pentagon Papers would later note Dooley as a major intelligence source on Haiphong.
William Lederer, author of The 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. After Dooley's first draft was complete, he and Lederer spent two weeks living together polishing the manuscript. Lederer was also on "special assignment" for the CIA during this period.
In 1956, Dooley's book Deliver Us from Evil was released and became a best-seller, establishing him as an icon of American humanitarian and anti-communist activities abroad. Dooley's vivid accounts of communist atrocities committed on Catholic refugees appear to have been fabricated. In 1956, U.S. officials who were stationed in the Hanoi-Haiphong area during Dooley's tour of duty submitted a lengthy report to the U.S. Information Agency holding that Deliver Us from Evil was "not the truth" and that the accounts of Viet Minh atrocities were "nonfactual and exaggerated." The government kept the report classified for nearly thirty years, however.
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 the Lord's Prayer and regularly mutilated Catholic instructors. Most sensationally, Dooley 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 Saviour of whom he preached." He also claimed that Ho Chi Minh's forces had "disemboweled more than 1,000 native women in Hanoi." William Lederer later acknowledged that these atrocities "never took place." At the time, however, Lederer brokered a deal with Reader's Digest to publish Dooley's claims to their massive audience.
Naval discharge, Laotian activities, and death
According to journalist Randy Shilts, Dooley was on a promotional tour for this book when he was investigated for participating in homosexual activities. It seems that what the Navy discovered about Dooley's private life resulted in a negotiated agreement that he would announce he was leaving the Navy in order to serve the people of Vietnam.
After leaving the Navy, Dooley and three former Navy corpsmen established a hospital near Luang Namtha, Laos with the sponsorship of the International Rescue Committee. At this time, the International Rescue Committee had a secret working relationship with the CIA in Southeast Asia, coordinated by Joseph Buttinger.The hospital was five miles south of the Chinese border. In an article entitled "Why I'm A Jungle Medic," printed in Think magazine, June 1958, Dooley said they chose Laos because the country, with 3,000,000 people, had only one "bonafide" doctor. Dooley went on to establish additional medical clinics and hospitals under the sponsorship of He explained to the Laotian Minister of Health that he wished to work in an area near the Chinese border because "there are sick people there and furthermore people who had been flooded with potent draughts of anti-Western propaganda from Red China."
Dooley founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals at Nam Tha, Muong Sing, and Ban 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. During this same time period, he wrote two books, The Edge of Tomorrow and The 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, Dooley voiced strong political opinions about the Laotian 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."
Dooley remained a CIA operative in Laos, tracking civilian movements and even providing cover for US Special Forces medics posing as civilian doctors. A doctor who worked under Dooley, Dennis Shephard, recalled that the famous humanitarian's Vientiane clinic was largely inactive and served as a front for the US military to smuggle weapons into neutral Laos.
In 1959, Dooley returned to the United States for cancer treatment. He agreed to Fred W. Friendly's request that his melanoma surgery be the subject of a CBS News documentary. On April 21, 1960, Biography of a Cancer was broadcast; it was hosted by Howard K. Smith, and included the surgery and an interview with Dooley. Dooley died less than a year later.
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.” After his death, John F. Kennedy cited Dooley's example when he launched the Peace Corps. Dooley was also awarded a Congressional Gold Medal after his death. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
Importance and Legacy
A 1959 Gallup Poll named Dooley the 7th most admired man in the world according to the American public. But thereafter, Dooley's legacy became intertwined with the political 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.
The predominant trend in academic histories has been to treat Dooley's legacy as a referendum on the Vietnam War, rather than of the man himself. Authors critical of the Vietnam War therefore trace American involvement in Vietnam back to Dooley's 1956 book Deliver Us From Evil. Thus, in 1969, Nicholas von Hoffman wrote that Dr. Dooley helped create "the climate of public misunderstanding that made the war in Vietnam possible." Dooley's friend, Father Maynard Kegler argued that although Dooley 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."
Despite Dooley’s problematic descriptions of Southeast Asia, Laotians dubbed him "Thanh Mo America" ("Dr. America"), and Dooley 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.” At the same time, Dooley opposed concrete reforms to US policy in Laos when Congress proposed them. He also rejected all compromises with communists, even when the Laotian public supported them, going so far as calling the popular neutralist leader Kong Le "an idiot."
He also set personal high standards for MEDICO physicians, and sought to make his Operation Laos a people-to-people project. According to Ted Hesburgh, he refused Dwight D. Eisenhower's offer to use government funds to assist in his work. 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 in Haiti, Cambodia, and Afghanistan.
Dooley's legacy continues through the work of several organizations, including some organizations founded by people who knew and worked with him. Dr. Verne Chaney, for example, a surgeon, who worked with Dooley in Cambodia, founded the Dooley Foundation-Intermed International, an organization that provides medical equipment, supplies, personnel and financial support for the improvement of health services in underdeveloped countries Betty Tisdale, who met Dooley and was inspired by his work, founded H.A.L.O.(Helping And Loving Orphans). Just prior to the fall of Vietnam, she orchestrated the evacuation and adoption of 219 Vietnamese orphans to homes in the US. Today, Betty Tisdale and H.A.L.O. continue Dooley's work around the world, with people of all religions, to help orphans and at-risk children not only in Vietnam, but also in Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia and Afghanistan. And, Teresa Gallagher, a volunteer who worked with Dooley, along with Dooley's brother, Malcolm, established the Dr. Tom Dooley Foundation that is dedicated to delivering medical care to people of the Third World; Dr. Jerry Brown, a 2013 graduate of the Foundation's program in Cameroon was among the "Ebola Fighters" named as the Time Person of the Year for 2014.
The Dr. Tom Dooley Society of Notre Dame, an organization for medical alumni of Notre Dame, describes its mission as dedication to education, mentorship and global service to humanity. The Dooley Society awards current Notre Dame students and graduates stipends to participate in international medical mission trips. The St. Louis University Dr. Tom Dooley Memorial Scholarship Program also provides opportunities for medical students to enhance their understanding of medicine in less developed and underprivileged countries. The Gay and Lesbian Alumni of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College (GALA-ND/SMC) present a yearly Thomas A. Dooley Award to an individual who, through his or her faith-based background, have demonstrated personal courage, compassion and commitment to advance the human and civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.
Dooley is memorialized at the University of Notre Dame's Grotto of Our Lady, with a statue as well as an engraved copy of a letter he wrote to former Notre Dame president Ted Hesburgh.