Michael Rockefeller: The Last Swim, Asmat Revenge, and the Secret Buried in Colonial Records

On the morning of 19 November 1961, Michael Rockefeller tied two empty fuel cans to his body and jumped from a capsized boat at the mouth of the Betsj River in the Asmat region of Dutch New Guinea. The shore lay a swim he estimated at three to ten miles, across strong tides, mudflats, and the Arafura Sea. Anthropologist René Wassing stayed with the overturned hull. An aircraft spotted him that afternoon and he was rescued the next morning. Michael never returned.

Michael was 23, the son of Nelson Rockefeller, then governor of New York and later vice president of the United States. He had not travelled to New Guinea to find gold or open an oil field. He went with Harvard researchers and the Museum of Primitive Art to film, document, and acquire Asmat bisj poles and wood carvings. More than six hundred objects he collected are now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.