The League of Wives

by Heath Hardage Lee

  On April 30, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. An eleventh-hour American airlift by seventy Marine helicopters had evacuated a thousand American civilians and seven thousand South Vietnamese the day before. But “tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who had been followers of the American-backed regime were left to face the wrath of the impending Communist takeover. Many would be killed or ‘re-educated.’ Still others would eventually make their way out as refugees.”62 Saigon was immediately renamed Ho Chi Minh City, in honor of the deceased Communist leader.63

  Although Article 8 of the Paris Peace Accords “called for mutual assistance among the parties in accounting for the missing Americans, immediate postwar hostilities limited access to many sites.” When Saigon fell to the Communists, so did the hopes of MIA families. Searches were completely shut down from this date until the early 1980s.64

  Save for one MIA who remains listed as a POW for symbolic purposes, all American servicemen still missing in action were “presumed dead” in 1978. This declaration included Herman Knapp and Bruce Johnson.65

  Though there have been numerous attempts to find them, the remains of Herman and Bruce have never been recovered.66 The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)—known until 2015 as the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC)—is the U.S. government agency whose grim duty it is to attempt to recover remains from MIAs of all American wars. The most recent DPAA report on the Vietnam War missing lists a total of 1,598 still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. This includes servicemen lost in Vietnam, China, Laos, and Cambodia, and MIAs from every military branch, as well as thirty-one civilians.67

  Helene and Kathleen both have strong religious faiths that have sustained them throughout their ordeals. Both women desperately wanted their husbands’ remains home for years. However, six forensic digs have turned up only remnants of Herm’s plane and clothing and no human remains. Helene questions the point of continuing to search. Each dig brings a fresh sense of trauma. “I don’t need human remains. I know he is in heaven,” she says.68

  Kathleen still wishes Bruce could be buried with his family in Salina, Kansas. She has no body to claim for them. But she and her children do have something from him that they all share and treasure: Bruce’s red Bible, which was sent back with his things from Vietnam all those years ago. It had a moist, dank jungle smell when Kathleen first received it. “It smelled like Vietnam for decades.”69

  Eighteen

  TO THE FIRST LADIES OF AMERICA!

  FOR THE RETURNED POWS, life had gone from grim to glam in a matter of weeks.

  The men and their wives were celebrated like royalty at parties all over the country.

  In April, Ross Perot teamed up with California governor Ronald Reagan for a fabulous fête. “I was determined to welcome these people home as true heroes.”1 He and the Reagans hosted a big parade for them in San Francisco on April 27, 1973. The parade remains one of the biggest in the history of San Francisco. Only one lone protester showed up.

  The POWs and their wives were carried down the parade route in trolleys and convertibles as the television cameras rolled. Governor Reagan hosted the evening gala at the Governor’s Mansion. Senator McCain was present and recalled it fondly: “The welcome-home party arranged by the Reagans was unbelievable.”2 The future president and First Lady knew how to throw a party. Sybil, of course, was involved in the planning and, as Perot recalled, “Sybil made it all go just right.”3

  On June 3, Perot would host another incredible event. The Texan flew all the POWs and their wives and girlfriends out to Dallas for a VIP party at the Cotton Bowl. Sybil, Jane, and Phyllis attended many of these parties and were thrilled to have their men back home.4

  Carole Hanson, former chair of the National League, was also invited. Although she was an MIA wife, she was honored at the party for her activism on behalf of the POWs and the MIAs. That date happened to be the anniversary of her MIA Marine husband’s shoot-down. The gunner on Steve’s helicopter had been able to confirm Steve’s death when he returned home. Carole finally knew for sure that he was deceased. Despite being crushed by the news, Carole looked back on those dark years with appreciation for what the Nixon government had done to help the POW/MIA wives and their cause. “If another kind of President, with less resolve to bring our men home, had been in the White House, I think the North Vietnamese would have kept them to bargain with later which would have continued the anguish for the POW/MIA families.”5

  Carole did not want to go to the Perot party, fabulous as it sounded, but her mother encouraged her to attend. At the Cotton Bowl party, she met a returned POW named Jim Hickerson.6 She remembered that Tony Orlando was there that night, singing his 1973 hit “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.” Carole started crying, and Jim kissed her on the cheek. Later he would call it “the most expensive kiss I ever gave!”7 The former National League chair would marry returned POW Jim Hickerson on December 14, 1974.8

  But the gala to end all galas occurred on May 24, 1973, at the White House.

  On that night, the POWs found themselves in a setting that just months earlier would have seemed unimaginable—as guests of President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon at the most lavish dinner in White House history. Under awnings of gold-and-red-striped tents set up on the South Lawn, the POWs were honored at a party that included their wives, girlfriends, and family members. The women wore long gowns of chiffon and embroidered damask, with elaborate hairstyles and long-lashed, doe-eyed makeup.9

  Kissinger had just gotten back from Paris, where he had been working to negotiate another cease-fire. Though exhausted, he was in a jovial and festive mood. In his thick German accent, Kissinger told Paul Galanti, with a wink, “Your vife, she was so much trouble!”10 Jim and Sybil Stockdale hung out with Bob Hope—in fact, Jim introduced the gala’s telecast of the event with Hope while the Dentons danced the night away under the striped awning.

  Nixon speechwriter Ken Khachigian, who attended the gala and reported on the event, remembered, “The wives were mobbing Henry and Mel Laird like they were Hollywood celebrities … The ladies were all kissing Henry like he was a movie star. Everyone had cigars, champagne was flowing.”11

  The MIA wives had not been invited to the gala that evening. Helene and Kathleen stayed home. As Roger Shields explained, “There were thousands of MIA family members—no way to include them in the gala, which was specifically for the men who had returned.”12

  Though nattily turned out that evening in their dress uniforms, many of the POWs were a shocking sight. Some wore eye patches, others arrived wearing casts for their broken arms and legs. Naval commander and future U.S. senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain hobbled into the reception on crutches. He would never again be able to comb his own hair or raise his arms above his head, due to the vicious rope torture and beatings he received while imprisoned in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.13

  Despite these injuries, he was grateful to be home with his integrity intact. Kissinger remembered how McCain had tracked him down that evening for one purpose: “He wanted to thank me for saving his honor” during the war negotiations. McCain would repeat his thanks many years later at Kissinger’s ninetieth birthday party.14

  After the arrival and seating of all the guests, President Nixon gave the welcoming remarks, followed by the POW choir (formed in prison), which sang the “POW Hymn” and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Navy captain Charles R. Gillespie gave the Invocation, and the United States Marine drum and bugle corps paraded the colors.15

  At 8:20 p.m., dinner was served. The White House menu that evening was a POW food fantasy come true. Men who had subsisted on watery soup laced with feces in Hanoi now sipped champagne. The men finally had the all-American meal many had dreamed of while in prison: roast sirloin of beef au jus, tiny new potatoes, and strawberry mousse for dessert.16

  Popular performers and movie stars Bob Hope, John Wayne, Sammy Davis Jr., and Phyllis Diller entertained the men and their dates after dinner. Ir
ving Berlin sang “God Bless America” with Pat and Richard Nixon.

  When the president lifted his glass for an official toast, he did not salute the prisoners of war; the official White House protocol, as Nixon pointed out, was that toasts should be made to ladies. In an elegant and emotional tribute to the POW wives, mothers, and significant others, the president said, “They were and are the bravest and most magnificent women I have ever met in my life.”

  Nixon then asked all the men in the room to stand up. He continued:

  “As president of the United States, I designate every one of the women here, the wives, the mothers, and others who are guests of our POWs, as First Ladies.

  “Gentlemen, to the First Ladies of America—the First Ladies!”17

  Khachigian, Nixon’s speechwriter for the event, had given him twenty pages of notes with different options for toasts and remarks. Instead Nixon decided to prepare the speech on his own. “It virtually all came from his own pen,” Khachigian said. “The words came from him.”18

  * * *

  For wives who were reunited with their husbands, there was the giving up of hard-earned power and influence and adapting to having a husband who had been absent for years back home again. It was a huge adjustment for both halves of each couple.

  Jane and Jerry returned to Mobile, their joint hometown, for a ticker tape parade that would be a prelude to Jerry’s later Senate career. While Jane felt he had done enough for his country, he wanted to reform an America he felt was in moral peril. He would become a Republican senator for Alabama in 1980, the first Catholic ever elected to statewide office in that state. Jane would step back comfortably into her domestic role as a wife and mother but would find that her time as a Senate wife intruded upon her family life. When Jerry became an Alabama senator, she once again had to share with the American public the husband she so wanted to protect. Despite this, she jumped into life as a senator’s wife with enthusiasm and grace, and became known for her efforts to improve mental health facilities.

  Jane died on November 22, 2007, Jerry on March 28, 2014. The Dentons are buried next to each other at Arlington National Cemetery.19

  Phyllis’s anticipatory fears of not being able to adjust psychologically to her husband’s return proved to be groundless. An iconic photo of a glowing Phyllis in a powder-blue suit, reunited with her handsome, just-returned POW husband, Paul, made the February 26, 1973, cover of Newsweek. She became pregnant with their first child within a year of his homecoming.

  The former star negotiator quickly relinquished her position as chair of the National League for this long-awaited role as wife and mother. Phyllis would put her formidable leadership skills on ice while her two sons, Jamie and Jeff, were young. She found being a mother to be one of the most important but hardest jobs ever. When the boys were little, she wrote, “My idea of heaven—morning quiet, coffee, paper.”20 That clearly would not be happening for her for a long time, with little boys running around. But soon enough, she was back at it. She and Paul would become renowned for their activism on behalf of POWs, and both would lend their star power to charitable causes both locally and nationally.21

  Phyllis would die unexpectedly of leukemia on April 23, 2014. At her memorial service in Richmond on April 29, her good friend Ross Mackenzie, the former editorial page editor of The Richmond News Leader and The Richmond Times-Dispatch, eulogized her, noting that her principal detestation was “complaining. Phyllis rarely manned her Complaint Department window—usually had it slammed shut. Her email address, for heaven’s sake, was ‘no whining.’” (I can confirm that: Phyllis’s email was nowhining@comcast.net—she was in my mother’s book club.)

  Everyone at Phyllis’s memorial service that day at First Presbyterian Church went out the door repeating what Mackenzie always said about Phyllis: “What a gal!”22

  Like Jerry and Jane, Phyllis is buried at Arlington Cemetery.

  Andrea and Donald would stay in good touch with Phyllis and Paul, going boating with them in Virginia and exchanging Christmas cards for years. Sadly, Donald, known to his family as “the Don,” would suffer from PTSD. Andrea desperately wanted to save their marriage but was powerless to do so in the face of his severe symptoms. She recalled years later, “Donald was definitely the victim of PTSD. We kept hearing ‘shell-shocked.’ That meant nothing to me … I NOW know more about the diagnosis and how veterans suffer from the syndrome. In my mind and heart, it was the reason our marriage failed.” The woman who had fought so hard on every level to get her husband back from prison now found that her husband was trapped by his own trauma. “The symptoms I saw in him were shocking. He tried so very hard to control what he was going through. Sometimes it only made it worse. He became so apologetic for his actions. He did so much to make up for his actions, but it’s as if they would again overtake him. I reflect, and it makes me sad. He was such a decent man, with lots of love in his heart.”23 Donald and Andrea ultimately divorced in 1993, but their children thrived, and Andrea enjoyed a long career in the health care field.24

  Andrea would fly to Coronado to visit Sybil for a milestone birthday and kept in touch with her West Coast POW/MIA wife friends. Donald died on April 21, 2005, and is buried at Arlington Cemetery.25 Andrea’s motto, gleaned from her years as both a mental health hotline operator and as a POW/MIA wife? “Never a problem, only a situation.” If anyone learned to roll with the punches, it was this petite, stylish, determined woman, New York born and bred.26

  Louise and Jim have remained in Norfolk for all these years. When Jim returned to his six long-haired sons, it was a big adjustment for all. Louise and Jim’s close friends got the returned POW through a tough transition period. “My close friends and my wife sheltered me. Louise is the mother blanket … In the long run, my personal life has been very successful thanks to Louise.” After being in charge of everyone and everything for so long, Louise admitted, “I had been independent and he was so protective. He didn’t even want me to drive … I was his security.” Over time, everyone adjusted to their new roles and relaxed, but it took time, love, and patience on both sides.27

  Louise and Jim’s proudest achievement is clearly their tight-knit family. The couple has seventeen grandchildren—in Louise’s words, “scattered to the winds, with professions from Composer to Genetic counseling at MD Anderson [Cancer Center in Houston]! We also have 13 Great Grandchildren.”28

  Bob Boroughs, his wife, Ruth, and his four children (Merriann, Lynn, Bob Jr., and Tom) would remain friends for life with the Navy POW wives and families. They would remain especially close to the Stockdales, visiting them both in California and in Connecticut at Sybil’s family summer beach retreat.29 Bob and Ruth are buried together at Arlington Cemetery, resting not far from Phyllis’s grave.

  Sybil had perhaps the hardest time of all the wives stepping back into her domestic role. After running a powerful humanitarian organization and then political lobby for many years, it was difficult to go back to normal life. Jim and Sybil both agreed in their memoir, In Love and War, “It was going to be hard if not impossible to ever again find the outside challenge, excitement, and fulfillment each of us, in our own spheres, knew in the dark days of war.”30

  Sybil and Jim’s strong and enduring marriage never faltered, however. Their book became a classic war memoir and, later, a major television movie, despite opposition from the Department of Defense, which, Sybil recalled, “refused to lend any support for the movie [because] our Chapter 1 does not agree with government policy about our history.” That was not about to deter Sybil or Jim from telling their story and the story of the Vietnam War as it really happened.

  “History is not a matter of policy, as we all know,” Sybil emphasized. “It is a matter of truth.”31 Sybil and her League of Wives remain role models for courageous women who speak truth to power today.

  EPILOGUE

  “That Other Stockdale Naval Hero(ine)”

  United States Naval Academy Chapel, Annapolis, Maryland

  Novem
ber 6, 2015, 10:30 a.m.

  A Service Celebrating the Life of Mrs. Sybil Bailey Stockdale

  FRIENDS AND FAMILY POURED into the Naval Academy Chapel, in Annapolis, on this warm but gray fall day to remember Sybil. She and Jim had met at the academy fifty years earlier, on a blind date. They could never have imagined when they met how momentous their lives together would be and how many men’s and women’s lives they would impact. Many of Sybil’s POW wife friends attended her service, Dot McDaniel, Patsy Crayton, Marty Halyburton, Louise Mulligan, and Lorraine Shumaker among them. Many of their husbands, former POWs, also attended. Six female midshipwomen, trim and confident in their immaculate white dress suits, carried Sybil’s heavy mahogany coffin, festooned with roses, up the church aisle. Sybil would likely have appreciated that touch.

  Vice Admiral Walter E. “Ted” Carter and his wife, Lynda, spoke together from the chapel pulpit about the dual experiences the Stockdales had during Vietnam, and about how they were full and equal partners in coding secret messages that allowed them to communicate about the prisoner abuse Jim and his fellow soldiers experienced. The implicit trust that each of the Stockdales had in each other allowed this risky and dangerous endeavor to succeed.

  It should come as no surprise that James Stockdale was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, in 1976.1 What fewer people learned about was that in 1979 Sybil became the only wife of an active-duty naval officer to receive the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award. Part of the citation reads: