The Stockdale boys made this banner to welcome their Dad home to 547 A Avenue in Coronado. (Courtesy of the Stockdale Family Collection)
Jane Denton, Louise Mulligan, and Phyllis Galanti and their families await the return of Jerry, Jim, and Paul on February 15, 1973, at Naval Station Norfolk. (Courtesy of the Denton Family Collection)
Jerry Denton is hugged by his wife, Jane, and children after arriving at the Norfolk Naval Air Station on February 15, 1973. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly)
Phyllis and Paul Galanti reunited at last. A shot of their reunion would make the February 26, 1973, cover of Newsweek with the headline: “Home at Last!” (P.A. Gormus, Jr./Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Andrea and Donald reunited on March 30, 1973, in Phoenixville, PA, at Valley Forge General Army Hospital. (Bettman/Getty Images)
Operation Homecoming press conference photo of (L-R): Louise Mulligan, Jane Denton, and Phyllis Galanti at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia. February 17, 1973. (Denton family photos)
Returned Navy POW John McCain was still on crutches due to injuries and torture sustained during his captivity when attending the May 24, 1973, Nixon Gala at the White House. (Courtesy of the Richard Nixon Presidential Foundation)
The May 24, 1973, POW Return Nixon Gala was held on the White House lawn and is still the largest dinner party ever given to date at the White House. Here, President Nixon is shown with Sybil and Jim Stockdale. Jerry Denton is visible on the far left of the photo standing next to Pat Nixon (Courtesy of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum (NARA LP-RN))
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I couldn’t believe it when my mother, Anne Hardage, sent me the obituary of her good friend and fellow book club member Phyllis Galanti. Phyllis died unexpectedly on April 23, 2014. This vibrant former POW/MIA advocate and pillar of her Richmond, Virginia, community was suddenly gone. After her death, my friends on staff at the Virginia Historical Society, now the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond, informed me that they had something they thought I might want to see: Phyllis’s papers.
Phyllis’s archive led me across the country to the women who ultimately united to form the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia under the leadership of Sybil Bailey Stockdale, the League’s one and only founder. While Phyllis opened the door to the story, Sybil was the shining center of it. I met Sybil only one time before she passed away, but even confined to a wheelchair and ill with Parkinson’s, she had tremendous presence. I am eternally grateful to Sybil and Jim Stockdale’s sons, Sid, Jim, and Taylor, for allowing me to see and work with their mother’s diary before it was open to other scholars at the Hoover Institution, where her papers now reside. Their interviews, trust, and support made a huge difference in the story I was ultimately able to tell. I am especially grateful to Sid and Nan Stockdale for going out of their way to help me with sources, contacts, and photographs.
Sybil’s friends and fellow POW/MIA wives shared their memories freely with me while I worked for four years on the project. Many thanks are owed to Patsy Crayton, Jenny Connell Robertson, Debby Burns Henry, Karen Butler, Sandy Dennison, Marie Estocin, Chloe Moore, Sherry Martin, Shirley Stark, and Regina Bidstrup. Thanks also to Carole Hanson Hickerson, Bebe Woolfolk, and Gail Orell.
Phyllis’s husband, Paul, and her sons, Jamie and Jeff, could not have been more helpful or supportive of this book. Her best friend Judi Clifford was a treasure trove of information, as were Phyllis and Paul’s dear friends Ross and Ginni Mackenzie. I thank them all for working with me.
I wish I could have met Jane Denton, who passed away in 2007. Thanks to my old friend J. E. B. Stuart III for his introduction to Mike Denton, one of Jane’s children. Mike introduced me to the entire Denton clan, who graciously allowed me access to Jane’s private diaries from the Vietnam era. Madeleine Denton Doak made sure I had copies of all the relevant diaries and documents; Jerry III allowed us to film interviews in his home; thanks also to Mary Denton Lewis, Don Denton, Billy Denton, and finally to Jim Denton, who was such a help to me with sources and contacts before he passed away June 18, 2018. Grateful thanks also to Louise Mulligan, who graciously allowed me to interview her on the phone, in person, and on film; to Dorothy (Dot) McDaniel, her husband, Red, and their son Mike; to Janie Tschudy and her husband, Bill; to Marty and Porter Halyburton; and to Ted and Fifi Sienicki for their interviews.
I was thrilled to connect with the lovely Andrea Rander, whose eloquent perspective enriched the entire story. Her daughter, Page Rander, loaned me amazing family photos for the book. I was also fortunate to locate the children of Bob Boroughs. Thanks to his daughter Lynn Boroughs Amwake, Merriann Boroughs Lynch, Bob Boroughs Jr., and Tom Boroughs for their interviews and for helping me obtain their father’s military records. Many thanks also to their dad’s former colleague at Naval Intelligence Pat Twinem for speaking with me.
Through my friend and colleague Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum Curator Leah Witherow and CSPM board members Pam Marsh, Darryl Thatcher, and Terry Thatcher, I was introduced to the vivacious Helene Knapp, who became one of the MIA wives I focused on most in the book. Many thanks to Helene for sharing her amazing story. Thanks also to former Springs resident Joan Pollard for her insights, and to Harlan and Alice Ann Ochs of Colorado Springs for their much-appreciated support.
My thanks go out to two Texas MIA wives, Sallie Stratton and Sandy McElhanon, for their poignant interviews; to Ross Perot, who allowed me to interview him about his work on behalf of American POWs and MIAs; and to Perot staffers Libby Craft and Sandra Dotson for their diligent assistance with my research.
Senator Bob Dole was one of the few politicians in Washington who supported the POW/MIA wives in the early days of their fight. It was an honor and a privilege to work with him. Thanks to Marion Watkins for coordinating my interviews with the senator.
I was thrilled to meet and interview Senator John McCain in 2016. Having been such a maverick himself, I feel sure he appreciated the grit and determination of the League of Wives. Thanks to Julie Tarallo in the senator’s D.C. office for helping schedule his interview and for helping me with follow-up materials. I was also grateful to have been able to interview Dr. Henry Kissinger for this book. Thanks to Jessee Leporin for facilitating our meeting in New York. Many thanks are also due to Ambassador Richard Capen and Dr. Roger Shields, both members of the Nixon administration who were deeply involved in POW/MIA issues and were so patient and available to me.
Thank you to the fabulous Audrey Coleman-McKanna, and Sarah Gard D’Antonio, and Chloe Moore at the Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archive and Special Collections and the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, for all their guidance and help in the archive and for introducing me to MIA wife Kathleen Johnson Frisbie. Similar thanks go to my wonderful friends and former museum colleagues Paige Newman, Graham Dozier, Andy Talkov, and Jamison Davis at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, and to Paul Levengood at the Virginia War Memorial. Thanks to Danielle Scott-Taylor, Sarah Patton, Linda Bernard, and Diana Sykes at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford; Candice Hooper at the Coronado Public Library; Jonathan Movroydis, Jim Byron, Greg Cumming, and Jason Schwartz at the Richard Nixon Foundation and Library, as well as Ken Khachigian; and to Dr. Wendy E. Chmielewski, curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
I was so lucky to already know historian Marc Leepson, arts editor of the VVA Veteran magazine and author of the Dictionary of Vietnam and many other books. Marc was my go-to guru whenever I had any questions regarding the Vietnam War. Thanks also to four other outstanding scholars who helped me understand the wives’ story within the larger historical and psychological context: Dr. Luke Nichter, Dr. Irwin Gellman, Dr. Frank Ochberg, and Dr. Virgil Dean.
A big shout-out to the talented Luis Blandon, my primary researcher, who always went the extra mile to help me track down hard-to-find sources and people. Many thanks also to researchers Jenny Fichmann, Max
Friedman, Ann Trevor, and Chloe Lucchesi-Malone for their excellent work. And thanks also to filmmaker Mark Fastoso for his fine film work and to Tyler Lemon for his helpful audio notes.
I cannot say enough wonderful things about my editor, Michael Flamini, and his editorial assistant, Gwen Hawkes. Michael is warm, witty, and wise, with a great eye for women’s stories. Gwen has a young, fresh perspective on American history and was a joy to work with. I was also very fortunate to connect with Will Palmer, Copy Editor Extraordinaire. Thanks to Young Lim for his superb cover design, Donna Noetzel for the interior photo design, and Laura Hanifin for her expert help with obtaining hard-to-find photos and copyrights.
Many thanks go my literary agent, Katherine Flynn, at The Kneerim & Williams Agency, for her superb help and guidance with the book, and to my top-notch film agent, Jason Richman, at United Talent Agency. Thanks also to my writer friends and colleagues Diane Kiesel, Kitty Kelley, Beth Macy, Dean King, Will Swift, and Alvin Townley, as well as supportive friends Judith Williams, Teri Blandon, and Kemper Sublette.
Finally, thanks to my mother, Anne Hardage, who has read every chapter of this book multiple times and who has always encouraged me to write, and to my sister Morgan for always making me laugh and giving sound advice. Kudos to my husband, Chris, for his tech support and for wrangling our two teenagers, Anne Alston and James, and to my mother-in-law, Linda Lee, for helping with the kids when I was out of town working on the book. Anne Alston and James, I hope one day you will discover that you like history.
Maybe you will even read this book.
NOTES
Please note that some of the links referenced throughout this work may no longer be active.
Prologue
1. Leslie Hubbard Crawford, Images of America: Coronado (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2010), 59–70.
2. “A Brief History of the Hotel del Coronado,” Hotel del Coronado website, accessed January 15, 2016, https://hoteldel.com/press_type_taxonomy/history.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Sid Stockdale, in conversation with the author, June 17, 2015.
6. Crawford, Coronado, 113.
7. Sid Stockdale, in conversation with the author, June 17, 2015.
Chapter One: The Right Wife
1. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff (New York: Picador, 1979), 13.
2. Dr. Ganesh A and Dr. Catherine Joseph, “Personality Studies in Aircrew: An Overview,” Indian Journal of Aerospace Medicine 49, no. 1 (2005): 54–62.
3. Anne Briscoe Pye and Nancy Shea, The Navy Wife (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 101.
4. Marian Novak to the author, April 10, 2017.
5. Pye and Shea, Navy Wife, 94–95.
6. Ibid., 4.
7. Donna Moreau, Waiting Wives: The Story of Schilling Manor, Home Front to the Vietnam War (New York: Atria, 2005), 151.
8. Nancy Shea, The Air Force Wife (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), 1.
9. Ibid., 6.
10. Jim Stockdale and Sybil Stockdale, In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Year (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 65.
11. Ibid., 65–69; Alvin Townley, Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam’s Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2014), 8–9; “Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN,” American Academy of Achievement, accessed October 26, 2016, www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale.
12. Craig Howes, Voices of the Vietnam POWs: Witnesses to Their Flight (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 242.
13. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 37.
14. Sybil Stockdale résumé, collection of Sid Stockdale.
15. Bebe Woolfolk, in conversation with the author, November 27, 2015.
16. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 41.
17. Bebe Woolfolk, in conversation with the author, November 27, 2015.
18. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 45.
19. Ibid., 45–46.
20. Ibid., 49–52.
21. Marian Novak to the author, April 10, 2017.
22. Michael J. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs and the Unending Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 25.
23. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 53.
24. Jeremy Allen, “SERE School Celebrates 50 Years of Training,” United States Navy website, accessed August 5, 2018, www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=68336.
25. Rod Powers, “United States Military Code of Conduct: Military Rules for Prisoners of War,” The Balance Careers, accessed August 5, 2018, www.thebalancecareers.com/united-states-military-code-of-conduct-3354185.
26. Rachel Starnes, The War at Home: A Wife’s Search for Peace (and Other Missions Impossible)—A Memoir (New York: Penguin, 2016), 40–41.
27. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 72–73; Jim Stockdale Jr., email message to author, February 24, 2016.
28. Jim Stockdale Jr., email message to author, December 17, 2016.
29. Ibid.
30. Sid Stockdale, in conversation with the author, June 17, 2015.
31. Jim Stockdale Jr., email message to author, December 17, 2016.
Chapter Two: It Can’t Happen to Us …
1. “Virginia Beach Drive-In,” Drive-Ins.com, accessed March 31, 2017, http://drive-ins.com/theater/vatvirg/virginia-beach-drive-in-virginia-beach-va.
2. Jane Maury Denton diary, July 17–18, 1965, JJDPC.
3. Jeremiah A. Denton Jr. with Ed Brandt, When Hell Was in Session (Clover, SC: Commission Press, 1976), 20–21.
4. Jane Maury Denton diary, July 18, 1965, JJDPC.
5. Denton, When Hell Was in Session, 10.
6. Bill Tschudy, in conversation with the author, April 11, 2017.
7. Vice Admiral B. J. Semmes Jr., Chief of Naval Personnel, to Jane Denton, telegram, July 23, 1965, Jeremiah Denton CACO (Casualty Assistance Calls Officer) file, collection of Mike Denton.
8. Jane Maury Denton diary, July 23, 1965, JJDPC.
9. Janie Tschudy, in conversation with the author, March 21, 2017.
10. Denton, When Hell Was in Session, 21.
11. Jane Maury Denton diary, August 27, 1965, JJDPC.
12. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 79–84.
13. Ibid., 83.
14. Ibid., 83–87.
15. Katherine Kennedy Clark obituary, September 16, 2005, collection of Doris Beatty.
16. Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley, Honor Bound: The History of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia (Washington, DC: Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1998), 99.
17. “Under Difficult Circumstances: Jeremiah Denton and Military Service During the Cold War. Particularly in Vietnam and During the Era of President Lyndon Johnson,” 19, Jeremiah Denton CACO file, collection of Mike Denton.
18. Robert G. Angevine, “Hiding in Plain Sight: The US Navy and Dispersed Operations Under EMCON, 1956–1972,” Naval War College Review 64, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 80–81.
19. Jane Maury Denton diary, July 29, 1965, JJDPC.
20. Merle Pribbenow, “Treatment of American POWs in North Vietnam,” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, February 14, 2012, www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/treatment-american-pows-north-vietnam.
21. Bill Tschudy, in conversation with the author, April 11, 2017.
22. Jane Denton, written notes, n.d., Jeremiah Denton CACO file, collection of Mike Denton.
23. Rochester and Kiley, Honor Bound, appendix 3, 598–618
.
24. Ibid., 5.
25. Marc Leepson, in conversation with the author, 2016–2018.
26. “Ngo Dinh Diem,” Encyclopedia of World Biography, accessed August 2, 2018, www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ngo-dinh-diem; Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The Vietnam War: An Intimate History (New York: Knopf, 2017), 79–80.
27. Dr. Luke Nichter, email message to author, October 30, 2017.
28. Larry J. Sabato, The Kennedy Half-Century (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013).
29. H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: Harper Perennial, 1997), 5.
30. Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency (New York: Skyhorse, 2012), 190.
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