BY 1967, POW AND MIA wives had become more comfortable running the show at home and in public. Changing fashions reflected their newfound independence. The bouffant lacquered hair, heavy makeup, hose, and tweed skirt suits of the early 1960s now seemed dated. Hippie culture blossomed, with “butterfly bohemians” and a more natural (and frequently bra-less) look. During 1967’s “Summer of Love,” flower children flocked to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco to smoke pot, experience “free love,” and protest the Vietnam War.
Musical happenings like the Monterey Pop Festival sprang up everywhere like magic mushrooms, the psychedelic drugs favored by the hippie crowd.1 In November of 1967, Jann Wenner published his first issue of Rolling Stone magazine, which covered both the music and the politics of the day.2 Wenner later explained the central role of late-sixties music festivals like Monterey: “I think we felt we were all at the center of something special. As casual, informal and irresponsible as it was, it had a higher purpose … it was evangelical.”3
Blond, long-haired Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, exotic-looking, brunette actress Ali MacGraw, and sexy, raven-haired Grace Slick of the band Jefferson Airplane were among the female pop icons of the era.4 Their photos appeared often in Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar, illuminating an updated “New Look” for the late 1960s. “Standards for fashion and physical appearance underwent a drastic makeover. Clothes became more comfortable, colorful and dramatic.”5 Miss America, once the icon of apple-pie American femininity, was now considered hopelessly bourgeois. In her stead, folk singer Judy Collins, with her long, straight hair, was the ideal. Exotic socialite Talitha Getty (married to playboy oil heir John Paul Getty Jr.), who sported elaborately patterned caftans and dangling earrings sourced from the bazaars of Marrakesh, was the epitome of laid-back cool. Talitha became a muse of French couturier Yves Saint Laurent, who translated her allure into bohemian luxe gowns on the runway.
In 1966, Saint Laurent again “broke ground when he proposed that women wear trousers with suits, such as his ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo-style outfit.” This was still seen as shocking and inappropriate by many. Even as late as 1969, Representative Charlotte T. Reid would incite a frenzy (mostly among her male colleagues) when “she showed up in Congress wearing a pantsuit, the first time a woman had worn pants there.”6
This late-sixties iteration of the New Woman was sophisticated, internationally aware, and outspoken even in the halls of Congress. Her clothes signaled that she was not going to accept the status quo, the party line, or men telling her what to do. Instead, she might venture into political activism, public service, or a music festival with impunity. And, best of all, a woman could finally be comfortable while she took on the world, whether in a caftan or in pants.
Conservative military wives in their forties, like Sybil and Jane, were not as quick to adopt such radical sartorial changes as the younger wives in their twenties and thirties. West Coast wives like Jenny, Debby, Karen, and Patsy arguably took more chances with their fashion choices than more conservative East Coast wives, like Jane, Janie, and Dot McDaniel. But whether you were on the East or West Coast, whether you skewed younger or older, it was impossible to ignore the sweeping cultural changes taking place. The clothes, music, and movies of the time reflected the struggles taking place both domestically and abroad. The Vietnam War was always at the epicenter of these debates.
POW/MIA wives had begun to ditch their prim suits and pearls for Pucci shifts and plastic beads. They would soon begin to storm Washington in attempts not only to reform the ineffective policies of stuffy pinstriped government officials, but also to reject the veil of silence forced on them by the current and previous administrations.
In early 1967, information regarding the POWs coming from the American government remained scarce. The International Red Cross was not allowed to inspect prisoner-of-war camps: its usual role as an intermediary in wartime conflict had been neutralized. Soon into the conflict, they were completely shut out by the Communists in North Vietnam. In the past, the IRC had overseen mail delivery to and from the early prisoners of war in the camps.7
But as the conflict continued, this avenue also seemed to be narrowing, with less and less correspondence getting through to the prisoners’ families in the United States. POW wives were getting more and more desperate for information and reassurance of their husbands’ health and safety. The American government was having little to no success in its efforts to obtain clear lines of communication in and out of the prison camps.
Jane hadn’t received a letter from Jerry in months. She had hoped for a Christmas letter from her POW husband, but this was not to be. She and the other POW wives knew now not to expect much in terms of delivery through traditional Red Cross channels.8 With no Jerry at home to help her with discipline, she felt that her rambunctious younger children were getting out of control. On Sunday, January 8, she spanked all of her little ones after church. She recalled later that the children “weren’t really bad, but they weren’t really good—too wiggly and I decided they should learn. Right now I feel I have allowed myself to be too lax and all the children are showing it. I’m trying to be more strict—maybe I’m just being mean.”9
However, other POW wives would soon receive communications from their husbands from an unexpected source. On January 10, four American women, affiliated with Women Strike for Peace (WSP), a D.C.-based peace group, brought twenty-one letters home from American POWs. This organization was founded in November of 1961 with a one-day national peace protest, led by a small group of mostly middle-class white women from Washington. “They came from liberal to left political backgrounds, having been pacifists, Quakers, New Deal Democrats, socialists, anarchists, Communist sympathizers, and Communist Party members.”10 The fear of nuclear war and its consequences initially drove the organization.
Like many of the POW and MIA wives, WSP women were well-educated and well-heeled and had many more options than their mothers had had when it came to working outside the home. Like their military wife counterparts, though, “the women who joined the peace strike … made the choice to devote themselves to live-in motherhood.”11 These women had much in common with the POW and MIA wives from an educational and socioeconomic standpoint and shared the same domestic focus. But the two groups were diametrically opposed politically. This divide seemed to be unbridgeable in the early days of the war. Conservative military wives, along with the press and the general public, saw WSP women and other female peace protesters as “kooks,” “commies,” and even “housewife terrorists.”12
WSP had been the first group to stage a mass protest at the Pentagon, in the winter of 1967, when “twenty-five hundred women carrying enlarged photos of napalmed North Vietnamese children under the slogan, ‘Children are Not for Burning,’ demanded to see the Pentagon generals who were responsible for the killings.” The women literally banged on the doors of the Pentagon complex with their shoes to make their point. The WSP women specifically wanted an audience with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who promptly barred the door. This story received huge amounts of media attention and publicity.13 Jane, Sybil, and the other POW and MIA wives on both coasts knew exactly who these women were. How could they miss them? They were so out there, so loud and pushy! But the POW wives were now finding that more frequent lines of communication were coming not from their own government but from the government protesters they so reviled.
The WSP would become the first American women’s peace group “to establish person-to-person relations with the Vietnamese. Vietnamese leaders concerned with external relations began to think of the WSP women as very dear old friends.”14 When WSP brought back precious communications from the POWs that January of 1967, Jane’s close friend and fellow Virginia Beach POW wife Janie Tschudy was one of the lucky few to receive a letter from her husband, Bill. In Coronado, Sybil’s spirits rose at the receipt of a letter as well. At the same time, she was infuriated by the mail’s bearers and their motives. She sniped that the Women Strike for Peace crowd were “welcomed in Hanoi by the North Vietnamese and then came home and babbled the North Vietnamese propaganda line about treatment of prisoners like so many wind-up robots.”15
The Vietnam War and its growing issues would breed a new version of the WSP woman, one militant in her beliefs and much more sympathetic to the Communist regime in the North. Cora Weiss, one of the leaders of Women Strike for Peace, was to become the archnemesis of the POW and MIA wives as the war raged on.
Cora’s father, Fabergé perfume empire magnate Samuel Rubin, was widely reputed to be a member of the Communist Party. (His son Reed, Cora’s brother, was named after John Reed, the first American Communist representative to the Soviet Comintern, 1919–1920). Cora and her husband, lawyer Peter Weiss, were steeped in Rubin’s political views. After Rubin sold the Fabergé business in 1963 for $25 million, he established the Samuel Rubin Foundation to further causes aligned with his political views. Daughter Cora and son-in-law Peter doled out Rubin Foundation funds to support left-leaning causes in the United States.16
Peace demonstrators and antiwar activists were the opposition in the minds of most military wives like Sybil and Jane. They often tried to force their views—and propaganda pamphlets—on grieving military families. As time went on, these “peace” groups essentially held the POW wives—and their husbands—hostage as they became the sole pipeline for letters and information about the POWs. “We were over a barrel,” noted West Coast POW wife Jenny Connell Robertson. The POW wives were “wanting the letters yet not from groups we thought could do more harm than good to the men.”17 But for the moment, most of the twenty-one POW wives who received letters rejoiced just knowing that their husbands were still alive.
Jane Denton would have to wait until February 4, when she finally received a letter—through the American government, not the peace activists. “A red letter day!” she exclaimed. “We got a letter from Jerry. Thank God. He says he’s all right and seems all right. His message is short and written on a greeting card—he didn’t have room to say much but all the important things are there.” Later that night, Jane wrote, “Today I was at last alone—children outside—and I poured a glass of sherry and toasted Jerry. I felt he was with me—just the two of us. It was a quiet, happy, confident feeling. I felt like we had licked all kinds of odds and the end was in sight. We couldn’t lose. I can’t really explain it. The main thing was I felt we were together and sharing, really sharing, the moment.”18
Jane admitted that getting a letter from Jerry made her eldest son’s imminent departure for Army training camp a bit less painful. But her elation would be short-lived. Two days later, Jane tearfully sent Jerry III on his way. The younger Jerry’s best friend, Bill McFarland, had been killed in combat earlier in the Vietnam conflict. Soon after Bill’s death, Jerry had decided to train as an Army helicopter test pilot at Fort Eustis, near Newport News. He decided to enlist “to honor my Dad and Bill McFarland and so someone else wouldn’t have to fill my billet.”19
(On July 20, 1969, young Jerry would land in Vietnam the same night that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.20 The next day, he headed for Bien Hoa Air Base and his new assignment with the 334th Armed Helicopter Company, the only armed helicopter unit in Vietnam.) Jane understood why her oldest son felt he had to go; she didn’t try to stop him from serving. How could she say no as a military wife and mom? But now, not one but two of her dear ones were in harm’s way. She must have wondered if she would ever see her son or her husband—or either of them—return. Would they arrive safely in an aircraft carrier’s passenger seat or in a coffin draped with the American flag and stored in the aircraft cargo hold? Many rosaries would be said and many tears shed before these homecoming scenarios would be resolved.21
Sybil had started a teaching job at the end of January in the Chula Vista School District. She reveled in her work, which kept her busy and intellectually engaged. Her boys were happy in school—Taylor had just started kindergarten. As the children grew older, she was beginning to have more time for both her job and her activism. Her frame of mind was cheerful and more confident that Jim would be home soon and that she was doing everything possible to help the government with this effort. In her diary, she wrote, “Classes began and I love the students. I also love having lunch in the cafeteria, All the teachers very nice. The day flies. Such a blessing.”22
When she learned that Bob Boroughs would be visiting her in Coronado at the end of February, Sybil was elated. She had been coding letters to Jim for months now. Finally, the fruits of this covert activity might be ripe for a reveal. She took a day off school to pick up Boroughs at the airport and spend the day with him at ONI in San Diego. She chatted away about her teaching and her four boys while Boroughs stayed mostly silent on their car ride to ONI. Sybil’s optimism suddenly felt misplaced.
When the POW wife and the Naval Intelligence officer finally arrived at ONI, a low-slung building surrounded by a high chain-link fence, Boroughs led Sybil to a small, spare room, leaving her alone to read a chemically developed secret message from Jim. “I sat there, on one of those cold folding metal chairs and remember so well looking at the words ‘EXPERTS IN TORTURE HAND AND LEG IRONS 16 HOURS A DAY,’ along with a long list of names who had been captured or were there in person.”23
Sybil felt the bile rise in her throat. Thank God she had spotted a trash can in that barren room in case she had to throw up. She surely would have thought about not only Jim but also the other POWs, like Jerry Denton, her husband’s friend and Naval Academy classmate, who were surely suffering the same fate at the hands of the North Vietnamese. It was clearly even worse than she, Jane, and the other POW and MIA wives had imagined.
After what seemed like hours, Boroughs finally opened the door. Sybil angrily demanded, “Why did you show this to me?” He replied evenly, “Wouldn’t have gotten those names and the truth without your help and I thought you’d want to know the truth.” He was right: she did want to know the truth. But the burden of the truth—and of that kind of classified knowledge—came at a high price.24 How would she keep this knowledge to herself? Away from her boys and her POW and MIA wife friends like Patsy in Coronado? And Jane in Virginia Beach? They couldn’t know. No one could know. At least, she comforted herself, the government now knew exactly what was going on over there. Now the administration will surely do something to help them, she thought. Please, God, let them help my poor Jim.25
As the months wore on, the POW and MIA wives on both coasts continued to hew to their routines as much as possible. The women in each community already knew one another well. “They attended many of the same functions, served on the same boards, shopped in the same post exchanges, sent their children to the same schools.”26 However, many were feeling less and less welcome at their home bases. Without their husbands, their place was uncertain in the military community. Some senior commanders asked POW and MIA wives to leave base housing, because of “the emotional impact they might have on the community of wives waiting for their husbands’ return.”27
Perhaps it was a feeling of impending doom that caused some military wives to exclude POW and MIA wives from their gatherings. Any aviator could be shot down anytime. In the minds of some non-POW military wives, if they didn’t include those women whose husbands were prisoners in their social events, they could deny the danger their own husbands faced and magically keep the same fate from happening to them. Sybil was very conscious of this attitude between the POW/MIA wives and other military wives: “We made the other wives very uncomfortable … Because they would look at us and say, ‘Oh my gosh that could be me.’”28
The POW wives themselves at times avoided social gatherings with other military wives—it depressed them and they felt out of place. Jane Denton wrote about such a meeting in her diary in March of 1967. “This morning, I went to a VA 75 coffee—the first time since Sept. ’65. They’ve been nice about inviting me almost every month—but I don’t like to go. Janie [Tschudy] went also—it was a farewell for Judy Kenny and Ellen Mott—the last of the girls I knew and liked and both have been very kind to me. All new group otherwise—of course, Rita was there—she took me. I enjoyed it in a way but it was definitely the last Navy wives’ activity I want to or will go to—All that business seems like a … cruel?) make-believe game.”29
Thankfully, the POW and MIA wives had begun to find one another and to forge their own unique communities. They no longer fit in the traditional military structure, so they had to fashion a new community to support their radically changed circumstances. In December of 1967, Jenny and Karen would move to La Jolla, in north San Diego. Debby would also move, to a few hours north to Fairmont. Karen was working as a registered nurse in Hanford, California, several days a week and finishing up her college degree. All three women had little children. Karen and Debby worked as nurses to make ends meet.30
For this reason, the POW and MIA wives tended to cluster together socially. Fellow POW wife Patsy Crayton had become one of Sybil’s dearest friends as they bonded over their lost husbands. Patsy was younger than Sybil, worked for a lawyer in town, and had no children, but she often hung out with Sybil and her sons. The women lived close to each other in Coronado, and the Hotel del Coronado pool became their oasis. Patsy recalled one day when the stress overtook Sybil. “In the beginning, we would go to the Hotel del Coronado to the pool and we’d sit there and talk, and the boys, whoever was around, would go swimming. And one day, we hadn’t been there very long, and Stanford [Sybil’s third son] yelled out, ‘Mom, Taylor [the youngest] has the ball, and he won’t give it back to me!’ And she said, ‘Life’s not fair and the sooner you figure it out, the better off you’ll be!’ The entire pool crowd stood up and clapped.”31
Like the Amazons of Greek mythology, these women formed an almost exclusively female world where their lives centered around coping with war. Like the women of that mythical tribe, the POW/MIA wives were single parents, filling both maternal and paternal roles. Many of these women, like Patsy, Karen, and Debby, were earning income from jobs outside the home. The situation compelled these wives to “assert themselves, to gain control of the family, and to establish themselves as the rightful and legal representatives of the absent husband and the family.” As they did this, they gained experience, confidence, and more power.32
Over in Vietnam, the POWs had quickly set up their own network, despite their frequent separation from one another by thick concrete prison walls. Even there, they bonded and established a “tap code” to communicate. Through the code, Jim Stockdale, Jim Mulligan, Jerry Denton, and many others were also able to retain their command structure, even in solitary confinement.33
Another way the men coped was to give their prison camps tongue-in-cheek American names. In addition to the Hanoi Hilton, camp wags identified sections within the larger camp with other American-themed names. Newly shot-down pilots were typically processed and housed within the confines of “New Guy Village.” Here, the newbie prisoners learned the ropes—literally, from rope torture, and figuratively, by entering the Vietnamese prison system. Then there was “Little Vegas,” composed of buildings named after Las Vegas Strip hotels: Riviera, Stardust, Desert Inn, Mint, and Thunderbird.34
In Coronado and in Virginia Beach, the POW/MIA wives were establishing their own version of a bonded community. New Girl Villages began to take root. Here the women figured out their strategy. They realized that, alone, they were tilting at windmills in a quixotic quest to be heard. But together, as a unified group, their voices might gain resonance and their distress codes might eventually transmit a significant message their government could no longer ignore.