Amelia Earhart (18 page)

Regarding the scarf, here is another important consideration: until Putnam demanded of Rothar some proof of his Earhart connection, the scarf was never mentioned. Rothar produced it only after Putnam asked for proof. Over the years, the Rothar case was to grow even stranger.

The New York police lost no time in indicting Wilbur Rothar, alias Wilbur Goodenough, alias Wilbur Johnson, for extortion on August 5, 1937. Rothar pleaded not guilty. On August 13, Rothar was transferred to New York's Bellevue Hospital for ten days of “sanity tests.” On October 13, a general sessions court committed Rothar to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane to receive treatment prior to being tried on the charge of extortion. Attending the commitment hearing was George Putnam and Special Agent Thomas J. Donegan of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rothar's attorney during this time was a man named Edward T. Tighe.

The presence of the FBI was curious, and Donegan's role was never made clear. During the next two decades, Agent Donegan was to assume responsibilities as special assistant to the U.S. attorney general, chairman of internal security on the National Security Council, the FBI representative to the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a member of the Subversive Activities Control Board in Washington, D.C., and administrative assistant to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Donegan had also been a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. All things considered, Donegan's rapid rise through the higher echelons of governmental administration was truly impressive following his brief involvement in the Rothar-Earhart case. And curious.

In 1966, Donegan was asked a number of questions regarding the case of Wilbur Rothar. For reasons never stated, he refused to answer any of them. In that same year, Rothar's lawyer, Edward T. Tighe, still a practicing lawyer in New York City, similarly refused to respond to Rothar-related queries.

During Rothar's sanity evaluation a strange incident was brought up. According to the evaluator, a Dr. Leonardo, Rothar, in referring to the alleged rescue of Earhart, stated that “the boiler was blown up by ammunition.” Leonardo had no idea what Rothar was talking about and assumed he was referring to a boiler on the gunrunning vessel. In truth, “the Boiler” was the nickname for certain Electra models, according to Lockheed Aircraft Corporation public relations director Philip L. Juergens. The nickname was not known outside of aircraft and pilot personnel, so how would Rothar know this?

According to Earhart researcher and writer Joe Klaas, the law of the state of New York specifies that any prisoner who is under indictment and is committed to a hospital for the criminally insane before his/her trial may neither be transferred nor be dismissed without being returned to the original court to stand trial. Wilbur Rothar was never returned to stand trial for the charge of extortion. Thus, he should have remained incarcerated at the Matteawan State Hospital. If Rothar had not died, he would still have been there in 1965 when researcher Joe Gervais went to look for him. But Rothar was not there.

In response to a letter Gervais wrote to the hospital's superintendent in 1965, he learned that on April 19, 1960, a Wilbur “Rokar” had been transferred to Harlem Valley State Hospital at Wingdale, Duchess County, New York. The superintendent provided no other information on “Rokar.”

Rothar had apparently been confined in a New York state mental hospital for over two decades under a similar but different name. Rothar had been transferred illegally, for he had never been brought to trial on the charge of extortion.

Gervais contacted the director of the Harlem Valley State Hospital, a Dr. Lawrence P. Roberts, who informed him that “Rokar” had been transferred to the Central Islip State Hospital on March 23, 1962. Gervais then communicated with CISH director Dr. Francis J. O'Neill, who informed him that “Rokar” had been discharged from the hospital on October 25, 1963. O'Neill said the files contained no information on where “Rokar” might have gone.

New York State law strictly forbids the discharge of a prisoner who is under indictment from a state hospital without having been subjected to a trial. No such trial for Rothar ever took place, adding more strangeness and mystery to this odd event.

Growing ever more curious, Gervais contacted the Suffolk County Police Department inquiring about Rothar, or Rokar. Deputy Commissioner John P. Finnerty replied, stating that their records showed that “Rokar” escaped from the Central Islip State Hospital on October 17, 1962. One year later, “Rokar” returned to the hospital and turned himself in. According to the police records, “Rokar” returned to CISH four days after the hospital records claimed he was discharged. Further investigation into the matter yielded no additional information.

During his investigations, Gervais examined the New York City phone book for any Rothars. Since Rothar left a wife and eight children, the chances were good that one or more of them remained. He could find no listing whatsoever for a Rothar. He also tried Goodenough, the name Rothar was renting his apartment under when he was arrested. None were listed.

Gervais decided to go to Rothar's former apartment to determine whether he could learn anything substantial. The address as provided by Rothar at the time of his arrest was 316 East 155th Street. What Gervais discovered remains perplexing to this day. There is not, and never was, a 316 East 155th Street. Such an address never existed, but this error was apparently never noted by the New York City police and subsequent investigators.

Not to be deterred, Gervais called the Central Islip State Hospital and spoke to a registration clerk inquiring about “Rokar.” The clerk advised Gervais that the name was in fact not “Rokar,” but “Rakor,” and that the records showed he had left the hospital without permission and never returned.

Gervais encountered another odd connection. He learned that after being confined in the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for twenty-three years, Rothar, without ever being returned to trial, was quietly transferred to CISH five days before the publication of the Amelia Earhart– related book
Daughter of the Sky
by Paul Briand. Gervais surmised that the move was made on purpose and in response to the book's release.

Then came another odd event. In response to an inquiry, the administrators of Bellevue Hospital, where Rothar was originally transferred for observation, stated that they had no record of Wilbur Rothar ever having been admitted there in 1937. The hospital did have in its records, however, a notation stating that a Wilbur Rothar was admitted on September 27, 1964, almost a year following his disappearance from CISH, for an “emergency dressing” because of some injury. He was transported to a hospital from the Municipal Lodging House in the Bowery and released the same day.

What became of Wilbur Rothar remains a mystery, one that has never been resolved. Furthermore, what has never been explained was his odd connection to Earhart's disappearance and the subsequent illegal transfers from one hospital to another. Following Rothar's disappearance from the CISH, he was never seen or heard from again, in spite of the fact that the Suffolk County Police Department has in its files a notation that he returned to the CISH on October 29, 1963.

W
hile incarcerated on the island of Saipan, Earhart was referred to as “Tokyo Rosa.” According to Saipanese Antonio M. Cepeda (also spelled Cepada in some references), who was interviewed by Earhart researcher Joe Gervais, Tokyo Rosa was a term that meant “American spy lady.” When showed a photograph of Earhart, Cepeda said it was the same woman who was a prisoner at Garapan. Cepeda's observation was confirmed by another Saipanese, Carlos Palacios, who said “Tokyo Rosa was my people's expression for American spy girl.” Like Cepeda, when Palacios was shown a photograph of Earhart, he stated that it was the same woman he saw in captivity on Saipan.

Following the European D-Day, when it was apparent that the Japanese resistance was about to collapse, a woman's voice was often heard broadcasting false information from Tokyo to American GIs. The broadcasts were intended to entice and demoralize the U.S. troops on programs titled “Humanity Calls,” “The Postman Calls,” “Prisoners Hours,” and more. The female voice broadcasting would tell the troops that Japanese fighter planes had wiped out the U.S. Navy and that their wives and girlfriends back in the United States were unfaithful and running around on them. The voice was known throughout the Pacific as “Tokyo Rose.”

In her book
Courage Is the Price
, Earhart's sister, Muriel Morrissey, asked, “Could this ‘Tokyo Rose' possibly be Amelia, brainwashed to the point of leading her countrymen into enemy traps?” It has been estimated that nine out of ten Pacific-based troops had listened to Tokyo Rose broadcasts.

As a result of suspicion that Tokyo Rose might have been Earhart, George Palmer Putnam, who was fifty-five years old at the time, was provided a direct commission as a major in army intelligence and, with no training whatsoever, was immediately sent to China. Morrissey wrote of Putnam's assignment to China as well as a three-day slog through Japanese-held territory to a Marine Corps radio station where Tokyo Rose broadcasts came in loud and clear. Morrissey stated that Putnam alone “could without question identify Amelia's voice, even though weakened and tense from psychological mistreatment.” For the U.S. government to make such an assignment to a civilian suggests they knew something unknown to the rest of the world.

Morrissey's statement “even though weakened” is suspicious. Normally one would say “even if weakened.” Did Morrissey know something, as has been suggested? Further, why would the U.S. government provide Putnam the rank of major and ship him across the world to listen to a woman's voice after they spent so much time and energy declaring she crashed and sank in the Pacific Ocean? It was apparent they knew something they were not revealing to the American public.

On July 12, 1949, a woman named Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was arrested, charged, and tried for treason as Tokyo Rose. During the two months of testimony, it was brought out that there may have been as many as fifteen different women who broadcast as Tokyo Rose. It was also learned that as many as forty female prisoners of war were engaged in preparing and broadcasting the programs. It was rumored that Amelia Earhart was one of the fifteen women who broadcast over the airwaves as Tokyo Rose. According to author David K. Bowman, the U.S. Military Intelligence Service in 1944 was convinced that Earhart was involved in the Tokyo Rose broadcasts.

D'Aquino was an American citizen of Japanese parents, a California resident, and a UCLA coed. She was found guilty and sentenced to ten years at the federal penitentiary in Alderson, West Virginia.

In an interesting aside, it is documented that Amy Otis Earhart, Amelia's mother, attended the Tokyo Rose trial every day. Following the verdict, she told a reporter for the
New York Times
that she knew her daughter “had ended up in Japan's care.”

Author Klaas was of the opinion that Amelia Earhart was given the code name “Tokyo Rose” by the Japanese, who planned on using her to blackmail the United States into signing a treaty favorable to Japan. Roosevelt, according to Klaas, rejected the blackmail and refused to demand Earhart's return, for it would be tantamount to admitting to American espionage. Earhart received the treatment afforded to all American spies captured by a foreign power—she was abandoned by her country.

H
enry Morgenthau resided in Hyde Park, New York, in the upper part of the state. There he oversaw a one-thousand-acre farm and grew prosperous. One of his neighbors was Franklin D. Roosevelt. The two men soon became acquainted and in time grew to be close friends. Morgenthau's wife likewise was an even closer friend to the president's wife, Eleanor. When Roosevelt was elected governor of New York, he invited Morgenthau to join his administration. Morgenthau soon distinguished himself as an effective and efficient administrator, was unabashedly loyal to Roosevelt, and evolved into the position of close confidant.

Later, when Roosevelt was elected president of the United States, one of the first men he selected to accompany him to the White House was Morgenthau. In the process of organizing his objectives and realigning his priorities, Roosevelt named his good friend secretary of the treasury. As Morgenthau demonstrated competence in his new appointment, Roosevelt granted him greater powers and influence and relied on him for guidance and advice.

According to Earhart researcher Rollin Reineck, Morgenthau “held the financial as well as the operational control over Amelia Earhart's around-the-world adventure.” This contention has never been proved, but of Morgenthau's connection to the Earhart mystery there can be no doubt.

Evidence to this effect can be found in a Dictaphone recording between Morgenthau, at the time the secretary of the treasury, and Eleanor Roosevelt's personal secretary, Malvina Scheider. The transcript of the recorded conversation was introduced to the public in 1987; it was included in a book released that year and titled
My Courageous Sister
. The author was Muriel Earhart Morrissey, Amelia's sister, with assistance from Earhart researcher Carol Osborne. The recording was found in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York.

Because of several revealing comments by Morgenthau on the recording, it remains surprising that this item was never classified, for it clearly shows government involvement in Earhart's around-the-world flight as well as the fact that she was involved in activities above and beyond setting a flight record.

There is a brief but important backstory associated with the Morgenthau memo. On April 26, 1938, Paul Mantz, a former partner of and technical adviser to Amelia Earhart, wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt requesting her influence relative to helping him obtain the official report of the U.S. Coast Guard vessel
Itasca
as it related to Earhart's flight and disappearance. Specifically, Mantz wanted the radio logs of the transmissions between the ship and Earhart during the flight from Lae, New Guinea, to her stated destination of Howland Island.