Thomas Anthony Dooley III

Thomas Anthony Dooley III (January 17, 1927 – January 18, 1961) was an American who, while serving as a physician in the United States Navy and afterwards, became increasingly famous for his humanitarian and political activities in South East Asia during the late 1950s until his early death from cancer. He authored three popular books that described his activities in Vietnam and Laos: Deliver Us From Evil, The Edge of Tomorrow, and The Night They Burned the Mountain. These three were later collected into a single volume and published as "Dr. Tom Dooley's Three Great Books." The book jacket of "The Edge of Tomorrow" states that Dooley traveled "to a remote part of the world in order to combat the two greatest evils afflicting it: disease and Communism.

Dooley's legacy continues through the work of the Dooley Foundation-Intermed International, which has carried on the work of Dr. Dooley for the past 50 years. Its headquarters are based in New York City and headed by Dr. Verne Chaney, President and Founder. Dooley-Intermed is a non-profit, non-governmental, non-sectarian, non-political, private voluntary organization receiving its financial support entirely from private contributions. It neither seeks nor receives government grants or contracts. The purpose of the foundation is to provide medical assistance to refugees, children, and villagers in the less privileged parts of the world with emphasis on self-help projects in the areas of preventive medicine, public health, family planning and health worker training. Dooley-Intermed presently supports medical aid projects in four countries: Laos, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Thailand.

Life and work
Thomas Anthony Dooley III was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in a Roman Catholic Irish-American household. He attended St. Roch Catholic School and St. Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Michael Harrington. He then went to college at the University of Notre Dame in 1944 and enlisted in the United States Navy's corpsman program, serving in a naval hospital in New York. In 1946, he returned to Notre Dame however left without receiving a degree. In 1948, Dooley entered the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. When he graduated in 1953, after repeating his final year of medical school, he reenlisted in the navy. He completed his residency at Camp Pendleton, California, and then at Yokosuka, Japan. In 1954, he was assigned to the USS Montague which was traveling to Vietnam to evacuate refugees.

While Dooley was working in refugee camps in Haiphong, some have alleged that he came to the attention of Lieutenant Colonel Edward G. Lansdale, head of the CIA detail in Saigon. According to these allegations, Dooley was chosen as a symbol of Vietnamese-American cooperation, and was encouraged to write about his experiences in the refugee camps. Father Maynard Kegler on researching Dooley's life for possible canonization received almost 500 CIA files through the Freedom of Information Act that showed Dooley had provided the CIA with information about the sentiments of villagers and movements of troops around his hospitals in Laos in the 1950s. Kegler concluded that Dooley was a CIA informant, but not a spy.

In 1956, his book Deliver Us from Evil was released, establishing Dooley as a strong humanitarian. According to gay journalist Randy Shilts, Dooley was on a promotional tour for this book when he was investigated for participating in homosexual activities and forced to resign from the Navy in March 1956.

After leaving the Navy, Dooley went to Laos to establish medical clinics and hospitals under the sponsorship of the International Rescue Committee. He explained to the Laotian Minister of Health that he wished to work in an area near the Chinese border because "there are sick people there and furthermore people who had been flooded with potent draughts of anti-Western propaganda from Red China." Dooley founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO) under the auspices of which he built hospitals at Nam Tha, Muong Sing, and Ban Houei Sa. During this same time period, he wrote two books, The Edge of Tomorrow and The Night They Burned the Mountain, about his experience in Laos.

In 1959, Dooley returned to the United States for cancer treatment; he died in 1961 from malignant melanoma. According to James Fisher's comprehensive biography, he remained a devout Catholic until the time of his death. After his death, John F. Kennedy cited Dooley's example when he launched the Peace Corps. He was also awarded a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously. Dooley was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

Although he died in 1961, H.A.L.O. (Helping And Loving Orphans) was founded by Betty Tisdale, who met Dooley and was inspired by his work. Just prior to the fall of Vietnam, she orchestrated the evacuation and adoption of 219 Vietnamese orphans to homes in the US. Today, Betty Tisdale and H.A.L.O. continue Dooley's work around the world, with people of all religions, to help orphans and at-risk children not only in Vietnam, but also in Mexico, Colombia, Indonesia and Afghanistan.

Dooley is memorialized at the University of Notre Dame's Grotto of Our Lady, with a statue as well as an engraved copy of a letter he wrote to former Notre Dame president Ted Hesburgh.

Decorations

 * Congressional Gold Medal: On May 27, 1961, Congress authorized the issuance of a gold medal to honor Dooley and his work. President John F. Kennedy presented the medal to Dooley's mother, Agnes Dooley, at a White House ceremony on June 7, 1962. Kennedy commended Dooley for providing a model of American compassion before the rest of the world.
 * Legion of Merit
 * National Order of Vietnam, 4th Class (Degree of Officer)

Media Appearances

 * In 1959, he was a guest on the long-running television program, What's My Line?.
 * He was also a guest on Jack Paar’s The Tonight Show, Ralph Edwards’ This Is Your Life, and Arthur Godfrey’s radio show.
 * From 1959-1960, he hosted a weekly, Sunday night radio program, That Free Men May Live, for KMOX.
 * He was profiled by Time magazine, Life magazine, and Look magazine.
 * In about 1959, he was a guest on the Irv Kupcinet Interview Show broadcast in Chicago

Publications

 * Dooley, Thomas A., Deliver Us from Evil: The Story of Vietnam’s Flight to Freedom (New York : Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956)
 * Dooley, Thomas A., The Edge of Tomorrow (New York, N.Y. : New American Library, 1958) ISBN 0-374-14648-9
 * Dooley, Thomas A., The Night They Burned the Mountain (New York : Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960) ISBN 0-374-22212-6