Saint . . . or a CIA spy?

QUESTION Was Thomas A. Dooley, the famous American Vietnam War humanitarian, working for the CIA?

DR THomAS Dooley organised medical aid clinics in South-east Asia in the Fifties and wrote several books highlighting the effects of the growing conflict on the region, a conflict that eventually escalated into the vietnam War.

Born on January 17, 1927, to a prominent Irish Roman Catholic family in St louis, missouri, Thomas A. Dooley III attended Catholic schools and studied at the University of notre Dame before enlisting in the U.S. navy and serving as a medical orderly.

He returned briefly to notre Dame before being admitted to St louis University School of medicine in 1948. An inconsistent student, Dooley finally graduated in 1953, re- enlisted in the navy and from 1954 to 1955 took part in operation Passage to Freedom, assisting refugees evacuating from Communist north vietnam to South vietnam.

His experiences led him to write the bestseller Deliver Us From evil, the strong anti- Communist message of which endeared him to the Catholic community and much of American society.

Dooley’s new-found fame would have suffered had it been known at the time that he was a homosexual. During a publicity tour for his book in early 1956, he was discreetly obliged to resign from the navy because of his sexual orientation.

Undaunted, he returned to Southeast Asia to set up medical missions in laos and ran a weekly radio programme, That Free men may live, broadcast in St louis.

He wrote two more books about his medical work in laos, The edge of Tomorrow and The night They Burned The mountain. The book jacket of the former states that Dooley travelled ‘to a remote part of the world to combat the two greatest evils afflicting it: disease and communism’.

In 1958, Dooley co-founded the care organisation meDICo ( medical International Cooperation) and helped establish 17 self-help medical programmes in 14 countries, but his success was brief. Diagnosed with an aggressive form of skin cancer in 1959, he died in new york on January 18, 1961.

In the mid-Seventies, the oblates of mary Immaculate, an order of priests who worked with Dooley in laos, began trying to have him canonised. Fr maynard kegler, director of king’s House of Retreats in Buffalo, minnesota, promoted the Dr Thomas A. Dooley

Informant: Dr Dooley liaised with the CIA in Laos during the Fifties cause, gathering statements from more than 30 people who believed in Dooley’s sainthood.

The vatican required a search of Dooley documents, a definitive Dooley biography and evidence of two miracles, and kegler’s investigation uncovered Dooley’s connection with the Central Intelligence Agency. Through the Freedom of Information Act, kegler obtained nearly 500 CIA documents revealing that Dooley had kept the agency posted on troop movements and villager sentiments around his laotian hospitals. kegler concluded he was a CIA informant rather than a spy, but this, along with his homosexuality, compromised the bid for canonisation.

Martha Curtis, Edinburgh.

QUESTION Is today’s 1p worth less than the halfpenny and farthing when they were withdrawn from circulation?

yeS in both cases — it’s worth less the farthing (¼d) when that coin was withdrawn on January 1, 1961 (having been last minted in 1956), and the decimal ½p, withdrawn on December 31, 1984. It’s even worth less than the old ha’penny (½d) when it was withdrawn on August 1, 1969.

Comparing the Retail Prices Index value for each of these dates with the latest RPI, for november 2012, shows: a December 1984 ½p has 1.35p purchasing power today. An August 1969 ½ d had the equivalent of 2.94p’s worth today and ¼d in January 1961 was the equivalent of 2.03p today.

The value of 1p today is less than any of its three predecessors at their withdrawal dates. After the introduction of decimalisation on February 15, 1971, the old copper penny and brass thru’penny coins ceased to be legal tender on September 1, 1971, though the sixpence remained in circulation until July 1, 1980. C.D. Allan, Alsager, Cheshire.

QUESTION Has anyone completed the treble by serving in the British Army, RAF and Royal Navy?

FURTHeR to the earlier answer, I’ve served in, or been attached to, the five services, Army Combined Cadet Force, mercantile marine, Royal navy, RAF and the Civil Service over a period of 16 years.

I was in the Army CCF between the ages of 12 and 16 while at school. In the summer holidays I went on camp and trained with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment at Budbrooke Barracks.

At 17, I attended the School of navigation in Southampton and then joined Coast lines ltd and the Blue Star line ltd of london. I sailed around the world as an officer cadet for three years.

Staying on leave too long from the ship geelong Star, which was a bug- infested tramp, I had the police at my door and they escorted me to sign on for national Service.

I joined the RAF for three years and served most of the time in germany at RAF Bruggen. I drove a lorry for 307 mT Squadron and travelled throughout germany and Western europe.

on my discharge I joined the ministry of Transport in london and became an enforcement officer for the South eastern Traffic Area. I was transferred on promotion to the West midlands Traffic Area in Birmingham.

I always found saluting a problem.

John H. Taylor, Kingsbridge, Devon. WIllIAm PARkIn joined the Royal navy in 1908 as an engineer and was posted to a battleship. He transferred to the Royal naval Air Service in 1914/15 and served on HmS Argos — a ship with a flat deck, i. e. one of the first aircraft carriers.

In 1916 or 17, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was posted to northern France. on April 1, 1918, the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Air Force, in which he was a warrant officer. After World War I, he was posted to mesopotamia (Iraq) and India.

In India, the Army required service engineers to maintain its armoured cars. He volunteered and served several years in Army uniform. once this task was completed he returned to RAF leuchars (Scotland) and later to RAF Hornchurch as warrant officer i/c workshops, retiring in 1934.

Susan Parkin, Pershore, Worcs.

QUESTION What is the farthest destination regularly served by UK truckers?

FURTHeR to the earlier answer, although we couldn’t match what Ralph Davies International Transport did ten or 20 years ago, we believe that these days we travel further with our trucks than that company.

We work for the oil and gas drilling industry out of Aberdeen and great yarmouth, and in the past year our trucks have been to Tunisia, malta, Tenerife, gran Canaria, Cyprus, the top of norway (near the Russian border) and the Black Sea coast of Romania.

The next one will probably be libya, when oil drilling commences. ours is a specialised transport suited to a particular industry, and we have to follow its needs. David Farrow, MDF (Gt Yarmouth) Ltd,

Norfolk.