SYNOPSIS:

Dr. Tom Dooley, a Navy Doctor stationed in Japan in 1954, was perceived by his superiors to be an irritating, rule breaking, “Good Time Charlie”. They were in discussions to dishonorably discharge him when, instead, they put IN CHARGE of what the US Military called “Operation Passage To Freedom”, a huge, humanitarian effort. Why Dooley? Because, the US, while negotiating the Geneva Accords - which divided Vietnam in half, the North remaining Communist under the Govern of Viet Ming, and the South becoming a “Free State” under the Govern of Ngo Dinh Diem, a puppet of the United States - made a promise to move 600,000 North Vietnamese, by boat, to South Vietnam. This mission, however, was one that the US, secretly, wanted very much to FAIL. The Communists, The United States’ “Evil Threat Number One”, needed to remain as large a threat as possible, not diminish by 600,000 people (if only so future military “plans” for the region would be accepted by the American people). Further, the US had made a COUNTER-promise to NGO Dinh Diem not to flood South Vietnam with refugees. The solution? Renowned Fuck up Tom Dooley! Dr. Dooley arrived in Vietnam in August of 1955, and immediately realized the magnitude of his mission, as well as the magnitude of the military’s disinterest, for which they had commissioned exactly ONE BOAT, the USS Montague. But, deeply moved by the plight of these teeming, hopeful, dying people, Dooley applied his true intelligence, his genuine compassion, as well as his new-found talent for shameless self-promotion, and, with the help primarily of foreign governments, Dooley, within four months, SUCCESSFULLY moved, by sea, 600,000 North Vietnamese to what he believed was “God’s blessed freedom” in the South. Due to his self-promotion, as well as his mother’s publishing (with Dooley’s permission) his letters home in the local, small town newspaper (the letters were subsequently picked up by the national press, excerpts of which appeared in Time Magazine in an article about Dooley called “The Caring American”. Dooley was not only a national hero, awarded medals for valor, he was a CELEBRITY! And, Dooley ate it up. He wrote a best seller, “Deliver Us From Evil”, appeared on Jack Parr and “This Is Your Life and, in 1956, was voted, by the American citizenry, as the SEVENTH most important person in America. Meanwhile, the military fumed. The US GOVERNMENT fumed. They were so angry, they assigned two “agents” from the newly formed “CIA” to follow him. Dig up some dirt. Instead, these two “spies” hit PAYDIRT. They discovered, while listening in on Dooley’s Hotel Room activity by holding a drinking glass to their shared wall, that Dooley was an ACTIVE HOMOSEXUAL! Receiving their spy’s report, military personnel were THRILLED. They would not EXPOSE him. That would be too much of a waste. They would BLACKMAIL him into using his genius for self-promotion to sell the American people the need for America’s involvement, militarily, in Vietnam and, when successful, into Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and CHINA! They set Dooley up in a health clinic in South Vietnam. The very first example of what would eventually be called “Foreign Humanitarian Aid”. Within a year Dooley had opened twelve large medical clinics on the borders of Vietnam and their neighbors. They named Dooley’s humanitarian network, “MEDICO” (an influence later recalled, and named, in President Kennedy’s “Peace Corps). But, while secretly blackmailing Dooley, threatening to reveal his “evil perversion” to the world, they started to supply Dooley, not with needed medical supplies, but with the tools of WAR. In boxes of supposed “Medical Supplies”, the US Military snuck into Vietnam, radio towers, foot by foot, TANKS, one part at a time. Eventually building up an impressive and ready to go 500 TONS of weapons. Throughout all this, Dooley objected, even to,d the military to go ahead and “out” him... But, it was too late. The deeds had been done. And, Tom Dooley, whom the people of Southeast Asia called “Doctor America”, was ill. And, getting sicker every day. Melanoma. What did Dooley do? He contacted CBS News and proposed an idea for a TV Special. “Biography Of A Cancer”. He allowed news cameras to film his surgery, and agreed to a live, half-hour post-op interview. Dooley’s REAL plan. To get his ass on live TV, where no one could intervene, and TELL the American people about this secretly planned and executed military escalation toward a WAR IN VIETNAM. In the live interview, however, Howard K Smith, given, by Dooley, all of the questions to ask, went off script and, rather than the revelation of political and military secrets, he kept being pulled back into an interview about his medical successes in the region, his mother’s love, showing seemingly hundreds of photos of smiling Vietnamese children, while Dooley, very close to death, was holding up his carefully prepared charts outlining how a war fought in the jungles of Vietnam could not possibly WORK. He did get out SOME of what he’d planned to say, but, with five minutes to go in the interview, a CIA agent, tasked with “Dooley’s safety”, literally pulled the plug, creating nearly four minutes, on national television, of DEAD AIR. Dooley himself was soon to die. His plan to have his cancer surgery itself televised had resulted in him delaying treatment until the “Special” could be aired and, as a result, the cancer had spread and become inoperable, a fact withheld from the viewers of “Biography Of A Cancer”. And, it was Dooley who’d named the program, well aware that what he wanted to share with the American people was a different KIND of cancer. One that would kill far more than one man, and change the direction, and perception, of Dooley’s still beloved United States Forever. But, wait. Dooley’s LEGACY. 500 clinics, to this day, in operation world wide. President Kennedy sited him as inspiration for the Peace Corps, which served as inspiration for the very act of Humanitarian Aid. The Tom Dooley Foundation educates more than 1,000 doctors a year, many of whom choose to work in his clinics in Vietnam, Thailand, Afghanistan, Syria, through the Southeat, the Middle East, all of Asia and in the poorer parts of the United States itself. Because of his life-style of “love over power”, he became known as not only the first doctor to provide foreign military aid,but the first HIPPIE. In his lifetime he saved many life’s. Dying young, he has gone Of to save million’s more.