Thomas Anthony Dooley

Dr. Thomas Anthony Dooley III (January 17, 1927 - January 18, 1961) was an American physician who worked in Vietnam and Laos, he authored a number of popular anti-communist books in the years preceding the Vietnam War.

Dooley was bon in Saint Louis, Missouri and raised in a Catholic Irish-American household. He entered 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 Notre Dame, and in 1948 entered the St. Louis University Medical School. When he graduated in 1953, after repeating his final year of college, he reenlisted in the navy. He completed his residency at Camp Pendleton, California and then at Yokusuka , Japan. In 1954 he was assigned to the USS Montague which was travelling to Vietnam to evacuate refugees.

While Dooley was working in refugee camps in Haiphong he was came to the attention of Lieutenant Colonel Edward G. Lansdale , head of the CIA detail in Saigon. Dooley was choosen as a symbol of Vietnamese-American cooperation, and was encouraged to write about his experiences in the refugee camps, he also collected intellegence for the CIA. In 1956 his book Deliver Us from Evil was released, establishing Dooley as a strong anti-communist in the United States. While on a promotional tour for the book, Dooley was accused and investigated for participating in homosexual activites, and was 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 built hospitals at Nam Tha , Muong Sing , and Ban Houei Sa , and 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. Following his death John F. Kennedy cited Dooley example when he launched the Peace Corps, he was also awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. There were efforts following his death to have him canonized as a Roman Catholic saint, but these failed.

Publications

• 1956 Deliver Us from Evil ISBN 0374137528
• 1958 The Edge of Tomorrow ASIN B00005VR4B
• 1960 The Night They Burned the Mountain ISBN 0374222126
• Dr. Tom Dooley, My Story

Reference

• Fisher, J.T. Dooley, Thomas Anthony, III. American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
• Dooley Foundation. Dr. Tom Dooley The Legend and the Man