On the morning of Nov. 20, 1961, Michael Rockefeller, the 23-year-old son of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, swam up to a group of Asmat warriors along the southwest coast of New Guinea. In short order, the scion of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families on Earth, a young man universally described by friends and relatives as good, was, as I found while reporting my book “Savage Harvest,” speared, killed, cooked over a fire and eaten.
