American Experience (1988) s30e01 Episode Script

1
♪♪
♪♪
(thunder rumbling)
NARRATOR:
In the early morning hours
of March 29, 1914,
deep in the Amazon rainforest,
former American president
Theodore Roosevelt,
wracked with fever, summoned
his son Kermit to his tent.
After traveling
an uncharted river in Brazil
for over a month,
Roosevelt was too weak
to continue.
He told his son
to go on without him.
CLAY JENKINSON:
Roosevelt says, "This is it.
"Either we all die,
or I die and you all get out.
"Obviously there's no choice.
You have to leave me here."
LOUIS BAYARD:
He had conquered so much.
He had conquered every challenge
that came his way.
But now, for the first time,
this force of nature
has to bow down
to nature's force.
NARRATOR:
Theodore Roosevelt was now
one of 21 men lost in one of
the last unexplored regions
on Earth, facing crippling
disease, perilous rapids,
and a jungle alive with threats.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
The Americans thought
in the middle of the night,
the Indians could come in
and slit your throat.
JENKINSON:
The Amazon jungle
eats whatever comes its way.
That whole environment consumes
whatever moves through it.
NARRATOR:
No one knew
where the river might lead,
or when their ordeal would end.
But one thing was certain
Their fate was in the hands
of Brazilian explorer
Cândido Rondon.
ROOSEVELT:
Rondon was tremendously
experienced.
Colonel Rondon was essentially
the Brazilian equivalent
of Lewis and Clark.
LARRY ROHTER:
Rondon knows he's got to get
Teddy Roosevelt out of the
jungle safe and sound.
He can't have the president
of the United States
dying on him
in the middle of the jungle.
Don't let him die.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
There yet remains
plenty of exploring work
to be done in South America,
as hard, as dangerous,
and almost as important
as any that has
already been done.
But the true wilderness wanderer
must be a man of action
as well as of observation.
He must have the heart and
the body to do and to endure,
no less than the eye to see and
the brain to note and record.
NARRATOR:
On January 21, 1914,
in the most remote section
of the Amazon rainforest,
former president
Theodore Roosevelt
and his son Kermit
set off on a joint
American-Brazilian expedition.
Their mission was to chart
a mysterious river
known only as the
River of Doubt.
Snaking its way through a
nearly impenetrable rainforest,
the river was
a tantalizing prize
f or any would-be explorer,
and Theodore Roosevelt
hoped to put it on the map.
Just 15 months earlier,
in November of 1912,
Roosevelt had suffered
a crushing political defeat
after he lost his bid
for a third term as president.
Wanting to put the election
far behind him,
he accepted an invitation
from the Brazilian government
to explore the least-known
region of the Amazon.
"No civilized man,
no white man," Roosevelt wrote,
had ever gone down or up
this river."
KATHLEEN DALTON:
Theodore Roosevelt
has a real fascination
with explorers
Explorers who risk their lives
to open up unknown lands,
men who risked their lives
to advance civilization.
ROHTER:
There is the adventure
part of it.
It was a kind of test
"Am I tough enough?"
JENKINSON:
There was something in
Roosevelt's character
that required him
to take on challenges,
however risky they might seem.
So for Roosevelt suddenly
to get this sort of
last little glimpse of
the true Age of Exploration
was simply too alluring
for him to turn down.
NARRATOR:
In order to reach
the River of Doubt,
the expedition would first
need to trek nearly 400 miles
across the broad savannas
and tropical forests
of the Brazilian state
of Mato Grosso.
Guiding Roosevelt
and his six-man American team
was a 48-year-old
Brazilian army officer
and part Amazonian Indian,
Colonel Cândido Rondon.
Though he stood just
five feet three inches tall,
Rondon was a formidable figure.
He'd spent over a decade
laying miles of telegraph wire
deep into the interior
of the rainforest.
And he knew more
about the Brazilian Amazon
than any man alive.
TODD DIACON:
Rondon built 2,000 miles
of telegraph line,
a thousand miles of it
through a swamp,
and 900 miles of it
through the jungle.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
Rondon was
tremendously experienced.
Colonel Rondon was
essentially the equivalent,
the Brazilian equivalent,
of Lewis and Clark.
NARRATOR:
But just as Colonel Rondon
began leading the men
to the river,
it became clear that the
expedition had a problem.
The Americans had arrived
with a mountain of baggage
Hundreds of crates
stuffed with collecting jars,
camera equipment,
and comforts from home
like bacon, wine,
and chocolates
Provisions that were never meant
to be hauled overland
through the wilderness.
Roosevelt and his men
had originally planned
a simple hunting
and collecting trip
along the much-traveled
Paraguay River.
But after arriving in Brazil,
Roosevelt changed the itinerary.
He accepted an offer
from the Brazilian government
and Colonel Rondon to take on
the much more dangerous
River of Doubt expedition.
JENKINSON:
When the journey changed at Rio,
a lot of the things
that they had anticipated,
and much of the equipment
that they had brought,
was no longer
particularly useful.
It was too bulky.
The gear that the Americans
brought with them
was for a different
sort of trip.
NARRATOR:
In order to transport
the expedition's cargo,
Colonel Rondon
hired over 140 men
A mix of Brazilian soldiers,
cowboys, and peasants
he called camaradas, the
Portuguese word for comrades.
And he spent days rounding up
hundreds of pack animals.
RONDON (dramatized):
The organization
of this baggage train
with a cargo of
360 large packages,
besides many smaller ones, took
five days of incessant toil.
I had managed to bring together
110 mules
and 70 oxen.
The mule procured
for Mr. Roosevelt
was a strong animal
with a smooth walk.
NARRATOR:
To the Brazilians,
the most puzzling pieces of gear
were the Americans'
19-foot canoes,
which would have to be
dragged hundreds of miles
before they could even be
launched down the river.
And the idea that
you would bring a canoe
why would you bring a canoe?
The Brazilians,
they just made their own canoes.
They made dugout canoes.
You just you cut down trees
and you fashion your own canoes.
Rondon was perfectly comfortable
and greatly experienced
in living off the land.
So from the Brazilian
standpoint, it was like,
"What are we supposed to do
"with all of this
all of this equipment?
"These trunks full of material?
This baggage?"
NARRATOR:
The effect of Roosevelt 's
last-minute decision
to change plans was immediate.
Exhausted pack animals,
now straining under the weight
of the American baggage,
began to buck their loads
along the trail.
Roosevelt and his men
could only walk past
and wonder what essentials
were being left behind.
They see one piece of equipment
after another being tossed aside
on the trail,
and they're beginning to think,
"Well, what's going to be left
when we get to the headwaters
of this river?"
But what Roosevelt wanted
was to test himself
against nature and to be
on the edge of danger
and to really rough it.
NARRATOR:
With each passing mile,
the expedition was moving
farther from civilization
and closer to
the edge of the frontier,
into a land that would test
the limits of their endurance
and a river that would carry
them deep into the unknown.
Theodore Roosevelt came of age
in an era of great exploration,
when adventure-seeking men
risked their lives competing
for the Earth's rarest
geographical prizes.
In 1909, Americans
Robert Peary and Matthew Henson
won the race to the North Pole.
Two years later, in 1911,
Roald Amundsen planted
Norway's flag on the South Pole.
And in 1914, the year Roosevelt
left to find the River of Doubt,
Sir Ernest Shackleton
nearly died trying to cross
the Antarctic.
But the Amazon rainforest,
which spread like an enormous
green drape across
a third of South America,
had largely remained a mystery
to Western explorers.
SYDNEY POSSUELO
(speaking Portuguese):
ROHTER:
The Amazon always has
this kind of
aura of mystery about it.
You know, who lived there?
What were they like?
NARRATOR:
Since its earliest European
explorers of the 16th century,
the Amazon had been
the stage for mythmaking.
One of the most enduring
involved an ancient civilization
known as El Dorado,
with wealth so great
it was said the king
would coat himself in gold.
ROHTER:
For centuries you have people
convinced that there's
some hidden city,
and it's always
around the next bend.
And nobody can ever find it.
NARRATOR:
The search for El Dorado
claimed the lives
of whole expeditions
Wiped out by disease,
starvation, and Indian attack.
Those who survived emerged
with harrowing tales
of a vast wilderness
teeming with exotic species
like jaguars, man-eating
piranhas, and giant caiman.
Cannibals were said
to roam the interior
in search of human prey,
while Amazonian women warriors
stalked the forest
and riverbanks.
ROHTER:
These myths carried over
into the 20th century.
POSSUELO:
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
We were now in the land
of the bloodsucking vampire bats
that suck the blood
of the hand or foot
of a sleeping man.
South America makes up
for its lack of large
man-eating carnivores
by the extraordinary ferocity
of certain small creatures.
Bats the size of mice and fish
no bigger than trout kill men.
Genuine wilderness exploration
is as dangerous as warfare.
The conquest of wild nature
demands the utmost vigor,
hardihood, and daring,
and takes from the conquerors
a heavy toll of life and health.
NARRATOR:
By January 26,
the expedition was
marking slow progress,
having covered less than
75 miles in a week.
Colonel Rondon estimated
there was still
over a month of travel ahead
just to reach the headwaters
of the river.
To make better time,
Rondon made the decision
to cut the midday meal,
which meant they would sometimes
ride for 12 hours
without eating.
During the day-long marches,
the expedition was subjected
to 100-degree heat
and insufferable
tropical humidity
that left all the men
drenched in sweat,
and some of the Americans
on edge.
Father John Zahm,
an elderly Catholic priest
and old friend of Roosevelt's,
complained incessantly
about the conditions
on the mule train.
An amateur explorer himself,
Zahm had been in charge
of organizing Roosevelt's
original Brazilian itinerary,
which he promised the president
would be "As easy as a promenade
down Fifth Avenue."
Now, the priest found himself
on a very different trip,
struggling to keep pace
in an unforgiving rainforest.
Even for a seasoned explorer
like the American naturalist
George Cherrie,
the expedition appeared to be
off to an unsteady start.
CHERRIE (dramatized):
The organization and management
of our outfit is not the best.
We would plan to make
an early start, but we usually
ride through the hottest
part of the day.
It is hard on us
and even harder for our animals.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
When TR went on
these kinds of expeditions,
when he could, he took
naturalists with him.
George Cherrie
had worked as a collector
f or some of the great
American museums.
He was kind of the preeminent
collector of the time.
Fascinating fellow
Kind of an Indiana Jones type.
NARRATOR:
At night, when
the temperatures dropped
and the mood of the expedition
lightened, the men bonded
over stories
of their past exploits.
George Cherrie shared
wild tales of running guns
for Venezuelan rebels
while on collecting trips
through Latin America.
The American provisioner
Anthony Fiala, who had once
been marooned for a year
in the Arctic, told of
hunting polar bear to survive.
And Colonel Rondon
shared grim memories
of surviving the very wilderness
that surrounded them
on nothing more than fruit
and honey stolen from beehives.
But nobody could top
Theodore Roosevelt's stories.
DALTON:
TR, he's a great raconteur,
and very funny and charming.
He's full of these
interesting stories
His Africa story,
his Wild West stories.
And every story, always
he's the hero, he's brave,
he faces hardships,
and he conquers.
NARRATOR:
By 1914,
55-year-old Theodore Roosevelt
was a living icon
of outdo or adventure
and manliness.
He'd written 35 books,
many of them colorful yarns
about his experiences in war
and hunting big game
across the globe.
When he left the presidency
in 1909, Roosevelt wrote
a bestselling book about his
year-long safari in Africa.
He'd hoped to do the same
in Brazil, signing a deal
with Scribner's Magazine to tell
the story of his journey.
But this carefully
crafted romantic image
of the indomitable adventurer
was born of a childhood
filled with physical challenges
and personal tragedy.
As a young boy,
Theodore Roosevelt
was stricken with asthma
An illness that gave him
little control
over his own world
and left him too weak
to take part in sports
and the outdo or adventures
of youth.
DALTON:
To understand Theodore Roosevelt
you have understand his struggle
against illness as a child.
Theodore Roosevelt almost died
many times from serious asthma.
And his father had to walk him
at night to help him breathe.
JENKINSON:
When he was about 12 years old,
his father said, "Your mind is
strong, but your body is weak.
Son, you must make your body."
And really by sheer force of
will, Theodore Roosevelt did it.
NARRATOR:
As Roosevelt grew older,
nature became
his proving ground,
where he rebuilt his body
through what he called
"the strenuous life."
In the outdoors he could test
the limits of his endurance
through epic hikes,
camping trips, horseback riding,
swimming, and hunting.
DALTON:
It's clear
that this childhood of asthma
haunted him that invalid self
is haunting him,
and he's going to fight it
with every means possible.
There's hunting, shooting,
climbing, running, rowing,
boxing.
This is a guy
who likes physical danger
and feels more alive around
physical danger.
NARRATOR:
By the age of 23,
Roosevelt was taking
the world by storm.
He had overcome
his childhood illnesses
and was now a robust young man.
He entered politics
and won a seat
in the New York State Assembly.
And he married his great love
Alice Hathaway Lee,
who was soon expecting
their first child.
But on the night
of February 14, 1884,
Roosevelt's world
came crashing down.
He rushed to his family's
Manhattan townhouse,
where Alice was on the brink of
death after having given birth.
And just down the hall,
his beloved mother Martha
was slowly succumbing
to typhoid.
JENKINSON:
The two most significant women
in Roosevelt’s life died
more or less simultaneously,
in the same home, on the same
day, Valentine's Day 1884.
Theodore Roosevelt had a little
two-by-three-inch diary.
And in it, he made a large X
and said,
"The light has gone out
of my life."
NARRATOR:
Roosevelt left politics
and fled to
the North Dakota Badlands
to work as a cowboy, seeking
the solitude and vindication
of life in the wild.
ROOSEVELT:
Now, this was very hard for him.
And there are stories
of some of his ranch hands
or others hearing him at night,
pacing up and down,
and essentially crying
for his lost wife.
NARRATOR:
In the Badlands,
Roosevelt sought to transform
himself once again,
driving cattle,
chasing rustlers,
and risking his life
in order to overcome
the pain of his loss through
relentless physical toil.
JENKINSON:
Something about that experience,
that frontier reinvigoration,
living the life of Daniel Boone
and Davy Crockett, propelled him
into a sort of heroic persona.
Now he was a cowboy.
He was a big game hunter.
He was a man known
for strenuous adventures.
NARRATOR:
From that point on,
Theodore Roosevelt
was in near constant motion.
"Black care," he famously said,
"rarely sits behind a rider
whose pace is fast enough."
BAYARD:
And that was his way of dealing
with psychological stress
To embark on this very physical,
very intense lifestyle.
Keep moving.
His idea is if you just
keep moving
that sadness can't catch you.
(thunderclap)
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
Rain is coming down
more heavily than ever
with no prospect of cessation.
It is not possible to keep the
moisture out of our belongings.
Everything becomes moldy
except what becomes rusty.
The very pathetic myth
of beneficent nature
could not deceive
even the least wise
if he once saw for himself
the iron cruelty
of life in the tropics.
NARRATOR:
By early February
the expedition was into
the second week of its journey
and had traveled
nearly 100 miles deeper
into the wilderness.
But despite making better time,
they were still nearly 200 miles
from the headwaters
of the River of Doubt.
Traveling the Amazon wilderness
was turning out to be
far more difficult
than Roosevelt and the Americans
had anticipated.
Flying insects followed them
like clouds of smoke.
Bloodsucking sandflies and sweat
bees were a constant nuisance.
Even with head nets
and gauntlet gloves,
there was no escape
from the mosquitoes.
At night termites and ants
invaded their camp,
eating their books and journals,
and even Roosevelt 's underwear.
ROHTER:
Every parasite under the sun.
You know, worms in the belly.
The bugs constantly biting.
The way they flock on your face
and, you know, try to drink
the sweat and the tears
in your eyes.
I mean, it's just maddening.
JENKINSON:
The Amazon jungle
eats whatever comes its way.
There's just a way in which
the insects and the bacteria
and the worms,
just that whole environment
just sort of consumes
whatever moves through it.
NARRATOR:
Malaria and dysentery
were racing
through the expedition,
and many of the camaradas
were already ill.
Now Roosevelt's son, Kermit,
had become sick,
and his fever spikes seemed
to grow worse by the day.
BAYARD:
Kermit is literally sitting
in his saddle
shaking and feverish.
Abscesses grow
along his nether quarters,
just from all the jostling
of riding there.
It's extremely painful.
NARRATOR:
25-year-old Kermit Roosevelt,
the second son
of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt,
had put his life on hold
in order to accompany his father
into the Amazon.
He was in love
with a young socialite
named Belle Willard,
who had just recently accepted
his marriage proposal.
BAYARD:
Kermit is longing for this woman
who has just committed
to being his wife.
He wants more than anything
to be by her side,
and the deeper they go
into this jungle,
the further it takes him
away from her.
DALTON:
Kermit did not want
to accompany his father.
He's trying
to build his own life.
He's trying to not be
just the great man's son.
BAYARD:
Kermit was very different from
the other Roosevelt children.
He was quiet.
He was sensitive.
He was moody.
He would retreat to himself
for long periods of time.
His mother used to say
that he was the child
with the white head
and the black heart.
The white head
because he was the blondest
of the Roosevelt children,
but the black heart
because from earliest childhood
was beset with melancholia.
So he's the one
who has to travel
the furthest distance
to be like his father.
JENKINSON:
Roosevelt required,
even forced his children
to get over whatever shyness
and timidity and fears
that they might have.
He believed that it was
part of character building
that you face your fears
and you work through them.
In 1909, Kermit
joined his father
on safari in Africa,
where he spent an entire year
hunting big game
alongside the ex-president.
JENKINSON:
Safari in Africa
was the first time
when they really got to be alone
f or an extended period.
And what Roosevelt noticed
was, first of all, that his son
was good to be around.
He liked him.
He was a good companion.
Secondly, he noticed that Kermit
had overcome whatever timidities
he had had as a child.
NARRATOR:
The bond the two men forged
in Africa convinced
Edith that her son Kermit
could look after his father
in the Amazon.
Edith was worried that
ever since her husband
had lost his bid
to regain the presidency,
he had been
in a reckless frame of mind.
DALTON:
Theodore Roosevelt
was in a deeper despair
than Edith had ever seen him
be in before.
And Edith needs somebody
who knows the kind of danger
he will invite.
He's in a dangerous mood.
She wants Kermit to go with him.
Okay, he can have a little
heroism, but she wants him back.
She wants him
to survive this trip.
Edith knows Kermit
adores his father
and could pull him
out of bad situations.
KERMIT ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
Dear Belle, we keep
crawling along, gradually
cutting down the distance
to the river,
but oh, so very slowly.
I have hated the trip and feel
miserable being so far from you.
If I hadn't gone,
we'd have both always had it
in the back of our minds
that it was my only chance
to have helped father out,
and mother, too.
M other is dreadfully worried.
There was nothing
for me to do but to go.
Kermit.
NARRATOR:
From the beginning
of their journey,
the expedition
had been following a path
through the wilderness
carved by Cândido Rondon
more than a decade earlier.
In 1900, Colonel Rondon
had been commissioned
by the Brazilian government
to build a telegraph line
into the interior
of the rainforest.
But after a month of travel,
the men were now crossing
into a land where only Rondon
and a handful of outsiders
had ever traveled.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
We are now entering the land of
the naked Nhambiquara Indians.
Nowhere, even in Africa,
did we come across wilder,
more absolutely
primitive savages.
They are not warlike
as the Iroquois or Sioux,
though there are vicious ones
among them.
What the traveler has to be
afraid of is their fear of him.
ROHTER:
The Nhambiquara.
They didn't really
even have houses.
They slept on the ground.
They used arrows.
They used slingshots.
I mean, it was a shock
to the Brazilians themselves.
So to the Americans,
it would've been ever more so.
JENKINSON:
There was almost an Adam and
Eve-like innocence about them.
It was an entirely naked tribe.
Roosevelt said they were naked
but they never exchanged
lascivious looks.
There was no sense of shame.
They were fascinated by him,
especially when he was writing.
And they would move in
towards Roosevelt.
Writing must have seemed like
a form of magic to them.
And Roosevelt said
that he actually had to
sort of gently
push them away from him.
Rondon had established an easy
rapport with the Nhambiquara.
He played games
with their children
and conducted business
with the elders,
trading axe heads and jewelry
for manioc flour
and other supplies.
But the good will
between Rondon and the tribe
had not come easily.
Like most Amazonian Indians,
the Nhambiquara
had only encountered white men
who were looking to convert them
to Christianity,
or exploit them as slave labor
for the rubber industry.
Years earlier, when Rondon
first entered their land,
the tribe had nearly killed him.
DIACON:
He heard a fluttering sound,
then an arrow stuck in the strap
of his cartridge belt.
His men were all gathered,
planning a counterattack,
and he was,
"No, we're not going to do
this."
This is not our approach."
NARRATOR:
Rather than counterattack,
Rondon created his own method
to engage with Indian tribes.
ENRICO CARUSO (on record):
Una furtiva lagrima ♪
Negl'occhi suoi spunto ♪
JOSEPH ORNIG:
Colonel Rondon
had an old Victrola,
and he had some Caruso records.
And in order to tempt these
Indians to come into his camp,
he'd play this music.
They couldn't resist it.
MÉRCIO GOMES:
Rondon thought the Indians
should be treated with kindness.
They have been violent
because people have been violent
to them.
If you are not violent to them,
they will be kind to you.
NARRATOR:
During his telegraph missions,
Rondon had made first contact
with dozens
of previously unknown tribes.
Yet throughout
these dangerous encounters,
his pacifism never wavered.
ROHTER:
Rondon's policy is
die if necessary,
die if you must, but never kill.
And he demanded that
of his expedition members,
he demanded it of himself.
POSSUELO:
NARRATOR:
Cândido Rondon's
approach to Indians
grew out of his
earliest upbringing.
Part Bororo Indian,
he was born and raised
in the Amazon wilderness
of Mato Grosso.
As a teenager, Rondon was sent
to Rio de Janeiro,
to Brazil's most elite
military school,
where he was introduced
to positivism, the philosophy
that had been the guiding light
of the newly formed
Brazilian Republic.
Its credo, "Order and Progress,"
was emblazoned
on the nation's flag.
Brazilian positivists
like Rondon believed
that social progress for Indians
could only be achieved
through peaceful relations
and the slow introduction
of modern civilization.
POSSUELO:
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
The colonel's unwearied
thoughtfulness and go od temper
enabled him to avoid war
with Indians and to secure
their friendship
and even their aid.
Many of them
are known to him personally,
and they are very fond of him.
NARRATOR:
Although Roosevelt marveled
at the Brazilian officer's
closeness with the Nhambiquara,
and treatment of them
almost as equals,
it was in stark contrast
with the American policy
of Indian resettlement,
and Roosevelt's own belief
about the place of native people
in modern society.
RONDON (dramatized):
The general impression
of Mr. Roosevelt
of the Nhambiquara
is that they are of
a much milder and gentler nature
and more sociable
than the great number of others.
But Mr. Roosevelt said
that he considers Indians
wards of the nation,
because they do not retain
the grade of civilization which
would permit them to intermingle
with the rest of the population.
JENKINSON:
Roosevelt didn't
dislike Indians,
but he didn't think
that they should be indulged
in their tribal life ways.
Theodore Roosevelt
felt really strongly
that it was the mission
of the Anglo-Saxon people
to civilize the world.
He's a creature of his own era.
He watches Rondon's interaction
with the native people
and sees that maybe
that's not the American way,
but it works f or Rondon.
NARRATOR:
The peaceful relationship
between the Nhambiquara
and Colonel Rondon
allowed the expedition
to make its way
through their land
without incident.
But from here forward,
Roosevelt and the team
were entering unexplored land.
Not even Rondon
knew what to expect
of the Indians
they might encounter next.
As they made their way
past a graveyard
said to hold the bodies of
Brazilian telegraph workers
killed by Nhambiquara,
Roosevelt and his men
could only wonder
what lay ahead.
After over a month
of hiking through the Amazon,
the expedition had traveled
nearly 350 miles.
With each passing day,
the men drove themselves
farther from civilization.
During the grueling trek,
almost all of their pack animals
had died from exhaustion,
and the Americans were forced
to shed many of the provisions
they had brought with them.
Even their canoes,
which Roosevelt had hoped
would be useful on the river,
had to be scuttled.
But on February 25, 1914,
the men came to a clearing
in the jungle,
and, for the first time,
the Americans laid their eyes
on the waters
of the River of Doubt.
From a makeshift wooden bridge
built by Rondon's telegraph
commission,
the team surveyed
the surroundings.
The river appeared
to be little more
than a narrow mountain stream.
The ink-black water
flowed gently northward,
disappearing into
a tunnel of thick jungle.
Colonel Rondon suspected
that the River of Doubt
was most likely a major
tributary of the Madeira.
If his theory proved correct,
the men would paddle
some 400 miles north,
where they could resupply
and make their way to safety
in the city of Manaus.
As they prepared to disembark,
it became clear
that the rations the expedition
was forced to shed
were far more necessary
than anyone had imagined.
Food supplies
were desperately low,
and Theodore Roosevelt realized
that getting down the river
quickly had become
a matter of life or death.
ORNIG:
Right from the start,
Roosevelt was concerned about,
"Will we get through?"
Because they had discovered the
bread and sugar was missing.
That had been lost in the
when they dumped cargo
in the overland trip.
But when you look at
the canoes that were available,
I think he must've felt,
internally, dismay.
You couldn't help but be
dismayed to Io ok at,
"This is what we've got
to go down this river."
NARRATOR:
Rondon procured seven hand-hewn
dugouts from local Indians.
In a boat fully laden with gear,
Roosevelt sat just inches
above the water.
There was little chance
that the dugouts, which weighed
over 2,500 pounds apiece,
would be able to handle rapids
as well as the North American
canoes the team had left behind.
JENKINSON:
I mean, if you had said
to Roosevelt in New York,
"This journey will depend upon
somehow finding boats
"deep in the interior,
and they will have been made
by native people,"
he would not have regarded that
as acceptable.
And the boats
are so heavily laden
that they ride so low
in the water that they have to
take bamboo trees and lash them
to the sides of the canoes
to give them more buoyancy.
NARRATOR:
With dwindling provisions
and unreliable canoes,
it became clear
that not everyone would be able
to continue on the expedition.
It was decided
that the American provisioner
Anthony Fiala would instead
be sent down
a previously mapped river.
And Roosevelt's friend
Father Zahm, the 63-year-old
Catholic priest
whose age and attitude
had been a source of concern
from the beginning
of the journey,
was also dismissed.
JENKINSON:
The precipitating moment
is when Zahm says he expects
to be carried by natives
in a sedan chair,
and says, "They love
this sort of thing.
"Natives love to do this for
Catholic priests.
They’ll like it."
And this offends Rondon,
but it just seems ludicrous
to Theodore Roosevelt,
and he realizes Zahm must go.
And he takes him aside,
and he says,
"This journey as it now proceeds
is done with respect to you."
NARRATOR:
From here, the team
would consist only of
Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt,
George Cherrie, Colonel Rondon
and his Lieutenant Lyra,
and a Brazilian medical doctor.
16 of the most experienced
camaradas would travel
along with them.
Some of the men wrote
final letters to loved ones,
to be carried out by the
departing team members.
From here forward,
they could only speculate
as to when they would return
to civilization.
KERMIT ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
Dear Belle, here we are ready to
start down the River of Doubt.
No one has any idea
as to where it goes.
It's almost impossible
even to guess.
I think we may be in Manaus
in a month and a half.
Two months is really
the most probable,
though three or four
is possible.
All I ask of the river
is that it may be short,
and easy to travel,
and as quickly as possible.
Kermit.
NARRATOR:
Just after 12:00 noon
on February 27, 1914,
the men pushed off from shore
and dipped their paddles
into the River of Doubt
for the very first time.
They drifted down the calm river
in single file.
Kermit Roosevelt
paddled in the lead canoe
with camaradas
Joao and Simplicio.
Theodore Roosevelt, with
his paddlers Antonio and Julio,
was in the rear.
Swollen from the unending rain,
the placid water
belied great dangers
just beneath the surface.
Tangled vines and hidden trees
threatened to capsize
the bulky canoes that floated
just inches above the water.
And deadly piranha, anaconda,
and caiman lurked within
the murky depths.
But what worried the men most
was the eerie silence
that overcame the jungle
once they were on the river
A quiet that created
an uneasy sense of isolation.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
The lofty and matted forest
rises like a green wall
on either hand.
The trees are stately
and beautiful.
Vines hang from them
like great ropes.
Now and then fragrant scents
are blown to us from flowers
on the banks.
There are not many birds,
and for the most part
the forest is silent.
ROHTER:
And it was beautiful.
It's such a gorgeous river,
and it evokes something
really fundamental
This closeness to nature.
But it's a kind of nature
that you can't take for granted,
because it's so enormous
and so overpowering.
Beautiful, but threatening.
NARRATOR:
The River of Doubt
was serpentine,
snaking its way
through the jungle.
"The stream bent and curved
in every direction,"
Roosevelt noted, "toward
every point on the compass."
ORNIG:
The River of Doubt.
It was, like, smooth,
there were no obstacles,
but it had this
crazy corkscrew coursing.
And I think they were kind of
lulled into security.
For the first couple days
it seemed like,
"Well, maybe this
won't be so bad."
And then about
the second of March,
all that changed
rather dramatically.
As they rounded yet another bend
in the twisty river,
the expedition began to feel a
dramatic shift in the current.
The roar of rapids suddenly
broke the silence of the jungle.
The team drove their canoes
ashore to get a better look
downstream.
Stretching before them
was a series of rapids
that included at least
two waterfalls.
Kermit's hopes
for a quick descent
were most certainly dashed.
JENKINSON:
Just a few days in
they hit the first rapids.
And they realize,
"Uh-oh, this river
may be much, much more difficult
than we could've anticipated."
NARRATOR:
"No canoe could ever
live through such whirlpools,"
George Cherrie wrote.
"Only one glance
at the angry water
was enough for us all
to realize that a long portage
would have to be made."
POSSUELO:
NARRATOR:
Colonel Rondon determined
that the only way to continue
safely down the river
was to cut a path
through the jungle
and walk around the rapids.
The camaradas emptied the boats
and dragged them
up the riverbank,
clearing a path as they went.
They then cut down trees to
fashion rollers out of logs,
employing the block and tackle
method to move the hulking,
waterlogged dugouts.
For two days and nights
the camaradas worked tirelessly
as the expedition
continued to encounter rapids.
Each portage cost the men
precious time and rations.
ROHTER:
Just rapid after rapid
after waterfall after waterfall.
In the official accounts,
every day they'd track
how many kilometers they've gone
from their last campsite,
and at the rate
they were moving,
they were never going to get
to the mouth of the river.
BAYARD:
There's an old Roosevelt
family motto, when they were out
on their cross-country trips
"Over, under, through,
but never around."
So we can imagine
how it must have chafed at them
to have to go around
again and again,
because these canoes
were so easily smashed,
so they had to protect them.
ROHTER:
It's time consuming.
It's physically draining.
And worst of all
it's demoralizing,
because you never know, when are
we going to be done with this?
You think you're finished,
and then off in the distance,
you hear the roar
of another set of rapids.
"Oh, no, what's this one
going to be like?"
NARRATOR:
The extraordinary character
of the River of Doubt,
its power and trajectory,
was like nothing
Roosevelt had ever experienced
in the wild.
The river squeezed its way
through a canyon
no wider than the length
of George Cherrie's rifle.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
It seemed almost impossible
that so broad a river
in so short a space of time
could contract its dimensions
to the width
of the strangled channel
through which it now
poured its entire volume.
At one point it is less
than two yards across.
NARRATOR:
The long portages and the
unpredictability of the river
were wearing on the men
physically and mentally.
Adding to the tension
was Rondon's insistence
on making a painstaking
detailed survey.
Measuring every twist and turn
in the river
led to even more delays.
ORNIG:
In the first couple of days, it
seemed like they could do this.
Kermit Roosevelt, who was
his surveying assistant,
landed 114 times in one day,
getting out of his canoe,
crawling up onto a little
the riverbank, setting up
the sighting pole,
while wasps and bugs
and the insects
are tearing him to pieces.
But then when the rapids began,
it became impossible.
Roosevelt could not see
spending so much time mapping.
RONDON (dramatized):
These developments
caused a great deal of annoyance
to Mr. Roosevelt,
who feared this
should delay even more
the termination of the journey.
It was his earnest desire to
finish in as short a period
as possible the undertaking that
had brought him to these wilds.
We were obliged to abandon
the method previously used
in the survey of fixed stations,
and to adopt instead
that of sighting
with the front canoe in motion.
BAYARD:
From the start, there's two
very different objectives.
Teddy Roosevelt just wants to
get to the end of this river.
He doesn't care how many
twists and turns it takes.
He just wants to get to the end.
Rondon, though, wants to
measure this river and map it.
He wants this expedition
to be useful to the people
who come after.
DIACON:
Measuring, annotating,
collecting, these are hallmarks
of the Rondon project.
It may have seemed like
excruciatingly painstaking work
to the Americans
that was too time-intensive.
To Rondon, this was
business as usual,
to be out there and engaged
in painstaking work.
JENKINSON:
Rondon wants to do this
as a genuine and important
scientific survey.
Roosevelt wants to survive,
and he feels concerned
about everybody's survival.
And so there's this building
tension in between them.
NARRATOR:
After more than
two weeks on the river,
the expedition was making
very little progress,
averaging less than
six miles a day.
The lengthy portages around
rapids, and Rondon's mapping,
had slowed them to a crawl.
One night, two canoes broke
loose from their moorings,
halting the expedition
for four days
while Rondon and his men
made a new boat.
CHERRIE (dramatized):
Rondon would stand all day long,
keeping the men working hard.
The camaradas suffered greatly
from attacks of insects.
Their clothes were scant.
Their feet, hands, and faces
soon became sore and inflamed.
But the delay would only
emphasize our need
to make greater speed.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
As time went on,
particularly the Americans were
getting more and more impatient.
Just getting around rapids
was a very arduous task
if you had to portage.
ROHTER:
Rondon says it's best
not to try to run rapids,
and we have guys here who know
how to read these rapids,
and let's trust their judgment.
NARRATOR:
On March 15, Rondon ordered
the expedition to prepare
for yet another portage
while he forged ahead
to investigate
the best way through the jungle
and around the rapids.
Kermit, however, tired
of delays, had other plans.
He ordered his boatmen Joao and
Simplicio to paddle forward.
ROHTER:
You know, the boatmen,
they were taught to obey orders
from their superiors, and Kermit
was one of their superiors.
He's Colonel President
Roosevelt's son,
therefore he has some authority.
So the two guys said,
"Okay, you know,
that's what you want to do?
We're going to do it."
JENKINSON:
He instructs these two men
to paddle forward.
(water surging)
They get caught first in one
whirlpool, and then in another.
BAYARD:
There's no way to get back.
They try to row to shore,
and their boat is swept
over the waterfalls.
NARRATOR:
Kermit was dragged under,
his helmet plastered to his face
by the force and weight
of the river.
Somehow, he fought his way
to the surface.
BAYARD:
By this time, Rondon has
strolled down the landward side
of the river, and he's standing
over Kermit saying,
"You have had a fine bath."
But the next words out of his
mouth are, "Where is Simplicio?"
ROHTER:
Kermit and one
of the boatmen made it
to the other side,
but Simplicio did not.
And
That was a a bleak moment.
JENKINSON:
They look for him.
He's never recovered.
They never find
another trace of him.
Simplicio was drowned
at this enormous rapids
on the River of Doubt
on March 15, 1914.
NARRATOR:
In addition to Simplicio,
the river had swallowed up
over a week's worth of rations.
JENKINSON:
TR and Kermit both say
that it wasn't an act
of disobedience,
that the river just grabbed
Kermit's canoe,
and the river took over,
and there was nothing
that any human being
could've done about it.
It was the River of Doubt
grabbing the pilot boat
and sweeping them downstream.
DIACON:
You see a flash of anger
in Rondon.
"I know this world.
You disobeyed my suggestion,
and this is what it got us."
And it was a great
disappointment
and it angered Rondon.
BAYARD:
Kermit had disobeyed
Rondon's orders,
but Kermit wasn't
one of Rondon's men.
He was a guest.
He was the son of the most
famous man in the world,
and there was only so much
Rondon could do
in response to this.
NARRATOR:
No matter who was to blame,
Simplicio's death
was devastating to the men
of the expedition,
especially
to Theodore Roosevelt.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
Grave misfortune befell us
and graver misfortune
was narrowly escaped.
Kermit has been a great comfort
to me on this trip.
The fear of some fatal accident
befalling him has always been
a nightmare to me.
He is to be married as soon as
the trip is over
and I cannot bear to bring bad
tidings to his betrothed,
to his mother.
DALTON:
TR watches Kermit
courting danger
in exactly the way he does,
and he realizes
that it would be so terrible
to watch your son drown
right in front of you on this
journey that was your journey.
But he's worrying about
something
that he knows very well;
he's done that all his life,
and there Kermit's doing it too.
BAYARD:
Kermit became,
by dint of strenuous effort,
the child that he thought Teddy
Roosevelt wanted him to be.
The kind of guy who will stand
in the path
of a charging elephant or lion,
and coolly dispatch him
with one bullet.
JENKINSON:
And Roosevelt says, you know,
"I worry about him,
"that he doesn't know when
to pull back a little bit.
"He might push too far.
He might get himself killed."
NARRATOR:
After the drowning,
the men honored
the young Brazilian's memory,
and Colonel Rondon offered
a simple gravesite eulogy: here
perished the poor Simplicio.
CHERRIE (dramatized):
We went over our provisions
today.
It is estimated that we have
about 600 kilometers to go.
Since we started,
we have averaged
about seven kilometers a day.
At that rate, we will be shy
about 35 days of food.
There may be
very serious times ahead.
NARRATOR:
George Cherrie's calculations
were dire.
The team had always planned to
augment their rations with game
from the surrounding jungle,
but the Amazon was yielding
very little for them to eat.
The rainy season had
flooded the banks,
forcing game deep
into the forest,
and the men had little success
catching fish
in the swollen, muddy river.
BAYARD:
They're running out of food,
and that has to be an
astonishment
for noted game hunters
like the Roosevelts.
They went across Africa.
They bagged more than
500 mammals
over the course
of their travels.
Here they are in this incredibly
abundant biosphere,
and they can't find food.
So, it's starting to prey
on their bodies,
it's starting to prey
on their minds.
NARRATOR:
Adding to their sense of despair
was the feeling
that they were being watched.
The men spotted evidence of
Indians along the shore,
smoldering fires from abandoned
campsites, fish traps,
and trail markings.
(speaking Portuguese)
NARRATOR:
Determined to find food
for the expedition,
Colonel Rondon ventured deep
into the jungle to hunt.
After just a few hundred yards,
he heard the yelps
of what he thought
was a spider monkey
and then the sound
of human voices.
He scrambled through
the brush to discover
his hunting dog Lobo
had been killed.
JENKINSON:
He hears the yelps and finds
that it's been shot through.
Long arrows.
And he realized that the dog has
been killed by native peoples.
ROHTER:
Even Rondon has no idea
who they are.
They're in truly unmapped
territory,
not just in the literal sense,
but: who lives here?
We don't even know.
We're being watched, and we
don't know who is watching us.
GOMES:
The Cinta Largas,
the Suruí and the Zoró Indians,
who lived around that area,
probably didn't have any idea
who Rondon was.
The Cinta Largas were famous
for attacking other people.
It was known that they didn't
want to have
relations with Brazilians,
in general, with anyone,
so they had a propensity to
attack whoever would come
into their territory.
I remember talking to the Cinta
Largas once and they said,
"Yeah, our ancestors talk about
a trip of some guys
"on dugout canoes and watching
them and not knowing what to do
with them and whether to attack
them or whether to let them go."
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
The Indians could have been
completely invisible
if they wanted to.
But they didn't; they wanted
the expedition to know
that they were being watched.
They shot the dog dead.
This is the first indication
of deadly force.
NARRATOR:
Confident that the murder
of his dog was merely a warning,
Rondon responded peacefully,
leaving gifts
for the unknown tribe.
But the Americans
were growing concerned
that this was the beginning
of an all-out assault.
DIACON:
If I were amongst
the U.S. delegation,
that's how I would have
interpreted it.
It would have worried me, and
I know it worried the Americans.
DALTON:
Theodore Roosevelt assumed
that Rondon knew this area
and had some sense of control,
or knew what was predictable
on one of these journeys.
And now Theodore Roosevelt
realized that he was
on an unknown river
with an explorer
who, maybe, was outside
of his depths.
He's not sure
what's happening next.
(fire crackling)
Around the campfire,
the men could hear voices
breaking through
the hum of nighttime insects.
(indistinct voices murmuring)
Hearing these sounds
during the night,
this is really scary.
Really, really scary.
You can tell the difference
between your place
and the forest.
And you know that
that's not your place.
NARRATOR:
The expedition kept their rifles
at the ready,
but the Indians remained hidden.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
They were sleeping at night,
knowing they're there.
And knowing in the middle of the
night, one of them could come in
and slit your throat
and then creep out again,
and nobody would know
till the next morning.
NARRATOR:
With the specter of violent
Indians lurking on the shore,
Roosevelt lost all patience
with Rondon's continued delays.
ORNIG:
Roosevelt said we've got to stop
this very careful mapping.
The two colonels had a big, big
argument in the tent,
that he didn't want his son
to be out in front anymore.
"And you must adopt this
another method of surveying.
I will not have my son
put in mortal danger for a map."
RONDON (dramatized):
Roosevelt said to me,
"Great men don't bother
with details."
And I responded that,
"I'm not a great man
and this is not about details.
This survey is something
imperative,
without which this whole
expedition would be pointless."
JENKINSON:
Rondon then said,
"I'll tell you what, I'll
we'll move ahead faster.
"I'll escort you out.
"I'll accommodate your needs,
and I'll move quickly
so we can so I can
escort you off the river."
Rondon is essentially now
saying,
"You're reverting
to a celebrity.
"You're not really an explorer
because you're really thinking
"more about getting out
than you are
"about the actual,
really difficult work
that it would take
to do this right."
FAUSTO:
It was hard for Roosevelt
because he was not in control.
Roosevelt was playing
the following game:
I will make Rondon believe
that he is in charge,
but I am the man.
But in a certain point,
he discovers
that Rondon was doing the same,
and much more effectively,
because he was the only one
who could take them out
of the situation.
On the morning of
March 18, 1914,
Colonel Rondon gathered the men
of the expedition
to make an official
announcement.
He had determined
that the River of Doubt
was a major Amazonian tributary
now deserving of a proper name.
The River of Doubt,
he proclaimed,
would now be known
as the Rio Roosevelt.
ROHTER:
This is a moment of achievement.
This river is a majestic river,
it's a major river.
It's a moment that
establishes the nominal purpose
for which Teddy has come.
NARRATOR:
Getting to this point
on the river hadn't been easy
on the Americans.
George Cherrie wrote that
Roosevelt was looking
"so thin that his clothes hang
on him like bags."
And no one had any idea
when it would end.
But Rondon's gesture
of naming the river
after the former president
momentarily buoyed
the men's spirits.
ORNIG:
There was three cheers
for Kermit,
three cheers for Colonel
and then someone said,
"We've forgotten Cherrie
Three cheers for Cherrie!"
(laughs)
Cherrie says, "It took so little
to cheer us,
"any bit of good news when you
reach a point of despair
like that, the littlest thing
can give you hope."
NARRATOR:
On March 23, 1914, Theodore
Roosevelt's wife Edith awoke
to alarming news.
The New York Times was reporting
that her husband and son
were lost on an unknown river
in the Brazilian wilderness.
BAYARD:
When word arrived that
the expedition had been lost,
Edith was worried that Teddy met
more than his match
in the jungle.
The last correspondence Edith
had received from Theodore
was on Christmas Eve,
when he was making his way
into the Brazilian backcountry.
His only complaint was the
constant "prickly heat."
ORNIG:
She had no way of knowing
what was happening.
Well, she'd been used to being,
you know, worried dreadfully
about his escapades:
when he went
into the Spanish War,
when he left for Africa.
NARRATOR:
The worrisome news in The Times
came from a desperate telegram
sent by American provisioner
Anthony Fiala.
The message described his own
harrowing journey
out of the jungle after he was
dismissed from the expedition.
JENKINSON:
Fiala didn't clarify that
the expedition had split,
that he was part of
one of the secondary strains.
The New York Times reckoned
that that meant
the whole expedition
had miscarried.
For Edith Roosevelt,
the news was hard to believe.
DALTON:
For her entire marriage,
she knew that TR was
facing danger often.
When he was in Africa, it was
reported that he was killed,
and she read that and, you know,
it was upsetting to her,
but there was a part of her that
didn't believe it.
So she was not going to go into
mourning because this is a guy
who had been reported dead
several times.
And so, this trip, she sent
Kermit as life insurance.
She has set Kermit up to be
the person who is going
to rescue Theodore Roosevelt
from himself.
She just had to believe that
she was going to see them again.
(thunder)
(rain pouring)
NARRATOR:
The very evening of
The New York Times story,
George Cherrie had made a
desperate entry into his diary.
"Our position," he wrote, "every
day grows more serious."
The naturalist estimated that
half the provisions
were already gone.
With likely hundreds of miles
yet to go,
the men had food
f or just 25 more days.
And the expedition was
still mired in rapids
that required endless portages
through the jungle.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
No one can tell how many times
the task will have to be
repeated, or when it will end,
or whether the food
will hold out.
All this is done
in an uninhabited wilderness,
or else a wilderness tenanted
only by unfriendly savages,
where failure
to get through means death
by disease and starvation.
Every hour of work in the rapids
is fraught with the possibility
of the gravest disaster.
NARRATOR:
On March 27, two of their dugout
canoes were pulled under
by the ferocious current
and became lodged
between slick rocks.
Weakened by hunger, illness, and
weeks of backbreaking portages,
Roosevelt, Kermit,
and several camaradas struggled
for hours to dislodge them.
The men eventually
freed their canoes
but not before Roosevelt slipped
in the churning water
and gashed his shin.
JENKINSON:
Blood starts to swirl out.
And everyone realizes
this is a whole new chapter
in this story now.
BAYARD:
In the jungle,
the slightest contusion,
abrasion, is going to magnify
and metastasize and grow,
so very so on, this is a
full-boiled infection
that's slowly colonizing
his leg,
and is spreading poison
into his system.
NARRATOR:
Roosevelt assured his team
that the wound was little more
than a scratch.
But at camp later that night, he
spiked a dangerously high fever.
(fire crackling)
On the morning of March 28,
despite his weakened condition,
Theodore Roosevelt to ok his
place alongside the other men
and continued down the river.
But the expedition traveled
less than a mile
before they were forced to
prepare for another portage
around rough water.
As they cut a path
through the jungle,
the men came upon a clearing
and, for the first time since
setting off on the river,
they could see what lay ahead.
Below them stretched a canyon,
over a mile wide.
CHERRIE (dramatized):
It was a beautiful view,
but it filled everyone
with dread.
We had learned that whenever the
river entered among the hills
that it meant
rapids and cataracts,
and our strength and courage
alike were almost exhausted.
(water rushing)
NARRATOR:
The men had finally met
an obstacle around which
they could not portage.
ORNIG:
This group of men were faced
with continual series
of dilemmas.
When they reached this canyon,
Rondon wants to dump the canoes
and march overland
and then build new ones
on the other side, which
the Americans thought was crazy.
If they had
left the dugouts behind,
they would have to spend days if
not a week rebuilding canoes,
and then they'd be subject
to perhaps another attack.
"To all of us," Cherrie wrote,
"this news was practically
a death sentence."
It was a wonder that Theodore
Roosevelt had made it this far.
He had arrived in Brazil
grossly overweight,
practically blind in one eye,
and with a heart weakened
from his childhood asthma.
Now, wracked with a fever made
worse by the onset of malaria,
and a festering leg infection,
Rondon's plan to hike around the
gorge was simply not an option
for the battered ex-president.
That night, Cherrie and Kermit
kept watch over Roosevelt.
Kermit, through all their
travels together,
had never seen
his father so defeated.
JENKINSON:
Roosevelt calls in Kermit
and Cherrie, and says,
"Boys, this is it
either we all die,
"or I die and you all get out,
"and, obviously,
there's no choice.
You have to
you have to leave me here."
Because he realizes
that his decrepit condition
may jeopardize the survival
of everybody else.
NARRATOR:
For years, whenever
on an adventure,
Roosevelt had secretly carried
a vial of morphine.
It was, he later admitted, to
avoid dying a lingering death.
JENKINSON:
Theodore Roosevelt
has been to war,
broken many bones in his body.
He's always getting battered
and beaten and broken.
He's indomitable.
So imagine what it would take
for Theodore Roosevelt to say,
"I have to die."
But Kermit says, "No.
"That's not going to happen.
We're going to get you out
of here."
(water rushing)
NARRATOR:
Kermit quickly devised a plan
to lower the canoes
through the gorge,
rather than abandon them.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
The gorge is a pretty dramatic
gorge with high walls
on either side, and the river
roaring through it.
ORNIG:
The workers had
this natural ability.
They knew how to handle
these boats.
NARRATOR:
Kermit designed a pulley system
that the camaradas used
to lower the empty canoes
over a series of waterfalls,
some as high as 30 feet.
ORNIG:
They had to get these boats
let down walking on ledges.
They barely had a toe-hold.
They were like insects pressed
against the wall of this chasm.
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
Imagine hanging on
to something
The thing weighs 2,000 pounds
How easily it could be whipped
away and drag you with it.
(ropes straining)
NARRATOR:
After four exhausting days
descending several sets
of violent rapids
and steep waterfalls,
the men finally reached
the northern end of the canyon.
Somehow, through it all,
they lost only one canoe.
ROHTER:
It's a moment of enormous stress
and potential danger.
And Kermit is clear thinking
and rigs a solution.
It's kind of like the moment
where Kermit earns his bones.
Bolstered by the success
of Kermit's plan,
Theodore Roosevelt summoned
the strength to carry on.
Though too weak to walk more
than a few hundred yards
at a time,
Roosevelt eventually limped
his way out of the canyon.
JENKINSON:
Roosevelt himself realizes
that he no longer
has everything it takes
to be the inevitable commander,
but his son has those qualities,
and his son's youth
and strength and will
might just get them through.
KERMIT ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
There is a universal saying,
"When men are off in the wilds
they show themselves
as they really are."
Without the minor comforts
of life,
he is not always attractive.
He may seem a very different
individual when on half rations,
eaten cold, and sleeping
from utter exhaustion,
cramped and wet.
NARRATOR:
After a month of paddling
on the River of Doubt,
the men were weak from hunger
and disease
and still had no idea where
the river would lead them next,
or when the journey
would come to an end.
JENKINSON:
They didn't know what
was around the next bend
in the river.
They didn't know long
the river was,
whether it was seven kilometers
or 700.
They didn't know how many days
it would take.
So the mystery of it begins
to gnaw at them.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
We have lost four canoes
and the life of one man.
We have not made more than
a mile and a quarter a day
at the cost of bitter toil.
Most of the camaradas are
downhearted naturally enough,
and occasionally ask one of us
if we really believe
we will ever get out alive.
We have to cheer them up
as best we can.
BAYARD:
You see in the accounts
as the journey goes on,
an increasing sense of despair.
And as it continued to wind
and ribbon and turn,
it's starting to prey
on their bodies,
it's starting to prey
on their minds,
and they're not the same people
that began that journey.
NARRATOR:
On April 3, 1914, as the
expedition set up its 30th camp
along the riverbank,
a burst of gunfire broke
the silence of the jungle.
(gunshot)
(rapid footsteps through brush)
Two of the camaradas,
Julio and Paishon,
had been arguing after Julio
had been caught stealing food.
ORNIG:
Julio was sort of a malcontent
and shirker of work,
and he liked to steal food,
and I guess as things got worse,
he got extremely hungry.
And something snapped in Julio
and he noticed a rifle nearby,
and at an opportune moment,
killed Paishon.
NARRATOR:
By the time the men reached
Paishon, he was dead,
shot point blank in the chest.
BAYARD:
They are running out of food,
they're running out of time,
and that changes their calculus
of what's right and wrong.
I don't think that's a crime
that could have happened
at the beginning of the trip.
It's no surprise
that he snapped.
You have a group of men
who just aren't convinced
they're going to survive this.
Teddy Roosevelt,
he must have thought,
"If they've started killing each
other, what will happen next,
and who will be left
at the end?"
It's a Darwinian equation,
you know?
The fittest are going
to survive,
and they won't necessarily
be looking out
for each other at the end.
So they'll inevitably start
turning on each other.
NARRATOR:
Julio disappeared
into the jungle.
It was possible
he'd be swallowed whole
by the unforgiving wilderness,
killed by Indians,
or continue
to stalk the expedition.
Nobody knew for sure.
ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
On such an expedition,
the theft of food comes next
to murder as a crime,
and should by rights
be punished as such.
Franca, the co ok, expressed
with deep conviction
a weird and ghostly belief
I had never encountered before.
He said, "Paishon fell forward
on his hands and knees,
"and when a murdered man falls
like that,
"his ghost will follow
the slayer
"as long as the slayer lives.
"Paishon is following Julio now,
and will follow him
until he dies."
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
There was a murderer
in the woods,
so now the question is
what to do
Try to track him down
or not track him down?
DIACON:
Rondon wanted to essentially
take this murderer
as a prisoner and take them
with them and then subject him
to military judgment, and
Roosevelt was like, "No way.
"That's just one more mouth
to feed.
Let's get going."
NARRATOR:
Rondon insisted that
they continue the manhunt.
For Roosevelt,
who was plagued by fevers
and a deepening abscess
on his leg,
further delay was unthinkable.
BAYARD:
Rondon is still
slowing things down
in a way that Roosevelt must
find increasingly intolerable.
It must have been excruciating
that they would stop
at this point
and go search for this man.
They should be heading onward
Again, it's that tension.
And that tension is approaching
the breaking point
at this point.
ORNIG:
The two colonels continued
to argue.
They would quarrel,
but they couldn't
get to the point
of having a break like,
"Well, I'm going this way,
you can go that way."
NARRATOR:
As the men continued downstream,
Julio, to their surprise,
reappeared along the river bank,
pleading for his life.
But Roosevelt and Rondon
were in agreement.
They decided to let the jungle
determine his fate.
ROHTER:
And Rondon goes right by him,
as does the canoe
with Roosevelt.
ORNIG:
And they all pass by
in stony silence.
(thunder)
NARRATOR:
It had been two and a half
months since the men set out
into the wilderness.
They had traveled
nearly 600 miles,
375 over land
and more than 200 on the river.
With the mountainous terrain
of the canyons behind them,
the men hoped f or a smoother
descent to the mouth
of the River of Doubt.
But on the night of April 4,
Roosevelt's malarial fever
returned with a vengeance.
With few medications
at his disposal,
the expedition's doctor
injected quinine
directly into the former
president's stomach.
Kermit, Cherrie,
and Colonel Rondon took turns
sitting by Roosevelt's sick bed.
KERMIT ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
The scene is vivid before me.
For a few moments,
the stars would be shining,
and then the sky
would cloud over
and the rain would fall
in torrents,
shutting out sky
and trees and river.
Father first began with poetry.
Over and over again he repeated,
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree."
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan"
TWEED ROOSEVELT:
There was a point where
nobody really thought
he was going to live
through the night,
and he was raving.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree."
DALTON:
Theodore Roosevelt 's fevers
come back,
and he becomes delirious.
He's not really himself.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree."
(verse repeats,
overlapping in whispers)
JENKINSON:
Here in the middle of this
dense tropical jungle,
TR starts to recite
from Kubla Khan.
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
"Where Alph, the sacred river,
ran
"Through caverns measureless
to man
Down to a sunless sea."
It's a magnificent, haunting,
romantic poem
and fitting f or this moment.
They are in chasms measureless
to man trying to get to the sea.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree."
(repeated in echoed whispers)
BAYARD:
A simple line is repeated
again and again and again.
He's still aspiring to the
summer palace of Kubla Khan,
to the great heights
of the pleasure-dome.
He's still reaching out,
reaching up.
He's not cowering
in the face of death.
ROOSEVELT (dramatized):
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree."
NARRATOR:
Drifting in and out of delirium,
Roosevelt told Rondon
that the expedition must proceed
without him.
They could not afford
further delay.
RONDON (dramatized):
He was with fever and delirious.
I said, "The expedition cannot
carry on without you.
"It is impossible.
This expedition is called
Roosevelt-Rondon!"
That was my argument
to his plea.
POSSUELO:
ORNIG:
Rondon said,
"But you are the expedition."
Rondon could not see
leaving him behind.
That was unthinkable.
The admiration had still
survived all the contention,
all the hardship.
ROHTER:
In a military expedition,
you don't leave your guys
behind.
It was a non-starter,
Roosevelt's delirious request.
From here forward, the
ex-president would have to rely
on the other men to carry him
out of the jungle.
The expedition
continued down the river,
with Roosevelt now lying
beneath a makeshift canopy.
KERMIT ROOSEVELT(dramatized):
Down beyond the rapids,
the river widened
so that instead of seeing the
sun through the canyon of trees
f or but a few hours,
it hung above us like
a molten ball and broiled us.
To a sick man,
it must have been intolerable.
When Roosevelt set out on
the River of Doubt expedition,
he famously wrote a skeptical
friend that he had already
lived and enjoyed as much life
as any nine other men,
and was quite ready to leave
his bones in South America.
But on April 15, 1914,
it suddenly became clear
that Theodore Roosevelt was
going to live to tell the tale
of yet another great adventure.
JENKINSON:
They see a marking
that says J.A.
And so they know
it's somebody with an alphabet.
NARRATOR:
It was the first trace
of the outside world
that the men had seen since
launching their dugouts
a month and a half earlier.
It was a clear indication
that salvation lay ahead.
After a few more hours
on the river,
the men spotted smoke billowing
out of a thatched-roof home.
The expedition had reached a
tiny outpost of rubber tappers.
DIACON:
I think that's the moment
that everybody realized
they were going to
they were going to live.
CHERRIE (dramatized):
Shouts of exaltation went up
from our canoes as this frail
outpost of civilization
met our eyes.
What a delightful sight it was.
Uncertainty was at once
a thing of the past.
Finally, we had reached a point
below which the river was known.
JENKINSON:
After all of this uncertainty,
they realize we will
complete the journey.
And so here's the president
of the United States,
the former president and
one of the world's great men,
just prone in the boat,
unable really to even sit up
at this point.
NARRATOR:
The ordeal had left the men
gaunt and wild-eyed from hunger.
Their clothes were in tatters,
their skin burnt and covered
in insect bites,
and Theodore Roosevelt
was barely clinging to life.
None of them could believe
that they had made it
to civilization.
On April 26, after paddling
more than 400 miles,
the men had finally covered the
length of the River of Doubt.
At the mouth of the river,
a rescue boat
from the Brazilian navy
was waiting to ferry them
to the city of Manaus.
The river had claimed the lives
of three
of the expedition's men,
swallowed almost all
of their possessions,
and nearly killed
Theodore Roosevelt.
Along the way,
friendships and family bonds
had been put to the test.
But somehow they withstood
and, in some cases,
were even strengthened
by the experience.
JENKINSON:
When they finally come out,
Rondon stops the little steamer
that they're on
At 2:00 a.m., in the middle
of the night
So that Roosevelt can quietly be
taken off of this boat
on a stretcher and not be seen
as an invalid.
Rondon wants to protect
his dignity,
not have TR be seen as a man
who's become incapacitated
by this journey.
NARRATOR:
From Manaus, Roosevelt sent
a telegram to his wife Edith
after months of silence.
"Successful trip," he wrote, and
gave no hint of his condition.
Cândido Rondon did not
waste time on goodbyes.
As soon as the Americans
set sail,
Rondon turned around
and returned to the jungle.
He threw himself
into the last crucial stages
of his telegraph project
and resumed his work
for the protection of Indians.
ROHTER:
Roosevelt says to him,
"You should go home
to your family."
And Rondon says, "I'd like to,
but I have this task
I have to finish."
And so he just goes right back
into the jungle.
After this grueling, grueling
experience,
Rondon continues
on his life's work.
It's remarkable.
NARRATOR:
Roosevelt quietly returned
to New York,
slipping off the boat at
Oyster Bay near his home
in Long Island.
When reporters caught up to him,
they were shocked
by how he looked.
The president was gaunt.
He had lost more than 50 pounds
in the Amazon,
and, for the first time
in his life,
he was leaning on a cane.
Despite his weakened condition,
Roosevelt was
in a fighting mood.
Many of the most distinguished
members of the American
and British geographical
societies were challenging
his claim that he had charted
a major South American river.
Some saw his trip as nothing
more than a publicity stunt
to launch another bid
for the presidency.
JENKINSON:
It just throws him into
a kind of Roosevelt-ian
righteous rage.
To think, "I nearly died.
"This was an absolutely perilous
mission,
"and to be doubted by people
who have never been
to South America."
So he goes to the
National Geographic Society,
and he proves to them
that he did it.
ORNIG:
They had photographs,
he even drew a map.
Roosevelt talks about,
"We spent 60 days.
"There was no way we could have
got there except by the river
"in that time.
"So, therefore, accept the fact
that there's a river
of that length there
that you're not aware of."
(applause)
NARRATOR:
Two weeks later, Roosevelt was
redeemed before an audience
at the prestigious Royal
Geographical Society in London.
JENKINSON:
When he walks in, he gets
this gigantic ovation,
and he realizes,
"They love me
I'm a hero."
The National Geographic Society
gives him a medal,
and he says
in his acceptance speech,
"It needs to go to Rondon."
And so they strike a second one,
which goes to Cândido Rondon
because Roosevelt refuses to be
the sole person to take credit
for this extraordinary mission.
NARRATOR:
Roosevelt had fulfilled
his dream
of becoming a famous explorer,
his name etched forever
on the map of South America.
But nature had exacted
a heavy price.
Roosevelt 's sister Corrine
would later say,
"The Brazilian wilderness stole
away ten years of his life."
He never fully recovered
his prior vigor,
and was plagued
by recurring malaria.
Theodore Roosevelt died on
January 6, 1919,
just five years after
returning from the Amazon.
Kermit Roosevelt, who returned
from the expedition
to finally marry his great love
Belle Willard,
was devastated at the news
of his father's death.
"The bottom has dropped out
of my life,"
he wrote to his mother.
Without his beloved father,
Kermit lost his mooring,
and after battling alcoholism
for most of his life,
committed suicide in 1943.
Cândido Rondon spent the rest of
his life fighting for the rights
of Brazil's indigenous people,
and lived to be 92 years old.
Today, the state of Rondonia
bears his name.
POSSUELO:
NARRATOR:
In life and in death, Roosevelt
and Rondon both became heroes.
But the journey they shared
down the river that now bears
Roosevelt's name has a legacy
all of its own.
BAYARD:
The story of the
Roosevelt-Rondon expedition
is both inspiring and deeply
cautionary.
It shows that human enterprise
has its limits.
There is no more formidable
example of willpower
than Teddy Roosevelt.
But he didn't tame that jungle.
He didn't domesticate it;
he just survived it.
And even he, at the end, had
to acknowledge his limitations.
And as soon as they left,
the jungle folded round
and eliminated every last trace
that they had been there.
♪♪
♪♪