John Steinbeck IV
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. |
John Steinbeck IV (June 12 1946 - February 7 1991), was an Emmy Award Winning American journalist and author. He was the second child of the Nobel prize winning author, John Steinbeck.
In 1965, John was drafted into the Vietnam war where he became a journalist for Armed Forces Radio and TV as a war correspondent for the Department of Defense. “As a reporter for the Army in Vietnam, I had gone out looking for a good human interest story, and I found instead more marijuana than Cheech and Chong's best dream.” Upon his return to the United States prior to his discharge, he was asked by the Washingtonian to write an article which he titled "The Importance of Being Stoned in Vietnam". He was called to testify in front of a Senate Subcommittee on drug abuse. Despite General William Westmoreland's statement that Private John Steinbeck’s comments on the use of marijuana in Vietnam were baseless, John received an honorary discharge.
During that time, John was arrested for “maintaining a common nuisance” based upon the discovery of twenty pounds of marijuana in his apartment, which was confiscated along with the manuscript of the Washingtonian article. Charges were dropped. A friend who was there at the time said "The 'pot' was Indiana ditch-weed and the entire twenty pounds wouldn't get you high, and would maybe give you emphysema . It would have been great for making rope. We always thought it was planted. I don't believe that the Pentagon was as upset about John's testimony concerning drug use among the troops in Viet Nam, as his stories about the horrible atrocities "our guys" were perpetrating on the innocent civilians, which John told me many such in vivid detail. As part of his job in 'Nam he would come into a recent battle zone via helocopter before the bodies had stopped twitching and bleeding. When he first went into the Army he was gung-ho, anti-communist and a loyal American Patriot. Somehow, after all those dead babies (not a joke), women, and old people, he lost that attitude."
In 1968, John returned to Vietnam as a journalist. Along with Sean Flynn, son of actor Errol Flynn, he started Dispatch News Service, which originally published the story on the Mai Li massacre by Seymour Hersh. Fluent in street Vietnamese, Sean and John IV quickly became independent of the flow of information dispensed by the United States Press Office. Hence, they were the first to disclose the truth about the My Lai massacre and the Con Son Tiger cages. Sean disappeared in Cambodia on a photo shoot. John's Vietnam memoir In Touch was published by Knopf in 1969. He wrote about his experiences with the Vietnamese, the GI's and his romantic interlude with that exotic culture. John took the vows of a Buddhist monk while living on Phoenix Island in the middle of the Mekong delta, under the tutelage of the politically powerful Coconut Monk, a silent tree-dwelling Buddhist yogi. This tiny, stooped mendicant adopted John as a spiritual son and invited him to stay on the peace zone he had created in the midst of the raging war. Howitzer shells were hammered into bells by the 400 monks who lived on the island.
He traveled back and forth between Asia and the United States several more times before settling in Boulder, Colorado where he studied Tibetan Buddhism at Naropa University. He met Nancy Harper and her two children, Megan and Michael, there in 1975. They were married in 1982, and Megan and Michael took John's last name. In 1983 the family traveled around the world for a year, living in Kathmandu in order to further their Buddhist studies. In 1984, John was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, a genetic disease that causes iron retention in the organs. This life threatening illness, combined with his excessive drinking, created a healing crisis which inspired John to get sober in 1988. John became very interested in the disease of alcoholism and was an avid participant in 12-Step programs. Although John Steinbeck IV and Nancy divorced in 1989, they continued to live together until the day he died during back surgery in 1991. John pursued his journalistic career, writing articles about their travels with the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism, alcoholism and the toll it takes on loved ones. In 1990, he began his autobiography with this statement:
"The reasons for attempting to write this book could be summed up simply by my desire to live free from fear. However, the path leading to that sort of fruition has, along its border, a lot of fearful things that at first glance can cause panic, or resentment, or shame. There is also charity and sanity, which accompany this sort of voyage like good dolphins on a good quest. Frankly, I feel blessed that these guiding elements have never abandoned me and, as I and others continue to recover from the effects of my actions, I am encouraged that these qualities will endure, even shine."
In 1990, John was diagnosed with a ruptured disc. He underwent corrective surgery on February 7, 1991, and did not survive the operation. The morning before his death, John asked Nancy to finish his manuscript if anything happened during the operation. In 2001, John's posthumous memoir, "The Other Side of Eden" was completed by Nancy Steinbeck and published by Prometheus Books. As the book jacket states "Left unfinished at his untimely death, this testament to his life is here reconstructed by his former wife, Nancy Steinbeck. Interweaving her own reminiscences of her life with John Steinbeck IV, Nancy has created an engrossing account from two perspectives: John's memories of his chaotic and adventurous upbringing and her own thoughts on their journey together to make a new life apart from the long shadow of a famous father and a troubled past."
Publisher's Weekly said "“More than a memoir, this is a powerful account of healing and liberation. This book can help many people.” The book is co-distributed by Hazelden, America's foremost treatment center for drug and alcohol addiction.