Medford mail tribune., December 22, 1963, Image 43

The Story of an American Diplomat:
Hero in
Striped Pants
Editors' Note: Americans sometimes think of
their diplomats as well-tailored gentlemen who
attend state rtceptions and straighten out pass
port mix-ups. A bronze plaque at the State De
partment in Washington, D.C., testifies other
wise: it lists the names of 7S American foreign
service officers who have lost their lives serving
their country. Countless others have risked death
to help Americans in danger the world over.
The following story is a detailed account of
one such foreign-service adventure, typifying
the extraordinary challenges faced by some offi
cers and the way they meet them, even when the
chances of success are small.
All through the chill night, Harry
tM. Lofton and his companions had
spoon-fed the semi-conscious man a
bean and venison soup. Now, as the
morning haze filtered in the grass adobe
shack, Robert Kaupp, face still
smudged with soot and feet numbed
with frostbite, told his story to the
American diplomat
Kaupp had come to this unpopulated section
of Ecuador from Los Angeles with a partner,
Frank Rocco. They planned to climb to the San
gay volcano and photograph the cauldron of lava
below. Only one person, Englishman Robert
Moore, had ever ascended "the mountain of black
snow," 17,750 feet at its peak, but Kaupp was
an experienced explorer. He had led Rocco
through a maze of jungle, mountain cliffs, snow,
and volcanic ash and reached the rim success
fully ; the men were exhausted and felt strangely
heady in the thin, pungent air.
Geysers of steam-hot lava burst overhead. Even
in daylight the clouds of ash made it dark for
the two photographers. They agreed to retreat
from Sangay, but first they surrendered to an
overwhelming desire to sleep.
By the time they awoke and stumbled off into
a mist of ash and snow, Kaupp and Rocco were
deep in a euphoria that fogged their awareness
of surroundings. About two-thirds of the way
down, clearer air brought Kaupp from trancelike
detachment to an uneasy alert. For the first time,
he noticed crevasses and sheer drops of 600 feet
and more on every side. This wasn't the way
they'd come up: this was the wrong side of the
mountain, an area pitted with craters barely vis
ible in swirling clouds.
"Frank!" Kaupp yelled. "We've got to go back
and come down the other side."
Rocco stared at him in disbelief. Kaupp re
peated the warning: "Follow me!" Kaupp started
toward the volcano again, but Rocco refused to
move. The idea of returning to the hell above
seemed to freeze him.
"All right," Kaupp said. "I'll get help. Stay
where you are, and don't try to go down this side.
It would be suicide."
Kaupp started upward. Within moments, the
ceiling of black engulfed him. It would take days
to escape the choking atmosphere; then Kaupp
would wander alone in a jungle marked "Unex
plored" on maps. Still it was their only chance.
Kaupp finished his story. Six days had passed
before an Ecuadorian army patrol had found him
semidelirious. Now he could think only of Rocco.
"He could be alive," Kaupp told Harry Lofton.
"At least I have to kjiow."
Lofton is second secretary in the U. S. embassy
in Quito. When word reached Ambassador Mau
rice M. Bernbaum that two Americans were lost
on Sangay, he had sent Lofton to the scene. "Do
what you can," were his only instructions. But
to a foreign-service officer like Lofton, the in
structions implied more. Lofton, 44 and the
father of three, is an ex-football player, boxer,
and Marine Corps officer. With him were two
Ecuadorian mountain experts. Hector Vasquez
and Jorge Larrea. They were willing to climb
Sangay to learn Rocco's fate. But Kaupp, despite
his determination, could not go with them: the
climb had left him physically debilitated.
Lofton recounted the moment to Family
Weekly recently: "Kaupp was right. Rocco
could be alive. There wasn't much chance, but
you just can't walk off from something like that.
Kaupp couldn't go, so it was up to me."
At daylight, Lofton, Vasquez, and Larrea led
a train of Indian guides and bearers into some
of the roughest country in the world. For 14
hours they alternately pulled pack animals, floun
dering to their bellies, from swollen streams or
prodded them across mountain paths 18 inches
wide. By evening they had reached the Ecua
dorian army's farthest outpost.
"They had no lead to Rocco's whereabouts,"
Lofton said, "so we knew we had to ascend San-
Lofton rests after the grueling trip to volcano.
gay in the morning and try to find his tracks."
Lofton had never climbed a mountain and had
flown from Quito on such short notice he had
only fishing clothes for the ascent. A steady
drizzle soaked his outfit and, as the party moved
into mountain downdrafts, the moisture froze.
His feet and legs were rubbed sore by the time
they had traversed the base, a field of jagged
rocks spewn out by the volcano, but when he
looked upward he realized this was the easy part.
"Directly ahead," Lofton reported, "was an ice
face. It ran upward about 1,000 feet at a sheer
angle. Vasquez and Larrea would have to chip
out steps with their ice axes as they climbed and
get me up with them."
But Lofton noticed the party was separating.
The Indian guides and bearers had stopped, and
the mountaineers were shouting at them and
waving them forward. Instead, the Indians ejlged
away, shaking their heads.
The Ghosts of Sangay
Larrea shrugged. "They refuse to go farther.
They say there are ghosts above. The ghosts live
in the volcano, turn the snow black, and make
the earth pitch like a boat on waves."
Alone, the three began chipping their way up
the glacier. Lofton had had specific instructions:
"We'll be tied together. If you lose footing, we'll
pull you up. Don't struggle."
Lofton followed their axe-hewn steps hesitant
ly. Each time his boot slipped, the rope would
tighten quickly around him.
"Esperatel Hold still!"
Suddenly Lofton was pressing against the ice
pack with little more support than the rope.
His toehold had vanished; his fingers felt for a
gripping spot, but he had swung away from the
track. "EsperateV the Ecuadorians repeated.
The glacier was a slick chute downward; if
he fell, it would spin him directly into the rocks
below. But he felt himself being lifted now.
With his toes he probed again for the step and,
as Vasquez and Larrea guided him, found reas
suring firmness beneath his boot tip. They
paused a moment Given too much time, Sangay
Mountain had a way of lulling men into a dan
gerous apathy.
"After the ice came the most miserable place
I've seen," Lofton said later. "It was a sort of
desert of relatively hot ash and lava which pre
vented ice from forming. Our boots would sink
4 Family Wrrtcly. Dtctmber 12, IK3