Local Clothier Saves Lives by Short Wave

One Saturday evening last November, David W. Norton '66 was running barefoot through the jungles of Ecuador searching desperately for help. He had just escaped from a mob of machete-wielding natives who had attacked his camp and back in the tent, Raymond A. Paynter and his wife, Harvard ornithologists, were lying unconscious--badly cut and left for dead by the drunken Ecuadorans.

Meanwhile, Norton's parents were sitting at home in Massachusetts, with no idea that their son was struggling for his life. The first word came two days later when the Associated Press released a short, vague story, that left both the Nortons and the friends and relatives of the Paynters afraid that the three researchers had lost their lives.

But thanks to a small, red-haired man who works in Harvard Square, both David Norton and Mr. and Mrs. Paynter, all alive, were able to speak to their families the next day.

Voice On a Hill

The researchers' benefactor was James M. Jacobs, who owns J August Co. on the Square and a great deal of expensive ham radio equipment tucked away in his home on a hill in Brookline. Begining the morning after the assault, he spoke daily with officials of the hospital in Cuenca where the victims were being treated, and with the American Embassy in Quito. Every morning he connected the home phones of the Nortons and Paynters into his 4000-mile radio hookup, and they were able to follow the progress of the victims as if they were in the neighborhood hospital.

Jacobs, who is in daily radio contact with every major city in Latin America, has handled emergencies like this for the past seven years. Every morning at 7 a.m., he aims his rotating antenna at South America, calls out "K-one-GHT," and waits for one of his contacts to describe the latest crisis. He will remain home at his radio as long as he is needed, but most days he arrives at J. August by mid-morning.

Shop and Swim

Jacobs has owned the store for 23 years, spending his day supervising the buying and selling and occasionally helping a student work the Xerox. After a day at work, Jacobs takes a short swim at the club near his Brookline home--he is remarkably trim for his 55 years.

But it is during the mornings that Jacobs finds excitement and crisis. Twice in a single day this year he was asked to obtain rare plastic shunt valves for delicate brain operations in South America. Jacobs found a medical supply firm that had them, and persuaded a private airline passenger to carry them down in his baggage.

Many times, South American doctors have asked Jacobs to connect them with American surgeons who can provide advice in difficult operations. Surgeons at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, contacted by Jacobs, helped an Ecuadoran doctor in his attempt to save the severed hand of a young sailor.

Find a Baboon

Four months later, the very same doctor found himself trying to save the life of a woman who had lost one kidney and was perilously close to losing the other one. He leaded with Jacobs to aid him again in a desperate attempt to save her. If Jacobs could find a baboon, they would try an unusual transplant operation. Jacobs found one, and had it sent down.

Jacobs does not confine his efforts solely to medical emergencies--he performs morale-boosting missions as well. During the Dominican crisis, he was asked by anxious parents to contact Lance Corporal Martin E. Wahl, who was in combat with the Marines on the island. Jacobs spoke to Wahl's colonel, who personally went out to the firing lines to look for the boy.

when Wahl saw the colonel coming, he tried to hide in between some sandbags, for he was on the line in a T-shirt, which was not regulation uniform. The colonel dug him out, however, and two hours later he was on the phone with his parents in Stoughton.

Jacobs's radio has provided, on at least one occasion, the only surviving contact with a Latin American nation. After the 1964 revolution in Bolivia, the new government closed all the cable offices and grounded all planes. But the three American television networks set up temporary shop in the home of a ham in Jacobs's Latin American network. Their dispatches were pumped into Brookline, and Jacobs graciously handed them over to the waiting newsmen.

When Jacobs became interested in Latin America seven years ago, he began to read South American geography and politics, and spent a term at Harvard Summer School studying Spanish. He is serious about his hobby and considers air time too valuable for ordinary conversation if there is no real need for his services.

"In America, we take communications for granted," Jacobs says. "You pick up a phone and can dial anywhere. If you don't like your newspaper, you can switch to another one. In Latin America things don't work that way. Commercial communication often fails."

Jacobs, for example, sitting 4000 miles away, asked a man in Quito to put through a call to Guayaquil, about 100 miles away. The ham replied that a call like that would probably take days to complete.

In 1964 Jacobs was cited on the floor of the House of Representatives for making an important contribution to the Alliance for Progress. Jacobs is proud of the citation and seems to enjoy the publicity. But the public recognition can't distract him from his devotion to radio. He was the kind of boy who built crystal sets out of oatmeal boxes and rejoiced when be picked up a station in Pittsburgh. Regardless of what time he goes to bed, Jacobs does not need an alarm clock to wake himself up at 6:30 a.m. "I get on the radio in the morning like some people get up for breakfast." The excitement, after 40 years, has not worn off.

Every morning at 7 a.m. aims his rotating antenna at South America, calls out "K-one-GHT", and waits for one of his contacts to describe the latest crisis.