After the Second World War, Queen Wilhelmina offered him a permanent appointment as her adjudant but he declined this position. Shortly thereafter he emigrated to the United States, became a US citizen and married his long-time girlfriend Margaret "Midge" Cooper. He worked in Hollywood, initially as an actor and then as a writer. He moved on to work in the television industry as a writer for the first "Today Show" program and later helped to launch "The Tonight Show" in New York City. He also wrote for a number of Dutch newspapers. In 1950 he was approached by Dutch admiral Conrad Helfrich, who asked him to help support the Moluccans. The Moluccas are a group of islands north and west of New Guinea. The islanders are predominantly Christian. Following the withdrawal of the Dutch from the Dutch East Indies, the Molluccans declined to be a part of the newly formed Republic of Indonesia, which was Muslim-dominated and under the rule of Sukarno, who had become increasingly authoritarian. They declared their independence as the Republic of South Maluku.