G. Edward Griffin

For other people of the same name, see Edward Griffin.
G. Edward Griffin
Born (1931-11-07) November 7, 1931
Detroit, Michigan
Nationality American
Education University of Michigan
BA
Occupation Author, lecturer, and filmmaker
Known for Conspiracy theories
Spouse(s) Patricia Irving Griffin

G. Edward Griffin (born November 7, 1931) is an American author, lecturer, and filmmaker. He is the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994), which promotes conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve System.[1][2]

Griffin's writings promote conspiracy theories about the political and health care systems. His book World Without Cancer argues that cancer is a nutritional deficiency that can be cured by consuming amygdalin, a view regarded as quackery by the medical community.[1][3][4] He is an HIV/AIDS denialist, supports the 9/11 Truth movement, and supports John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.[1] He believes Noah's Ark is located in Turkey at the Durupınar site.[5]

Biography

Griffin was born in Detroit, Michigan, on November 7, 1931, and became a child voice actor on local radio from 1942 to 1947. He later emceed at WJR (CBS), and continued as an assistant announcer at the public radio station WUOM. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1953, majoring in speech and communications. In 1954, he served in the United States Army, and in 1956 was discharged as a sergeant.[6]

Griffin worked as a writer for Curtis LeMay, vice presidential running mate for George Wallace during his 1968 United States Presidential campaign.[6] Shortly thereafter, he began writing and producing documentary-style videos about the same controversial topics covered in his books, such as cancer, the historical authenticity of Noah's Ark, the Federal Reserve System, the Supreme Court of the United States, terrorism, subversion, and foreign policy.[7][8]

Political advocacy

In 1964, Griffin wrote his first book, The Fearful Master, on the United Nations, a topic that recurs throughout his writings. While he describes his work as the output of "a plain vanilla researcher", Griffin also agrees with the Los Angeles Daily News's characterization of him as "Crusader Rabbit".[9]

Griffin has been a member and officer of the John Birch Society (JBS) for much of his life[10] and a contributing editor to its magazine, The New American.[11] Since the 1960s, Griffin has spoken and written about the Society's theory of history involving "communist and capitalist conspiracies" over banking systems (including the Federal Reserve System), American foreign policy, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the United Nations.[12][13] From 1962 to 1975, he completed nine books and seven film productions; his 1969 video lecture, More Deadly Than War: The Communist Revolution in America, was printed in English and Dutch. In 1974, he published World Without Cancer, and in 1975, he wrote a sympathetic biography of JBS founder Robert W. Welch.[14][15]

In May 2009, Griffin helped Robert L. Schulz and Edwin Vieira organize a meeting at Jekyll Island of thirty people including "radical tax protesters, militiamen, nativist extremists, anti-Obama 'birthers,' hard-line libertarians, conspiracy-minded Patriots with theories about secret government concentration camps, even a raging anti-Semite named Edgar Steele".[16] Speakers at the meeting "warned of 'increasing national instability,' worried about a coming 'New World Order,' denounced secret schemes to merge Canada, Mexico and the United States, and furiously attacked the new president's 'socialized' policies and failure to end illegal immigration," and attendees made plans for a "continental congress" that occurred in November 2009 that was hosted by the We the People Foundation.[16] Griffin was the first to speak at the Jekyll Island meeting and he "told conferees that merely putting 'large numbers of people in the street' was not enough. 'We must,' he said, 'achieve power.'"[16]

Conspiracy theories and fringe science

The Creature from Jekyll Island

Griffin's 1994 book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, draws parallels between the Federal Reserve and a bird of prey.

He has opposed the Federal Reserve since the 1960s, saying it constitutes a banking cartel and an instrument of war and totalitarianism.[17] Griffin presented his views on the U.S. money system in his 1993 movie and 1994 book on the Federal Reserve System, The Creature from Jekyll Island.[6][note 1] The book was a business-topic bestseller.[2][18][19] The book also influenced Ron Paul when he wrote a chapter on money and the Federal Reserve in his New York Times bestseller, The Revolution: A Manifesto.[20]

Edward Flaherty, an academic economist writing for Political Research Associates, characterized Griffin's description of the secret meeting on Jekyll Island as "conspiratorial", "amateurish", and "suspect".[21] Griffin responded that "until specifics [of error] are brought to my attention, I stand on everything I have written. ... There is nothing about my work that merits being classified as a conspiracy theory."[22]

Cancer, chemtrails, and AIDS denial

In 1973, Griffin wrote and self-published the book World Without Cancer and released it as a video;[23][24] its second edition appeared in 1997. In the book and the video, Griffin asserts that cancer is a metabolic disease like a vitamin deficiency facilitated by the insufficient dietary consumption of laetrile. He contends that "eliminating cancer through a nondrug therapy has not been accepted because of the hidden economic and power agendas of those who dominate the medical establishment"[25] and he wrote, "at the very top of the world's economic and political pyramid of power there is a grouping of financial, political, and industrial interests that, by the very nature of their goals, are the natural enemies of the nutritional approaches to health".[26] Since the 1970s, the use of laetrile to treat cancer has been identified in the scientific literature as a canonical example of quackery and has never been shown to be effective in the treatment or prevention of cancer.[27][28] Emanuel Landau, then a Project Director for the APHA, wrote a book review for the American Journal of Public Health, which noted that Griffin "accepts the 'conspiracy' theory ... that policy-makers in the medical, pharmaceutical, research and fund-raising organizations deliberately or unconsciously strive not to prevent or cure cancer in order to perpetuate their functions". Landau concludes that although World Without Cancer "is an emotional plea for the unrestricted use of the Laetrile as an anti-tumor agent, the scientific evidence to justify such a policy does not appear within it".[29]

Griffin's websites refer visitors to doctors, clinics, and hospitals with alternative cancer treatments, including sellers of laetrile.[23][30][31] He does not sell laetrile himself.[23]

In 2010, Griffin engaged in HIV/AIDS denialism, claiming that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) "doesn't exist" and that antiretroviral medications (rather than the HIV virus) cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).[1]

In a 2012 video entitled "What in the World Are They Spraying?", Griffin asserts that airplanes leave a permanent grid of chemtrails hanging over cities like Los Angeles.[32]

Noah's Ark search

In 1992 Griffin wrote and narrated The Discovery of Noah's Ark, based on David Fasold's 1988 book, The Ark of Noah.[5] Griffin's film said that the original Noah's Ark continued to exist in fossil form at the Durupınar site, about 17 miles (27 km) from Mount Ararat in Turkey, based on photographic, radar, and metal detector evidence. Griffin also said that towns in the area had names that resembled terms from the Biblical story of the flood. He endorsed the historicity of the Biblical account of the flood, and speculated that the flood was the byproduct of massive tides caused by a gravitational interaction between Earth and a large celestial body coming close to it.[9]

Works

Some of Griffin's work is published by Western Islands Publishers, the publishing arm of the John Birch Society, with the remainder being self-published through his own company, American Media.

Bibliography

Filmography

Notes

  1. ↑ The title refers to a 1910 meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia, of six bankers and economic policymakers. The meeting was recounted by Forbes founder B. C. Forbes in 1916, (see: Forbes, B. C. (1916-10-19). "Men Who Are Making America". Leslie's Weekly. p. 423. I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written.) and recalled by participant Frank Vanderlip as "the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System". (See:Vanderlip, Frank A. (1933-02-09). "From Farm Boy to Financier". Saturday Evening Post. pp. 25, 70. Also, Vanderlip, Frank A. (1935). From Farm Boy to Financier. New York City, New York: Appleton-Century Company. pp. 210–219. In Gurumurthy, S. (2007-12-28). "US Fed: an enigma wrapped in mystery". Business Line. Retrieved 2008-09-02.)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Easter, Sean (March 26, 2011). "Who is G. Edward Griffin, Beck's Expert on The Federal Reserve?". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2015-03-10. On his Fox News show, Glenn Beck presented author G. Edward Griffin as a credible authority on the Federal Reserve. But Griffin has an extensive history of promoting wild conspiracy theories, including the notions that HIV does not exist and that cancer is a dietary deficiency that can be cured with 'an essential food compound'.
  2. 1 2 "Paul Out to Slay The Creature from Jekyll Island". USA Daily. August 22, 2007. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-02. Griffin, in ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island’ documents an organized and successful attempt to seize control over the U.S. monetary system by powerful American and European banking families. ...
  3. ↑ Herbert V (May 1979). "Laetrile: the cult of cyanide. Promoting poison for profit". Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 32 (5): 1121–58. PMID 219680.
  4. ↑ Lerner IJ (February 1984). "The whys of cancer quackery". Cancer 53 (3 Suppl): 815–9. doi:10.1002/1097-0142(19840201)53:3+<815::aid-cncr2820531334>3.0.co;2-u. PMID 6362828.
  5. 1 2 "The Discovery of Noah's Ark". Reality Zone. Retrieved 2008-03-06. This program was written and narrated by G. Edward Griffin.
  6. 1 2 3 Who's Who in America 1994 (48th ed.). Marquis Who's Who. December 1993.
  7. ↑ "G. Edward Griffin". IMDB. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
  8. ↑ "G. Edward Griffin". WorldCat. Retrieved 2015-03-11.
  9. 1 2 "T.O.'s Griffin All Booked Up With Writing, Film Projects". Daily News of Los Angeles. May 22, 1995. Retrieved 2008-02-29. G. Edward Griffin, author and documentary film producer, calls himself 'a plain vanilla researcher and writer.' But the projects he has completed don't deal with 'vanilla' subjects. They concern the Federal Reserve, the Supreme Court, cancer and even Noah's ark. Perhaps a better description of Griffin is one he also admits to - 'Crusader Rabbit'. ...
  10. ↑ Aune, James Arnt (2001). Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness. Guilford Press. pp. 140–1. ISBN 1-57230-757-9.
  11. ↑ Steele, Karen Dorn; Morlin, Bill (2000-09-02). "Get-rich pitch 'bogus': Seven states have determined Global Prosperity is an illegal pyramid scheme". The Spokesman Review. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
  12. ↑ Sayre, Nora (1996). Sixties Going on Seventies. Rutgers University Press. p. 98. ISBN 0-8135-2193-9. In a wonderful lecture by G. Edward Griffin, slides and diagrams of triangles and arrows and circles show how the Conspiracy learned its techniques from the 18th Century Freemasons of Europe. ...
  13. ↑ Stone, Barbara S. (February 1974). "The John Birch Society: A Profile". The Journal of Politics 36 (1): 184–197. doi:10.2307/2129115. JSTOR 2129115.
  14. ↑ Bourgoin, Suzanne Michele; Byers, Paula K. (1998). Encyclopedia of World Biography. Gale. ISBN 0-7876-2556-6.
  15. ↑ Thornton, James (1993-12-13). "Remembering Robert Welch". John Birch Society. Retrieved 2008-03-06. We invite you to learn more about him by reading The Life and Words of Robert Welch by G. Edward Griffin. ...
  16. 1 2 3 Heidi Beirich. "Midwifing the Militias: Jekyll Island Gathering Recalls Another" (Spring 2010, Issue 137). Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2015-03-11. G. Edward Griffin, who helped organize the Jekyll Island gathering, may have been more revealing. Griffin, who wrote a scathing 1994 attack on the Fed published by the anti-communist John Birch Society and also a sympathetic biography of the group's founder, was the first to speak at the meeting. He told conferees that merely putting 'large numbers of people in the street' was not enough. 'We must,' he said, 'achieve power'.
  17. ↑ Thomas, Kenn (2002). Popular Paranoia: A Steamshovel Press Anthology. Adventures Unlimited Press. p. 298. ISBN 1-931882-06-1.
  18. ↑ "Bestselling business books". Calgary Herald. 2006-07-04. p. F5.
  19. ↑ "Best-selling business books, April 14". Rocky Mountain News. 2007-04-14. Archived from the original on 2008-09-27. Retrieved 2008-02-29. 10. The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve: G. Edward Griffin. American Media. $24.50. ...
  20. ↑ Paul listed Griffin's book on his "Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America". See: Paul, Ron (2007-04-30). The Revolution: A Manifesto. New York City, NY: Grand Central Publishing. pp. 169–70. ISBN 0-446-53751-9.
  21. ↑ Flaherty, Edward. "Debunking the Federal Reserve Conspiracy Theories: Myth #1: The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was crafted by Wall Street bankers and a few senators in a secret meeting.". Somerville, Massachusetts: Political Research Associates. Retrieved 2008-05-10. G. Edward Griffin lays out this conspiratorial version of history in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island. His amateurish take on history is highly suspect, however. ... ...
  22. ↑ Griffin, G. Edward (2004). "Meet Edward Flaherty, Conspiracy Poo-Pooist". Retrieved 2008-04-07. There is nothing about my work that merits being classified as a conspiracy theory. In modern context, it is customary to associate the phrase 'conspiracy theory' with those who are intellectually handicapped or ill informed. Using emotionally loaded words and phrases to discredit the work of others is to be rejected.
  23. 1 2 3 Lagnado, Lucette (2000-03-22). "Laetrile Makes a Comeback Selling to Patients Online". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  24. ↑ "Controversial Cancer Drug Laetrile Enters Political Realms". Middlesboro Daily News. 1977-08-10. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  25. ↑ "New Library Books". Books (Grand Forks Herald). 2003-07-13. p. 4. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  26. ↑ Kenadjian, Berdj, Ph.D. (2006). From Darkness to Light. Zakarian, Martin, illus. (2d ed.). Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-933538-24-2. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  27. ↑ Milazzo, S; Ernst, E; Lejeune, S; Boehm, K; Horneber, M (9 November 2011). "Laetrile treatment for cancer.". The Cochrane database of systematic reviews (11): CD005476. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD005476.pub3. PMID 22071824.
  28. ↑ Nightingale SL (1984). "Laetrile: the regulatory challenge of an unproven remedy". Public Health Rep 99 (4): 333–8. PMC 1424606. PMID 6431478.
  29. ↑ Landau, Emanuel, Ph.D. (July 1976). "World without Cancer; the Story of Vitamin B17" (PDF). American Journal of Public Health 66 (7): 696. doi:10.2105/AJPH.66.7.696-a. ISSN 0090-0036. Retrieved 2008-03-05. The author maintains that the missing food nutrient is part of the nitriloside family which is found particularly in the seeds of the fruit family containing bitter almond ... line feed character in |quote= at position 38 (help)
  30. ↑ Jones, Marianna (1976-10-11). "Cure or fraud?". Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  31. ↑ "The Cancer Cure Foundation". The Cancer Cure Foundation. Retrieved 2015-03-11. This website provides an unbiased analysis of the major alternative-cancer clinics, treatments and therapies. It explains the theories of how these treatments work and where to locate doctors, practitioners and natural-health clinics. It also provides case histories of patients who have benefited from these non-conventional approaches.
  32. ↑ "Chemtrails - Conspiracy Theory?". Australian Science. December 28, 2012. Retrieved 2015-03-11. The filmmakers bring in advocate and conspiracist G. Edward Griffin to join this chemtrail crusade. He talks about how chemtrails don't dissipate; that a permanent grid hangs over cities like Los Angeles.

Further reading

External links

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