Gerald Posner Biography
Gerald Posner (Gerald Leo Posner) is an American investigative journalist and author of twelve books, including Case, Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (1993), which explores the John F. Kennedy assassination, and Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1998), about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. A plagiarism scandal involving articles Posner wrote for The Daily Beast and his book Miami Babylon arose in 2010. In 2015, the Chicago Tribune called Posner “a merciless pitbull of an investigator.“
Gerald Posner Age
Posner was born in San Francisco on May 20th, 1954, he is 65 years old as of 2019.
Gerald Posner Family | Young
He was born the only child of Jerry and Gloria Posner. His father was Jewish and his mother Catholic, and both were native San Franciscans. His father was a labor union official. He was raised Catholic.
Gerald Posner Married
Posner is married to Trisha Posner is a British non-fiction writer and the author of This is Not Your Mother’s Menopause: One Woman’s Natural Journey Through Change (2000), No Hormones, No Fear (2003) and The Pharmacist of Auschwitz: The Untold Story (2017).
Gerald Posner Education
He got enrolled at St. Ignatius College Preparatory and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. In 1978, he earned his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he served as the associate executive editor for the university’s Law Review.
Gerald Posner Career
Posner’s first book, co-written with British journalist John Ware, was the 1986 biography Mengele: The Complete Story. The book was the result of a five-year pro bono lawsuit that Posner brought on behalf of survivors of Mengele’s medical experiments at Auschwitz. Posner and Ware obtained exclusive access to 5,000 pages of Mengele’s diaries and personal papers for their book. The book was critically recognized as the “definitive” biography of Mengele.
Gerald PosnerPosner testified before the United States Senate in 1986 about how Mengele used an International Red Cross passport to safely travel from Europe to Argentina in 1949. He also testified about the discovery made by himself and Ware that Mengele had twice been captured by U.S. Army troops in 1945, but released both times before authorities realized he was on several wanted lists. In June 1986, Posner appeared with Mengele’s only son, Rolf Mengele, on the Phil Donahue Show. Syndicated columnist Lewis Grizzard called the hour-long live program “an incredibly compelling piece of television journalism.”
Some of the content in Mengele: The Complete Story was utilized by the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which in February 1985 began an in-depth investigation into Mengele’s post-war activities and whereabouts. The investigation, done in conjunction with the United States Marshals Service, was launched after allegations that Mengele was at any time in the custody of or had any relationship with U.S. government institutions or personnel after World War II. In its official report to the Attorney General of the United States in 1992, In the Matter of Josef Mengele, OSI noted it was indebted to Posner for obtaining a witness statement concerning Mengele’s whereabouts from October 1945 to August 1, 1948.
In 1988, Posner published Warlords of Crime: Chinese Secret Societies: The New Mafia, an exposé of Triads and international heroin syndicates. Posner, and his wife, Trisha, traveled to Hong Kong, the Golden Triangle, the Netherlands, San Francisco, London, and New York to conduct in-person research with drug traffickers. Clarence Petersen, reviewing the book for the Chicago Tribune, commented, “Posner … is persuasive for the facts he gathered, all the more so because his narrative is largely the story of how he got the story, what he was told by the criminals and by law enforcement agents here and abroad and, most persuasive of all, what he saw with his own eyes. He does not dramatize; he doesn’t have to. The chilling story he unearthed speaks for itself.” Former New York detective and best-selling novelist, Dorothy Uhnak, wrote in The New York Times that “Warlords of Crime is powerful, frightening and, unfortunately, nonfiction.
Posner’s only novel is a biological warfare thriller set in the Cold War. According to Publishers Weekly, “Posner’s first novel, a thriller whose development depends heavily on the author’s convincing descriptions of the technology in intelligence work. The narrative works within the current conventions of its genre: the principle is a mask for expedience; cynicism displaces conviction; proficiency implies virtue. But Posner, author of nonfiction works on Josef Mengele and Chinese secret societies, handles his material well. His descriptions move smartly; his characters, while somewhat two-dimensional, are convincing in their context; and his plot is constructed to satisfy demanding readers.”
Posner’s 1991 book, Hitler’s Children: Sons and Daughters of Leaders of the Third Reich Talk About Themselves and Their Fathers, included in-depth interviews with a dozen children of top Nazi officials. The book was also well received. Karen Stabiner wrote in her review for the Los Angeles Times, “This is a mesmerizing, blood-chilling book, a set of oral histories of the sons and daughters of 11 of Hitler’s top men.
It is barely possible to read more than a few pages at a time; the contrast between innocent childhood experience, and the awful understanding of that experience that came with time, is enough to make you weep.” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in The New York Times questioned whether Posner’s book-length treatment was necessary to study the children of Nazi perpetrators. “Perhaps it would have been more enlightening had Mr. Posner studied fewer cases more intensely, or even a single case from the most intimate point of view.”
After graduating with honors from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1978, Posner moved from San Francisco to New York and started practicing law as a litigation associate at the New York–Wall Street law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. After leaving Cravath in 1981 he was a co-founder of the New York firm, Posner & Ferrara. It was there that he became involved in an ultimately unsuccessful 4-year pro bono effort on behalf of victims of concentration camp experiments against the West German government and the family of Dr. Josef Mengele.
After the publication of his first book about Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele, Posner was “Of Counsel” to Posner & Ferrara. In 2010 he began a series of high-profile client representations. Among them were three brothers of Afghanistan’s then-president Hamid Karzai; Posner represented Mahmud Karzai, Qayum Karzai, and the so-called “King of Kandahar Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was assassinated in July 2011. Posner also represented Haji Ruhullah, an Afghan security contractor described by “The Washington Post” as “a leading warlord in Southern Afghanistan.” Posner successfully defended Ruhullah against U.S. Army efforts to debar the Afghan from doing business with the U.S. government. Posner also assisted other high-profile defendants.
He advised Dr. Conrad Murray, charged with manslaughter in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson as part of a British documentary over Murray’s role. Posner provided pro-bono advice to Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer nicknamed in the press as the “Merchant of Death” and played by actor Nicolas Cage in the film, “Lord of War.” According to Posner, his legal training has given him a “big” edge in his primary career as an investigative reporter and author. Posner is a member of the New York and Washington D.C. Bars and the International Criminal Bar.
Gerald Posner Net worth
Gerald estimated net worth is under review, there is no information about his net worth or salary but he is said to have been earning a huge salary from his work.