About Richard Whalen

Bio

Richard Whalen Richard J. Whalen is a best-selling author, a path-breaking investigative journalist, and the founder of an international news service and public affairs company.

Whalen, the author of seven books, wrote The Founding Father: The Story of Joseph P. Kennedy as a twenty-nine year-old editor of Fortune. His critically acclaimed book was on the New York Times' bestseller list for more than a year and was the runner-up for both the 1964 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Still in print (fourth edition 1993), it is the foundation of two generations of Kennedy scholarship.

A native of New York City, Whalen graduated with honors from Queens College in 1957, joined the Richmond (VA) News Leader and rose from the rewrite desk to the associate editorship in two years. He returned to New York as a contributing editor of Time, was later an editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal and ultimately a senior writer and member of the board of editors at Fortune.

In 1967-69, he was writer-in-residence at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International studies. In 1967-68, he served as a special assistant in Richard M. Nixon's successful campaign and later (1972) wrote a prophetic study of the Nixon presidency, Catch the Falling Flag, A Republican's Challenge to His Party which the New Republic described as "masterfully written." His book, published a month before the Watergate break-in, predicted Nixon's single term and the upheaval that flowed from the Watergate affair.

He was a consultant to Secretary of State William Rogers in 1969-71, and left to launch his own political and economic intelligence and consulting firm, WIRES, Ltd. He ran Wires, Ltd. successfully for more than two decades. From 1975 to 1981, he was a senior policy adviser to Ronald Reagan, and was a private White House adviser thereafter. He was a campaign adviser to George H. W. Bush from 1970 through 1992. He has edited the reports of three presidential commissions, and has contributed to several of America's leading magazines, including The Nation. He is a contributing editor of the Conference Board’s Review.

He is also the author of a book on New York's endangered architectural heritage, A City Destroying Itself: An Angry View of New York (1965), a book of collected political essays, Taking Sides: A Personal View of America (1974), and two books on international trade and economics. He is now writing a history of domestic politics during the Cold War and the Vietnam era, as the prologue to the Iraq war.

An effective television personality, Mr. Whalen was a frequent guest on CNN's long-running program Crossfire. He was featured in the concluding segment of PBS's three-part documentary The Irish in America (1999) and the History channel's two-hour special Nixon: The Arrogance of Power (2000). He was interviewed by Sean Stone for the DVD accompanying his father Oliver Stone's reissue of his movie Nixon with Anthony Hopkins and also provided consultation on sources and interviewees, 2007.

In 2004-5, he served as counselor to former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker in his investigation of the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program. In 2006, he was appointed senior adviser to President David M. Abshire at the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, D.C.

Whalen uses his network of top-level sources to probe beyond the news and presently provides early warning of shifting geopolitical and financial trends in his fortnightly internet newsletter – The Big Picture.

Whalen was elected a member of the Cosmos Club (Washington, D.C.) in 1968. He is also a member of New York’s Century Association and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is listed in such reference works as Who’s Who in America and Contemporary Authors. He continues to divide his time between New York and Washington, D.C.

Whalen is married to the former Joan Marie Giuffré, director of Joan Whalen Fine Art, New York. They are enthusiastic collectors of 19th and early 20th century American art and 19th century American and European antique toys. The Whalens have three children, Christopher, Laura and Michael, and four grandchildren.

Contact

Richard Whalen may be reached at: