Gerald Posner (2015)

:-) Any good investigative journalist does the same. It is all about risk tolerance. For instance, I was in Paraguayan rain forest with a a neo-Nazi colonel, spent time with heroin traffickers in the Golden Triangle, and went to Kabul after 9/11. None of that worried me, I was focused on the work. But I don't skateboard because I think I might fall and break a bone and I don't smoke because I am afraid of cancer. Risk tolerance. Go figure.

Great question. I cover this in a couple of chapters in the book. There is a case in the 1980s in which Italian prosecutors issued a serious multi-count indictment agains the American Bishop who ran the Vatican Bank, as well as his top two lay directors. The Vatican refused to accept the warrants, claiming it was an infringement of their sovereignty. Italy responded by saying that was a ridiculous defense. What if a priest living in the Vatican committed murder in Italy? He could not stay free from justice by simply going back inside the Vatican? But that is precisely what happened. Those three top Vatican Bankers stayed inside Vatican City. Over a couple of years the case of whether they could be forcibly extradited went to Italy's highest court, and the court sided with Vatican. No one was extradited or spent a day in jail for their role in a giant fraud. The unfortunate short answer to your question, is that they are not accountable in the past.

I started at Cravath, Swaine and Moore in 1978 before moving to my own firm in 1981. There I began a pro bono lawsuit against Germany and the Mengele family on behalf of a survivor of Mengele's medical experiments at Auschwitz. That suit was not successful, but I had gathered some 25,000 pages of documents about Mengele, many of which were not public. So with a British journalist, John Ware, I turned it into a biography of Mengele for McGraw-Hill. And while in Paraguay I had met some Corsicans who were fugitives from justice in the heroin trade. They regaled me with stories about how the heroin business had been taken over by Chinese Triads. That became my second book. I still am a member of the NY and DC bars but do not actively practice. Check out this article about me in Bitter Lawyer with more details about how I went from lawyer to author, http://www.bitterlawyer.com/gerald-posner-cravath-to-controversy/

Too early too tell, but I do think Pope Francis is sincere in his efforts to reform the bank. Part of whether he will be successful is whether he is Pope long enough for the reforms to really take hold. He is, after all, 78. And the bureaucracy of the bank is resistant to change.

I think the difference with successful investigative journalists is that we never, ever take 'no' for an answer. That does not mean that we can turn a 'no' into a yes, but it means we will figure out a way to get the information another way. Case in point. The Vatican said no to my request to get into the Secret Archives. How could I then determine whether the Vatican Bank, created in the middle of World War II, did business with the Nazis? I had to get information from national archives, and private company files, in Europe and the U.S. and South America. And I pored over litigation files, and banking documents that were hard to find but ultimately accessible. So, the answer is that a good investigative reporter will take a 'no' as a challenge to still get the information from an alternate route.

That I uncovered a classified U.S. intelligence document that raises the likelihood that the financial wizard who founded the Vatican Bank, in the middle of World War was in fact a Nazi spy.
Enough of a hook? :-

Great subjects. As for Karen Hudes, I think of that issues a bit differently. I do not conclude that our tax money goes in part to the Vatican, but rather that the Vatican (as does every other religion) gets the equivalent of a giant tax subsidy by being exempt from taxes.

I know and have read about Neal Keenan and the Dragon Family, but unfortunately I cannot enlighten Reddit users about it since I have never investigated it. All I know is what you know from the links such as the one you posted.

The Vatican is fortunate is has not had the need for an 'enforcement' arm in a long time. In its history, it had its own army, of course, until 1870. And it controlled some 15,000 square miles of Italy in its own empire, the Papal States. But after that, the only time it feared for its existence was when the Nazis took over Rome in 1943 and the Pope was worried Hitler might seize the Vatican and possibly even take him a prisoner.

Please allow me to answer your good questions in reverse order. As for the time to wait, I do not think there is any set period. It depends on the subject. For instance, I wrote a book about the failure of U.S. intelligence and government to prevent 9/11 (While America Slept), and it was published in 2003. That was far to close to the event to be a history with the benefit of real perspective. But it was a current history, an investigative snapshot of a the decade leading up the 9/11 attacks. Other historians in the future will use work like mine in deciding how contemporary journalists viewed events.
As for your first question, all of us have some preconceived notions when approaching a biography or subject. The key is not to allow those early opinions to block you from following the evidence. So, for instance, on JFK, I started the research on that book leaning to thinking that the mob likely killed Kennedy (because of Ruby's murder of Oswald). But I let the evidence take me to the conclusion of Oswald alone. So I might not start neutral, but I investigate neutral, if that makes sense.

It was a fascinating and dark journey. Fortunately, in my published biography, 19 of the 20 chapters are about how he got away. Only one is about Auschwitz. That doesn't mean the work was any easier, but it meant that much of my concentration was on 'how did he get away' versus ' what were his crimes at the death camp.' There is a segment from a 1986 Phil Donahue show I did, together with Mengele's only son, Rolf (an attorney). It might give you, especially as a history buff, an insight into the complex personal drama that plays out in such a story. You can watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFQaDSv1IKg

I WISH I knew that answer. Life would seem a lot less stressful right now. When you finish a book project, it is almost anti-climatic. In some ways, if you really love your subject, there is almost a sadness that goes along with the publication because you are sorry to see it end. The difficulty is finding that same passion for a new subject, and one that a publisher wants as well, and that is difficult. Some ideas are percolating, but nothing definite yet.

While it covers 200-years it does have two big arcs. One is around World War II and the other is around the 60s through 80s, Calvi, Sindona, P2, questions of foul play, dead prosecutors, all of the great scandals that almost took down the bank. The book opens with Calvi's body under Blackfriars

It isn't really that the entire book is new and secret, but that revelations in it are news. I think that is the way it is with most investigative books.

Hard power, you are right, was never the same after they lost their earthly empire in 1870. Once Pope/Kings became simply Popes, the did not have the same secular power. But they still carry considerable soft power. In Western, Latin and South American democracies, the Catholic vote (although not homogenous) gives the church extra clout. And a populist Pope, like Francis, means that secular politicians - even non-believing ones - want to get some of his magic in their own favorability ratings. So they court the Vatican at times. Hence the historic invitation to Pope Francis to address both houses of Congress this fall...

I certainly don't agree with Mark Lane or Oliver Stone when it comes to the JFK assassination. As for the "JFK," I've said before that Stone is a very good filmmaker but a very bad historian. Good luck on your own research into the case, I'm sure you will end up deciding for yourself what is accurate and what is not.

The reason I say that is hard to answer in an easy way is that each book seems to reveal to me 'the most interesting' item I have discovered. For instance, during Mengele, I thought I would never have a bigger story than disclosing how he had been caught twice by American forces and then mistakenly released, or how the Israeli Mossad found him but cancelled the team to kidnap him because of other pressing priorities in the Middle East. I've been there again with information about 9/11 and how I believe the Saudis financed terror that might have led to the attack on America. And I think my big discovery now is the fact that the financial wizard who founded the Vatican Bank in the middle of World War II might have been a Nazi spy. See, it's not easy to put one at the top of the discovery list :-

I got no help from officially from the Vatican. They rejected my request to get access to the Secret Archives. And my many requests for interviews were never answered by the chief press officer. On my own, I did manage to get an on the record interview with Rene Brülhart, the head of their new enforcement division, and some very brave clerics and laymen talked to me on the condition of anonymity.

This is one of the great mysteries that is really impossible to put a figure to. In part, no realistic estimate can be made because the Vatican has not provided a full inventory of everything they have. But there is little doubt that just the historical documents - like Pope Leo X's excommunication decree against Martin Luther, or Michelangelo's note to the Pope warning that Vatican guards were about to walk off the job due to no pay - are hard to put a price on.

My wife, Trisha Posner (http://www.trishaposner.com) works with me on all my projects. So when choosing a new subject it has to be something with which we are excited to live with for a few years. And since it is all encompassing at times, it has to be subject that is challenging. Finally, even if we are enthusiastic about a topic, we have to find a publisher who is willing to go with it. Most important we need to find a publisher who is willing to not know what the final book will look like since we do not know what we will uncover until we do the reporting. On the Vatican, Simon & Schuster allowed to to turn a proposal about World War II and the church into a 200-year history of follow the money in the Vatican. That is critical, to have that support and leeway from a publisher.

Good question. I had originally expected to find that the Popes operated at a much higher level, overseeing the general operation of the church, and that the bank was left off on the side and was run fairly autonomously by the directors there. However, I discovered through my research that was not always the case. In part, that is because Vatican City is so small. Only about 1,000 clerics at any time, living and working in the same small postage-stamp-sized parcel of land. Although the church is a giant institution, the Vatican itself is not. So if a Pope is a details person, a hands-on micromanager, then he will be involved with the bank. Pius XII, the Pope who formed the Vatican Bank, was someone involved in the details. The next Pope, Paul VI, was also fairly involved at least through the late 1960s. But Pope John Paul II, who used the bank to send money covertly to support the Polish resistance against the communist government in his native Poland, did not like financial details and did not get involved in the running of the bank. Same with Pope Benedict. As for Pope Francis, his focus is reforming the bank, and on that issue, he is involved in the details.

Has to have a few features. A subject that has not been covered to death by other journalists, author, and historians. A topic on which I might be able to uncover some new information and thereby add to what history buffs know about it. And something about which I am passionately interested. Otherwise you cannot keep up working on it every day with the enthusiasm and freshness that is required to do a comprehensive job.

If he would be brave enough to open the the church's and the Vatican Bank's Holocaust-era files.

As I describe in my book when reporting on every election for Pope since 1963, there has been a division among the cardinals between traditionalists and progressives. This time a real progressive won. That might make the traditionalists work even harder to try and retake the Papacy after Francis's death.

Yes, plenty of contradictions that seem at times very hypocritical. I think that Pope Francis understands that contradiction and that is why some of the money men in the Vatican are nervous with him as Pope.

Eisenhower's warning was prescient. The military-industrial-surveillance state is what it has morphed into. As for United Fruit, Google "1954 coup in Guatemala" - an interesting history for an American company....

None. They rejected my request for access to the archives.

Great username :-) Not sure what it means, but I like it.

There are so many wild conspiracy theories, it is too hard to pick my fav. Just when I think one can't be topped it is. Sometimes my fav changes depending on the news. One that I like a lot now is a popular one in some Middle Eastern countries: that ISIS is a CIA-Mossad-Saudi intel operation and none of the terrorists are real.

As for books, I really like Inside the Third Reich, and for fiction, 1984.

Other subjects? I'm thinking about it....

A book has been written about that, and I address it in God's Bankers. I do not think he was murdered, but there is little doubt the Vatican bungled just about everything after his death - including no autopsy. And they had a coverup of how the body was found because they were embarrassed that a nun had found it early in the morning, which some clerics thought could lead to speculation about why a woman was at the Pope's bedroom door first thing in the morning (she brought coffee to him every morning and put it on a tray outside his door). Everyone expected him to be a reformer when it came to the Vatican Bank, but he lasted only 33 days, therefore all the conspiracies started.

I have heard the 'driver killed him' theory before. I address it in Case Closed. I hope you will look at my book and see what I write about that before writing off the possibility that one lone 24-year-old sociopathic loser in life, Lee Harvey Oswald, did in fact kill the president on his own that day.