View source for Cork Graham

{{short description|American novelist}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name         = Cork Graham
| image        = Cork Graham, 1986.jpg
| alt          = Cork Graham in El Salvador (1986)
| caption      = Graham in [[El Salvador]], 1986
| birth_name   = Frederick Graham
| birth_date   = {{Birth date and age|1964|11|29}}
| nationality  = [[United States|American]]
| occupation   = [[Author]]
| genre        = [[Spy fiction]], [[political thriller]], [[memoir]]
| language     = English
| notableworks = ''The Bamboo Chest''
| website      = {{URL|corkgraham.com}}
}}
'''Frederick Graham''' (born November 29, 1964),<ref name="PIMarch84">{{cite news|title=A FAMILY LACKS FUNDS TO FREE SON IN VIETNAM|last=Martin|first=Robert A|author2=United Press International|date=March 12, 1984|publisher=The Philadelphia Inquirer|pages=E14}}</ref> who writes under the name '''Cork Graham''',<ref name="Mercurymarch26">{{cite news|title=ADVENTURER WRITES BOOK ABOUT JAIL TIME IN VIETNAM|last=VO|first=KIM|date=March 26, 2005|publisher=Mercury News|pages=1B}}</ref> is an American author of adventure memoir and [[political thriller]] fiction novels. He is a former [[War photography|combat photographer]], who was imprisoned in [[Vietnam]] for [[illegal entry|illegally entering the country]] while supposedly looking for [[buried treasure|treasure buried]] by [[Captain Kidd]].
== Background ==
As a boy, Cork Graham lived in Saigon, [[South Vietnam]], from 1968 to 1972 his father working there as an electrical engineer.<ref name="Daily Breeze">{{cite news|title=Coming home has a special meaning for 3 Americans Adventurer says quest 'stupid'|date=May 20, 1984|publisher=Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)|pages=A1}}</ref> He enrolled in the [[College of San Mateo]] and became a member of the [[Alpha Tau Omega]] Fraternity, but he dropped out without graduating.<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> He returned to [[Southeast Asia]] in April 1983 intending to be a [[photojournalist]].<ref name="PIMarch84"/> He arrived at [[Bangkok]], planning to photograph the conflict in [[Kampuchea]].<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> Having no experience and no contacts, however, he could not obtain any work.<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> Graham wrote, "I was living on five dollars a day in the slums of Bangkok. You know the atmosphere, rats. ..."<ref name="Daily Breeze"/>
==Captain Kidd incident==
Graham was invited on a [[treasure hunting]] expedition off the Vietnamese island of [[Phú Quốc]].<ref name="NYTimesHanoi"/> The expedition was looking for treasure allegedly buried by the 17th-century [[pirate]] [[Captain Kidd]].<ref name="NYTimesHanoi"/> The leader of the expedition was Richard Knight, who has been described as an "extrovert" and "failed actor".<ref name="Post12may"/> Out of work, Graham "snapped at the chance."<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/>
Graham met Knight on June 7.<ref name="Daily Breeze"/> Knight claimed to be in possession of a map passed down from his grandfather detailing the position of Captain Kidd's buried treasure.<ref name="PI30July">{{cite news|title=2 ON CAPT. KIDD TRAIL REPORTED SEEN IN JAIL|last=United Press International|date=July 30, 1983|pages=A05|publisher=The Philadelphia Inquirer}}</ref> "I knew I had a story," Graham later said, "whether you find treasure or not."<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> They rented a [[speedboat]] on June 8<ref name="PI30July"/> and set off from the [[Thailand|Thai]] resort of [[Pattaya]], Knight armed with the 300-year-old [[treasure map]].<ref name="Post12may"/>
They were arrested on June 16, 1983, by Vietnamese authorities for illegally landing in Vietnam.<ref name="Post12may"/> According to a western official following the case in [[Hanoi]], the whereabouts of Knight and Graham were unknown until late July, when it was learned they were being held in a provincial prison at [[Kien Giang]].<ref name="Post12may"/> The Vietnamese government officially reported to British officials that they were holding the pair on September 1.<ref>{{cite news|title=FATHER TOLD VIETNAM IS HOLDING SON|last=United Press Internati|date=September 4, 1983|publisher=The Philadelphia Inquirer|pages=A19}}</ref> In November a provincial court found them both guilty of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory and assessed each a $10,000 [[fine (penalty)|fine]].<ref name="Post12may"/> The boat and all their equipment were [[confiscate]]d.<ref name="Post12may"/>
The families of both said they did not have the money to pay the fines and appealed for their release on humanitarian grounds.<ref name="Post12may"/> The Vietnamese government, however, insisted that the provincial court's ruling stood and the amounts had to be paid.<ref name="Post12may"/> The Vietnamese indicated they expected the British and American governments to come up with the money, but both refused on grounds it would set a bad precedent.<ref name="Post12may"/> One diplomat complained "The Vietnamese think we are a charity."<ref name="Post12may"/> The fine, he said, "is essentially a ransom."<ref name="Post12may"/>
Late in 1983 the pair were transferred from the provincial prison at Kien Giang to a converted French military building in [[Ho Chi Minh City]].<ref name="PIMarch84"/> Graham's father said his son was visited by an intermediary in January who "reported back that Fred was doing well. His morale was in pretty good shape and the indications were that he was getting a good, balanced diet, fish and vegetables, and any medical attention he needed."<ref name="PIMarch84"/> He also reported to Graham's father that Graham and Knight were kept together in a shuttered 16-by-16-foot room, and that they didn't get much light or outside exercise.<ref name="PIMarch84"/>
Graham's father established a "Free Freddie Fund",<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> and on May 18, 1984 Graham was released after his family paid the $10,000 fine.<ref name="NYTimesHanoi">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/18/world/around-the-world-hanoi-frees-american-11-months-after-capture.html|title=AROUND THE WORLD; Hanoi Frees American 11 Months After Capture|agency=REUTERS|date=May 18, 1984|page=5, Col. 6|work=The New York Times|accessdate=2009-09-01}}</ref> Graham said "I feel great" when he arrived in [[Bangkok]] on his way home from Ho Chi Minh City.<ref name="NYTimesHanoi"/> Knight, who had been unable to raise the money for his release, was still held.<ref name="NYTimesHanoi"/> Knight had raised only $2,000 and was said to have been suffering from [[Mood disorder|severe depression]].<ref name="Post12may">{{cite news|title=Tracking Captain Kidd's Treasure Puts Pair in Vietnamese Captivity|last=Branigin|first=William|date=12 May 1984|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref> [[Kenneth Crutchlow]], a British businessman who owned a taxi business (London Transport of Sonoma) heard of the capture of Knight and donated $8,000 for Knight's release.<ref name="Orange1987"/> Knight was released on August 20.<ref name=PI21aug>{{cite news|title=BRITON HELD IN VIETNAM TO BE FREED|last=United Press International|date=August 21, 1984 |page=A20| publisher=The Philadelphia Inquirer}}</ref>
While Graham and Knight were released in 1984, the two Thai boatmen who accompanied them remained in captivity.<ref name="Orange1987">{{cite news|title=Englishman springs Thai pair imprisoned in Vietnam after search for pirate treasure |last=Associated Press|date=23 January 1987|page=F06|publisher=The Orange County Register}}</ref> They were finally released after 44 months in captivity when Crutchlow paid the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok $6,000.<ref name="Orange1987"/> Crutchlow said it was his "duty as an Englishman" to help them. "It was an Englishman who got them into Vietnam. If he wasn't going to help them, then there had to be an Englishman who could."<ref name="Orange1987"/> Crutchlow planned to sell one of his [[Hackney carriage|London-style taxicabs]] to pay for the fine.<ref name="Orange1987"/>
A diplomat later called the hunt "a hare-brained scheme."<ref name="Post12may"/> ''[[The Washington Post]]'' described it as "dubious, since historians have never agreed whether Captain Kidd and his pirate ship, ''[[Adventure Galley]]'', ever sailed the waters off the [[Mainland Southeast Asia|Indochinese]] coast."<ref name="Post12may"/> "It was pretty stupid," Graham said later of the whole idea and his decision to follow Knight.<ref name="Daily Breeze"/> "I couldn't believe he was really going on this because it was really strange,"<ref name="Daily Breeze"/> Perhaps not so "hare-brained" to others, since according to a US State Department memo sent from the US Embassy in Singapore, at 8:34&nbsp;a.m. [[Zulu time]], July 29, 1983: "Luckily, Grimley did not know or chose not to reveal the exact locations of the treasure on the island, else the Vice Consul in Singapore may have set her jib by now."<ref name="USDeptStateTelegramO290834Z">{{cite news|title=State Dept. FOIA declassified telegram |last=US STATE DEPT|date=29 July 1983|publisher=US STATE DEPT}}</ref>
==Post incident==
Graham returned to America {{Convert|40|lb}} lighter than when he had left home,<ref name="Daily Breeze"/> and doctors diagnosed him with [[post-traumatic stress disorder]].<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> In the mid-to-late 1980s, he went to [[Central America]], again as a freelance photojournalist.<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> After four years in the war, he went to Alaska to live in the silence of nature.<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/>
Graham returned to Vietnam in 1999 to reconcile with his past. He revisited his second and third prisons in Ho Chi Minh City, one of which was at Bach Dang #3, a street along the Saigon River; the front portion of which had been converted into a restaurant.<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> In 2004, a memoir was published about his Vietnam treasure hunt/prison adventure, titled ''The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War'', in which he wrote about confronting (during seven months' solitary of an eleven-month confinement) a case of post-traumatic stress disorder, incurred from observing the Tet Offensive of 1968 as a child in Saigon, South Vietnam.<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/><ref>The  Bamboo Chest</ref> He has provided consulting services on PTSD,<ref name="Mercurymarch26"/> as well as lecturing on the hunting of [[wild boar|feral pigs]].<ref name="SFChronicle">{{cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/20/SPGELAT4UM1.DTL|title= Going hog wild Feral pigs good initiation to big game |last=McHugh|first=Paul|date=January 20, 2005|publisher=San Francisco Chronicle|accessdate=2009-09-01}}</ref>
In June 2011, he became a weekly columnist for [[Human Events]], focusing on the [[United States Constitution]] and the [[Second Amendment]].<ref name="Guns & Patriots">{{cite news|url=http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Cork+Graham|title=Cork Graham's Weekly Column at Human Events|last=Graham|first=Cork|date=June 14, 2011|publisher=Eagle Publishing, Inc.|accessdate=2011-07-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616162916/http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Cork+Graham|archive-date=June 16, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>
He appeared on Discovery Channel’s 2015 series ''[[Treasure Quest: Snake Island]]'' as the treasure hunting team’s leader during season one and two, where Discovery Channel used Graham’s personal history to bring credibility to a fully scripted reality TV show. This resulted in a tell-all whistleblower memoir on the media industry, titled ''So You Want to be a Reality TV Star: Everything I Learned About Sex, Drugs, Fraud, and Rock and Roll as Team Leader of Treasure Quest: Snake Island,'' where he claims most of the show was scripted and/or staged, with many of the treasure finds being cheaply made replicas. Graham persevered through a three-year lawsuit against the Discovery Corporation, in order to keep his First Amendment rights, and his memoir available on bookshelves.
==Written works==
*{{cite book|last=Graham|first=Cork|title=So You Want to be a Reality TV Star: Everything I Learned About Sex, Drugs, Fraud, and Rock and Roll as Team Leader of Treasure Quest: Snake Island.|publisher=Rigel Media|year=2018|isbn=978-0-9703580-2-8}}
* {{cite book|last=Graham|first=Cork|title=The Bamboo Chest, 2nd Edition|publisher=Rigel Media|year=2011|isbn=978-0-9703580-0-4}}
* {{cite book|last=Graham|first=Frederick "Cork"|title=The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War|publisher=Dragon Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-970-35801-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/bamboochest00fred}}
* {{cite book|last=Graham|first=Cork|title=The Sacred Art of Hunting: Myths, Legends, and the Modern Mythos|editor=James A. Swan|publisher=Willow Creek Press|year=1999|edition=illustrated|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sacredartofhunti00jame/page/126 126–128]|chapter=Moose Hunt, Healing Hunt|isbn=978-1-572-23188-7|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sacredartofhunti00jame/page/126}}
==Television/radio==
* ''[[Treasure Quest: Snake Island]]'' (2015/2016)<ref name="Treasure Quest: Snake Island">{{cite news|url=http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/treasure-quest-snake-island/bios/cork-graham/|title= Treasure Quest: Snake Island|last=Graham|first=Cork|date=July 17, 2015|accessdate=2015-08-02}}</ref>
* ''Myth Hunters: Finding Treasure Island Off of Vietnam'' (2014)<ref name="Myth Hunters">{{cite news|url= https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2520300/fullcredits#cast|title= Myth Hunters: Finding Treasure Island Off of Vietnam|last=Graham|first=Fred|date=April 13, 2014|accessdate=2014-04-13}}</ref>
* ''Raiders of the Lost Past--The Hunt for Pirate's Treasure'' (2012)<ref name="Raiders of the Lost Past">{{cite news|url= https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2520300/fullcredits|title= The Hunt For Pirate's Treasure: Raiders of the Lost Past|last=Graham|first=Fred|date=November 16, 2011|accessdate=2011-11-16}}</ref>
* ''Cork's Outdoors'' (2009) – writer/host
* ''[[KFOG]] Morning Show'' (2006) – guest
* ''[[Good Morning America]]'' (1984) – guest
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* {{cite web|url=http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Cork+Graham|title=Guns & Patriots Weekly Column|publisher=Human Events|accessdate=2011-07-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616162916/http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Cork+Graham|archive-date=2011-06-16|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.combatcamera.org/roster/iccaroster.php#G|title=ICCA Membership Roster: "G"|publisher=The International Combat Camera Association, Inc. (ICCA) |accessdate=2009-09-01}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.piratetreasureisland.com/origin_map.htm|title=THE ORIGIN OF THE MAP|last=Taylor|first=Kevin|date=April 2002|publisher=piratetreasureisland.com|accessdate=2009-09-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503044058/http://www.piratetreasureisland.com/origin_map.htm|archive-date=2009-05-03|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.oceanrowing.com/KFC/thailand.htm|title=Letter from Ambassador of Thailand to Crutchlow|date=5 February 1987|accessdate=2009-09-03}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.corkgraham.com|title=Cork Graham Official Site|accessdate=2009-09-04}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.corkincombat.com/|title=Combat/News Photography by Cork Graham|accessdate=2009-09-04}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.corksoutdoors.com/|title= Cork's Outdoors Multimedia Magazine|accessdate=2009-05-28}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.globalcounterterror.com/|title= Global Counter Terror (GCT) Magazine|accessdate=2010-07-25}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Cork}}
[[Category:1964 births]]
[[Category:American spy fiction writers]]
[[Category:American war photographers]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American photojournalists]]
[[Category:Writers from California]]
[[Category:San Francisco State University alumni]]
[[Category:People of the Salvadoran Civil War]]
[[Category:American expatriates in Vietnam]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American non-fiction outdoors writers]]
[[Category:American hunters]]
[[Category:American expatriates in Thailand]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American male writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]