Cork Graham

Last updated
Cork Graham
Cork Graham, 1986.jpg
Graham in El Salvador, 1986
BornFrederick Graham
(1964-11-29) November 29, 1964 (age 59)
Occupation Author
LanguageEnglish
Nationality American
Genre Spy fiction, political thriller, memoir
Notable worksThe Bamboo Chest
Website
corkgraham.com

Frederick Graham (born November 29, 1964), [1] who writes under the name Cork Graham, [2] is an American author of adventure memoir and political thriller fiction novels. He is a former combat photographer, who was imprisoned in Vietnam for illegally entering the country while supposedly looking for treasure buried by Captain Kidd.

Contents

Background

As a boy, Cork Graham lived in Saigon, South Vietnam, from 1968 to 1972 his father working there as an electrical engineer. [3] He enrolled in the College of San Mateo and became a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, but he dropped out without graduating. [2] He returned to Southeast Asia in April 1983 intending to be a photojournalist. [1] He arrived at Bangkok, planning to photograph the conflict in Kampuchea. [2] Having no experience and no contacts, however, he could not obtain any work. [2] Graham wrote, "I was living on five dollars a day in the slums of Bangkok. You know the atmosphere, rats. ..." [3]

Captain Kidd incident

Graham was invited on a treasure hunting expedition off the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc. [4] The expedition was looking for treasure allegedly buried by the 17th-century pirate Captain Kidd. [4] The leader of the expedition was Richard Knight, who has been described as an "extrovert" and "failed actor". [5] Out of work, Graham "snapped at the chance." [2]

Graham met Knight on June 7. [3] Knight claimed to be in possession of a map passed down from his grandfather detailing the position of Captain Kidd's buried treasure. [6] "I knew I had a story," Graham later said, "whether you find treasure or not." [2] They rented a speedboat on June 8 [6] and set off from the Thai resort of Pattaya, Knight armed with the 300-year-old treasure map. [5]

They were arrested on June 16, 1983, by Vietnamese authorities for illegally landing in Vietnam. [5] 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. [5] The Vietnamese government officially reported to British officials that they were holding the pair on September 1. [7] In November a provincial court found them both guilty of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory and assessed each a $10,000 fine. [5] The boat and all their equipment were confiscated. [5]

The families of both said they did not have the money to pay the fines and appealed for their release on humanitarian grounds. [5] The Vietnamese government, however, insisted that the provincial court's ruling stood and the amounts had to be paid. [5] 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. [5] One diplomat complained "The Vietnamese think we are a charity." [5] The fine, he said, "is essentially a ransom." [5]

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. [1] 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." [1] 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. [1]

Graham's father established a "Free Freddie Fund", [2] and on May 18, 1984 Graham was released after his family paid the $10,000 fine. [4] Graham said "I feel great" when he arrived in Bangkok on his way home from Ho Chi Minh City. [4] Knight, who had been unable to raise the money for his release, was still held. [4] Knight had raised only $2,000 and was said to have been suffering from severe depression. [5] 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. [8] Knight was released on August 20. [9]

While Graham and Knight were released in 1984, the two Thai boatmen who accompanied them remained in captivity. [8] They were finally released after 44 months in captivity when Crutchlow paid the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok $6,000. [8] 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." [8] Crutchlow planned to sell one of his London-style taxicabs to pay for the fine. [8]

A diplomat later called the hunt "a hare-brained scheme." [5] 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 Indochinese coast." [5] "It was pretty stupid," Graham said later of the whole idea and his decision to follow Knight. [3] "I couldn't believe he was really going on this because it was really strange," [3] 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 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." [10]

Post incident

Graham returned to America 40 pounds (18 kg) lighter than when he had left home, [3] and doctors diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. [2] In the mid-to-late 1980s, he went to Central America, again as a freelance photojournalist. [2] After four years in the war, he went to Alaska to live in the silence of nature. [2]

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. [2] 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. [2] [11] He has provided consulting services on PTSD, [2] as well as lecturing on the hunting of feral pigs. [12]

In June 2011, he became a weekly columnist for Human Events, focusing on the United States Constitution and the 2nd Amendment. [13]

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

Television/radio

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Kidd</span> Scottish privateer (1654–1701)

William Kidd also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish privateer. Conflicting accounts exist regarding his early life, but he was likely born in Dundee and later settled in New York City. By 1690, Kidd had become a highly successful privateer, commissioned to protect English interests in North America and the West Indies.

<i>Treasure Island</i> Novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, telling a story of "buccaneers and buried gold". It is considered a coming-of-age story and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buried treasure</span> Literary trope

Buried treasure is a literary trope commonly associated with depictions of pirates, vikings, criminals, and Old West outlaws. According to popular conception, these people often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places, intending to return to them later.

<i>Kings Quest I</i> 1984 video game

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for the IBM PCjr in 1984 and later for several other systems between 1984 and 1989. The game was originally titled King's Quest; the subtitle was added to the games box art in the 1987 re-release, but did not appear in the game.

Adventure Galley, also known as Adventure, was an English merchant ship captained by Scottish sea captain William Kidd. She was a type of hybrid ship that combined square rigged sails with oars to give her manoeuvrability in both windy and calm conditions. The vessel was launched at the end of 1695 and was acquired by Kidd the following year to serve in his privateering venture. Between April 1696 and April 1698, she travelled thousands of miles across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in search of pirates but failed to find any until nearly the end of her travels. Instead, Kidd himself turned pirate in desperation at not having obtained any prizes. Adventure Galley succeeded in capturing two vessels off India and brought them back to Madagascar, but by the spring of 1698 the ship's hull had become so rotten and leaky that she was no longer seaworthy. She was stripped of anything movable and sunk off the north-eastern coast of Madagascar. Her remains have not yet been located.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Severin</span> British explorer, historian, writer (1940–2020)

Timothy Severin was a British explorer, historian, and writer. Severin was noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. Severin was awarded both the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his 1982 book The Sindbad Voyage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treasure map</span> Map to find treasure

A treasure map is a map that marks the location of buried treasure, a lost mine, a valuable secret or a hidden locale. More common in fiction than in reality, "pirate treasure maps" are often depicted in works of fiction as hand drawn and containing arcane clues for the characters to follow. Regardless of the term's literary use, anything that meets the broad definition of a "map" that describes the location of a "treasure" could appropriately be called a "treasure map."

Pirates of the Caribbean is a Disney media franchise encompassing numerous theme park rides, a series of films, and spin-off novels, as well as a number of related video games and other media publications. The franchise originated with Walt Disney's theme park ride of the same name, which opened at Disneyland in 1967 and was one of the last Disneyland attractions overseen by Walt Disney. Disney based the ride on pirate legends, folklore and novels, such as those by Italian writer Emilio Salgari.

<i>Captain Kidd</i> (film) 1945 film by Rowland V. Lee

Captain Kidd is a 1945 American adventure film starring Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott and Barbara Britton. It was directed by Rowland V. Lee, his last before he retired, and produced by Benedict Bogeaus and James Nasser. The music was conducted by Werner Janssen. The film was released by United Artists. It has entered the public domain because the producers neglected to renew the copyright in 1972. In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev noted that this was one of Joseph Stalin's favourite films, and that Stalin identified with the mischievous captain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pirates in the arts and popular culture</span> Representations of pirates in fiction or literature

In English-speaking popular culture, the modern pirate stereotype owes its attributes mostly to the imagined tradition of the 18th-century Caribbean pirate sailing off the Spanish Main and to such celebrated 20th-century depictions as Captain Hook and his crew in the theatrical and film versions of J. M. Barrie's children's book Peter Pan, Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in the 1950 film adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel Treasure Island, and various adaptations of the Middle Eastern pirate, Sinbad the Sailor. In these and countless other books, films, and legends, pirates are portrayed as "swashbucklers" and "plunderers". They are shown on ships, often wearing eyepatches or peg legs, having a parrot perched on their shoulder, speaking in a West Country accent, and saying phrases like "Arr, matey" and "Avast, me hearty". Pirates have retained their image through pirate-themed tourist attractions, film, toys, books and plays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Clifford</span>

Barry Clifford is an American underwater archaeological explorer, best known for discovering the remains of Samuel Bellamy's wrecked pirate ship Whydah [pronounced wih-duh] which, together with La Louise of French pirate La Buse, is a fully verified and authenticated pirate shipwreck of the Golden Age of Piracy discovered in the world – as such, artifacts from the wreck provide historians with unique insights into the material, political and social culture of early 18th-century piracy.

Quedagh Merchant, also known as the Cara Merchant and the Adventure Prize, was an Indian merchant vessel famously captured by Scottish privateer William Kidd on 30 January 1698.

John Everingham is an Australian journalist residing in Thailand, best known as the subject of the film Love is Forever and as the father of Thai actor Ananda Everingham.

Playmobil Interactive is a brand name used by Geobra Brandstätter GmbH for releasing Video Games, Software, DVDs and Apps featuring Playmobil themes.

<i>Kings Quest</i> (2015 video game) 2015 video game

King's Quest is an episodic video game series developed by The Odd Gentlemen and published by Activision under the Sierra Entertainment brand name for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It is a new re-imagining of the long-running King's Quest series. While it is an adventure game like the previous games in the series, the interface is not fully point-and-click.

"Kidd the Pirate" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, based on legends of Captain William Kidd. The story was published in Tales of a Traveller, an 1824 collection of Irving's writings, where it immediately precedes that work's most famous story "The Devil and Tom Walker", which also involves Kidd's treasure.

Treasure Quest: Snake Island is an American reality television series produced by MAK Pictures for the Discovery Channel. The series follows a crew of treasure hunters led by Jeremy Whalen as they search for the legendary trove of Incan treasure known as the Treasure of the Trinity throughout South America.

<i>Treasure Hunters</i> (novel)

Treasure Hunters is a children's adventure novel written by James Patterson with Chris Grabenstein and Mark Shulman. It is the first book in the Treasure Hunters series. It was published in 2013.

Kenneth Frank Crutchlow, FRGS was a British adventurer, writer and entrepreneur. He was the founder of Ocean Rowing Society International (ORSI), the Head of ORSI and main Ocean Rowing adjudicator for Guinness World Records.

Edward Welch was best known for leading a pirate settlement and trading post at Madagascar.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Martin, Robert A; United Press International (March 12, 1984). "A FAMILY LACKS FUNDS TO FREE SON IN VIETNAM". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. E14.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 VO, KIM (March 26, 2005). "ADVENTURER WRITES BOOK ABOUT JAIL TIME IN VIETNAM". Mercury News. pp. 1B.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Coming home has a special meaning for 3 Americans Adventurer says quest 'stupid'". Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA). May 20, 1984. pp. A1.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "AROUND THE WORLD; Hanoi Frees American 11 Months After Capture". The New York Times. REUTERS. May 18, 1984. p. 5, Col. 6. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Branigin, William (12 May 1984). "Tracking Captain Kidd's Treasure Puts Pair in Vietnamese Captivity". The Washington Post.
  6. 1 2 United Press International (July 30, 1983). "2 ON CAPT. KIDD TRAIL REPORTED SEEN IN JAIL". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. A05.
  7. United Press Internati (September 4, 1983). "FATHER TOLD VIETNAM IS HOLDING SON". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. A19.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Associated Press (23 January 1987). "Englishman springs Thai pair imprisoned in Vietnam after search for pirate treasure". The Orange County Register. p. F06.
  9. United Press International (August 21, 1984). "BRITON HELD IN VIETNAM TO BE FREED". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. A20.
  10. US STATE DEPT (29 July 1983). "State Dept. FOIA declassified telegram". US STATE DEPT.
  11. The Bamboo Chest
  12. McHugh, Paul (January 20, 2005). "Going hog wild Feral pigs good initiation to big game". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
  13. Graham, Cork (June 14, 2011). "Cork Graham's Weekly Column at Human Events". Eagle Publishing, Inc. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-06.
  14. Graham, Cork (July 17, 2015). "Treasure Quest: Snake Island" . Retrieved 2015-08-02.
  15. Graham, Fred (April 13, 2014). "Myth Hunters: Finding Treasure Island Off of Vietnam" . Retrieved 2014-04-13.
  16. Graham, Fred (November 16, 2011). "The Hunt For Pirate's Treasure: Raiders of the Lost Past" . Retrieved 2011-11-16.