Robert Eringer
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ROBERT ERINGER
Robert Eringer was born October 5, 1954 in Los Angeles, California. He is a published author of fiction and non-fiction. He is retired from investigative journalism as well as from undercover FBI counterintelligence work. He created and directed the Principality of Monaco’s first intelligence service. His popularity is due to[citation needed] the exposure brought upon by litigation against the state of Monaco, featured in Forbes as "The Prince and The Blogger".[1]
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[edit] BIOGRAPHY
[edit] EARLY LIFE
Eringer is the son of fine artist and Disney illustrator Ellis Eringer, known as Papa Duke. Eringer spent his childhood until age fourteen in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, California. He has a sibling, Michael, with whom he ran Tricky Dick’s Coffee House in London's Hampstead, from 1974 to 1978, an offshoot he created from the family's dessert business, Kaysens, while attending college.
[edit] EDUCATION
Eringer was a freshman at Beverly Hills High School in 1968-69. He moved to England in June 1969 and attended the American School in London, from which he graduated in 1973. He went to college in Massachusetts and Washington DC between 1974-76, where he studied Law Enforcement and International Relations. A college term paper he wrote while there, on the Bilderberg Group, was picked up by the British magazine Verdict [2], who published it as an article on the power elite and thereby launched him into journalism. Eringer followed up with the University of Southern California’s UK graduate program in International Relations in 1978.
[edit] CAREER
[edit] JOURNALISM
In 1977-78, Eringer wrote for The American, a community newspaper for Americans residing in Britain. Afterwards, he became a freelance foreign correspondent for The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) and The Toronto Star (Canada), filing feature stories and interviews from Europe. He infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan who were at the time attempting to establish a “klavern” (branch) in the UK. Eringer traveled in May 1979 to Spartanburg in South Carolina, for his mock initiation into the KKK. Eringer’s resulting two-part exposé in the UK's Sunday People [3] brought the termination of KKK activity in Britain. Eringer then specialized in sting-undercover journalism for popular Fleet Street newspapers, including the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People. He was tutored in the art of undercover reporting by that latter newspaper’s legendary investigative editor, Laurie Manifold. In 1984, for these three newspapers, he interviewed Lech Walesa[4] under house arrest in Poland on whom Eringer had written in 1982, the book Strike for Freedom!. Also in 1984, Eringer worked for ABC News, gathering background on the Solidarity Movement. Years later, in 2008, Eringer returned to journalism, penning a weekly column, "The Investigator", for the Santa Barbara News-Press in California.
[edit] INTELLIGENCE & ESPIONAGE
In 1990, Eringer joined the field of private intelligence after acting as literary agent to Washington insiders, in the area of New York City. His partner was Clair George, a retired CIA deputy Director of Operations. Their clients included Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Combined Circuses, for whom they monitored the activities of a freelance investigative reporter, resulting in a lawsuit [5]. In 1993, Eringer worked undercover for FBI counterintelligence as an independent contractor. His prime mission was to gain the trust of Edward Lee Howard, an ex-CIA officer who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1985[6]. In 2002, Eringer left the FBI and was retained by H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco to become his intelligence adviser. In 2005, Eringer created Monaco’s first intelligence service upon the enthronement of Prince Albert II. From 2005 to 2008, Eringer as Director of MIS (Monaco Intelligence Service) established ties with numerous foreign intelligence services, including the CIA and the UK's SIS (Secret Intelligence Service). In 2008, Eringer and MIS were decommissioned without warning. Popular belief is that compromised persons in the Prince's inner circle are responsible for the abrupt end of the Principality's intelligence service.
[edit] TELEVISION
In 2011, Eringer was host of a weekly one-hour TV series on Channel 17 in Santa Barbara called Surreal Bounce, based on the book of the same name. The program focused on the creativity vs madness paradigm. It featured episodes about 20th century American writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Hunter Thompson, Jack Kerouac and John Fante. Eringer's style of writing was largely influenced by the iconic authors.
[edit] CONTROVERSY
[edit] LAWSUITS
In 2010, Eringer filed a lawsuit in the Santa Barbara Superior Court against the Principality of Monaco for nonpayment of a final quarterly invoice in the amount of 40,000 euros [7]. On August 23, 2011 the Court ruled against Eringer and in favor of the Principality of Monaco on the grounds of sovereign immunity. An appeal was filed on February 21st, 2012.
[edit] MONACO
Eringer first visited the Principality in 1981 for a holiday. He returned regularly throughout the 1980s, to visit his parents who had a home there. In 1988, Eringer moved to Monaco for two years. He wrote a book called Monaco Cool, a satire based on characters living in a small country he described a “cosmopolitan Peyton Place", based on a popular American TV series from the 1960s. Eringer spent another year in Monaco, 1994-95, working on behalf of a private intelligence client. Eringer was introduced to the hereditary prince in 1989. In 1999, Prince Albert asked Eringer for a report on a Monaco-based Russian businessman named Alexey Fedorichev, who wished to invest in ASM[8], Monaco’s football club. In 2000, the Prince commissioned Eringer to produce another report, on Russian activities inside the Principality. In 2002, the Prince retained Eringer for full-time intelligence work.
[edit] BLOG
Eringer’s blog was set up in September 2009. It is a vehicle for excerpts of Eringer's books, essays and the dissemination of his account of life and work as intelligence chief in Monaco under the stylized header of The Spymaster of Monte Carlo. Themes addressed on the blog reveal often the corruption and criminality in the Principality of Monaco. An adjunct of the blog is reserved for questions posed to and answered directly by Eringer, the Q&A. The blog was created partly in response to unfounded allegations made in the media by Prince Albert’s personal lawyer, Thierry Lacoste [9].
[edit] BIBLIOGRAPHY
[edit] NON-FICTION
The Global Manipulators, a book on the Bilderberg Group (Pentacle Books UK, 1980)
Strike for Freedom! The Story of Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity, a book on the Labor movement in Poland (Dodd, Mead NY, 1982)
Strike for Freedom! The Story of Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity, a book on the Labor movement in Poland, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Ruse: Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence (Potomac Books, 2008)
Ruse: Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence, eBook (Potomac Books), 2011)
"Surreal Bounce", (Earthshine Editions, limited private edition, 2009)
"Surreal Bounce", eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
[edit] FICTION
Monaco Cool (Enigma Books, Bartleby Press, 1993)
Monaco Cool, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Zubrick’s Rock (National Press Books, 1995)
Zubrick's Rock, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Crinkum Crankum: A Jeff Dalkin Novel (Bartleby Press, 1997)
Crinkum Crankum: A Jeff Dalkin Novel, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Lo Mein: A Jeff Dalkin Novel (Corinthian Books, 2000)
Lo Mein: A Jeff Dalkin Novel, eBook (Earthshione Editions, 2011)
Spookaroonie: A Jeff Dalkin Novel (Corinthian Books, 2001)
Spookaroonie: A Jeff Dalkin Novel, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Parallel Truths: A Jay Sandak Novel (Corinthian Books, 2001)
Parallel Truths: A Jay Sandak Novel, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Reilly’s Revenge: A Jay Sandak Novel, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Water Works: A Jay Sandak Novel, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Roosteroonie: A Jeff Dalkin Novel, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Shadows of Illusion, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Upon Awakening & Sentience: Two Novellas (Earthshine Editions, 2010)
Upon Awakening & Sentience: Two Novellas, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011
Reunion & Sunset Romance: Two Novellas (Earthshine Editions, 2010)
Reunion & Sunset: Two Novellas, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
An Evening with Papa, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Restless Wind, eBook (Earthshine Editions, 2011)
Cloak & Corkscrew, eBook (Amazon Kindle, 2012)
[edit] REFERENCES
- ^ The Prince and The Blogger
- ^ Verdict Magazine, Vol 1 No7, November 1976, pages 12-19
- ^ Sunday People Newspaper, February 17th and February 24th 1980, front page)
- ^ recolumns.blogspot.com
- ^ Salon, “Send in the Clowns,” August 31, 2001
- ^ Ruse: Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence (Potomac Books, 2008)
- ^ Robert Eringer vs. Principality of Monaco, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Case No.: 2:10-cv-0180-GAF-Ex
- ^ http://www.liberation.fr/sports/0101455642-le-sponsor-maillot-lave-plus-blanc
- ^ http://dalje.com/en-world/prince-albert-of-monaco-sues-over-spy-claims/280660)
