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{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
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Revision as of 05:05, 23 September 2015

For the American soldier, see Frank Gaffney (Medal of Honor).
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
File:Frankgaffney.jpg
Born (1953-04-05) April 5, 1953 (age 71)
OccupationPresident of Center for Security Policy
OrganizationCenter for Security Policy

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., (born April 5, 1953) is a former U.S. government official and founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, a Washington DC national security think tank. Gaffney is a highly polarizing figure because of his strong positions against radical Islam and the July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. He is popular with Conservative groups and is a featured weekly contributor on Lars Larson’s and Greg Garrison’s syndicated radio shows. Gaffney also is a frequent guest on many other syndicated programs, including Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Janet Parshall, and Jim Bohannon. In addition, he appears often on such national and international television networks as Fox News, CNN and BBC. Over the years, Gaffney's Op-Ed articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, National Review, Newsday, American Legion Magazine, and Commentary.[1]

Gaffney has received the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award (1987), the U.S. Business and Industry Council's Defender of the National Interest Award (1994), the Navy League's Alfred Thayer Mahan Literary Achievement Award, the "Louis Brandeis Award" from the Zionist Organization of America (2003), and the Stephen H. Long Award from the Centennial Institute for "his preservation and articulation of strong foreign policy like Reagan’s “Peace through Strength”" (2015).[2][3][4]

Gaffney's controversial views—especially on radical Islam—have caused him to be reviled by the Left, which regularly condemns him as a conspiracy theorist and Islamophobe.[citation needed]

Early life

Gaffney was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a Jewish family. In 1975, Gaffney graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University.[5] He received his graduate degree from Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.[6]

Career

Government work

Gaffney began his public service career in the 1970s, working as an aide in the office of Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson, under Richard Perle.

From August 1983 until November 1987, Gaffney held the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy in the Reagan Administration.

In April 1987, Gaffney was nominated to the position of U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. He served as the acting Assistant Secretary for seven months. During this time, despite his official post, he was notably excluded by senior Reagan administration officials from the arms control talks then occurring with the Soviet Union. Gaffney reportedly was ultimately forced out of The Pentagon, with the Washington Post at the time noting that, within four days of Frank Carlucci's appointment as Secretary of Defense "Gaffney's belongings were boxed and he was gone."[7][8] Following his departure from government, he reportedly set about criticizing pursuit of an arms control agreement with the USSR.[7]

Center for Security Policy

In 1988, Gaffney established the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a national security think tank.[9] Gaffney committed the Center to pursuing Ronald Reagan's approach to national Security. Reagan was awarded the Center's Keeper of the Flame Award in 1995. Gaffney wrote a tribute to Reagan on what would have been his 104th birthday in April 2015.[10]

The Center, which was recently renamed "Secure Freedom," pursues research on U.S. defense, homeland security, the Middle East, Latin America, securing American infrastructure, weapons of mass destruction, and the Global Jihad Movement. The Center sponsored national security summits for GOP presidential candidates during the summer of 2015 in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson spoke to one or more of these summits.[11]

Gaffney hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, Secure Freedom Radio, which includes interviews with prominent security experts including Ambassador John Bolton, Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer.[12]

Opposing the nuclear agreement with Iran was a special focus of Frank Gaffney in 2014 and 2015. The Center co-sponsored large rallies against the nuclear deal in New York City on July 10, 2015[13] and September 1, 2015.[14] It co-sponsored a rally against the nuclear deal in front of the U.S. Capitol on September 9, 2015 that featured Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Glenn Beck.[15] Gaffney was a speaker at all of these events. Gaffney and the Center's staff have also done numerous media interviews and op-eds against the Iran deal.[16][17][18][19]

In September 2015, Gaffney suggested that the controversy over student Ahmed Mohamed being arrested over a homemade clock that he brought to school appeared to be an "influence operation" by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.[20][21] Gaffney's colleague, Jim Hansen, agreed and ran an article with photos showing how the so-called clock was a circuit board that resembled an IED.[22] The website of Irving, Texas TV station WFAA cited Mohamed as saying police told him, "They arrested me and told me I committed a crime of a hoax bomb - a fake bomb."[23] Pamela Geller wrote in Breitbart.com and Nina Golgowski wrote in the New York Daily News that Mohamed's father is an Islamist activist who has been involved in pro-Islamist protests in the past. Geller agreed with Gaffney that this incident appeared to be an Islamist influence operation arranged by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.[24][25]

Criticism of Gaffney from the Left

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Gaffney went "off the rails" sometime after being forced out at the Pentagon. The SPLC has described him as a formerly "respectable Washington insider" who has become "gripped by paranoid fantasies." According to the SPLC, Gaffney's beliefs stem from the discredited 1991 testimony of a lone Muslim Brotherhood member that he has come to believe is a "smoking gun, a mission statement pointing to a massive Islamist conspiracy under our noses."[26] David Keene of the American Conservative Union has contended that Gaffney "has become personally and tiresomely obsessed with his weird belief that anyone who doesn't agree with him on everything all the time or treat him with the respect and deference he believes is his due, must be either ignorant of the dangers we face or, in extreme case, dupes of the nation's enemies."[27]

Gaffney has been called a conspiracy theorist by Reason Magazine, Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative, Steve Benen, Slate Magazine, and The Intercept.[28][29][30][31][32]

Critics of Gaffney claim he has promoted conspiracy theories such as:

Gaffney has indicated the logo of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency is a coded signal showing the "official U.S. submission to Islam."

According to a 2008 investigative report in The Tennessean titled "Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear," Gaffney's salary as president of his Center for Security Policy was $288,300.[41] As of 2012 he received compensation of approximately $309,000 per year from the group.[42]

In 2003, Gaffney called on the United States military to "take out" Al Jazeera news network for inciting violence against the Western world by showcasing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's "calls-to-arms."[43]

Personal life

Gaffney is married and has at least one child. His sister, Devon Cross, serves on the advisory board of the controversial pro-Israel group Secure America Now and is married to Jay Cross, formerly president of the New York Jets and now a New York real estate developer.

See also

Bibliography

  • Gaffney, Frank. War Footing (Naval Institute Press, 2005) ISBN 978-1591143017[44]
  • Gaffney, Frank et al. Shariah: The Threat to America (Center for Security Policy, 2010) ISBN 978-0982294765
  • Gaffney, Frank et al. "Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II)" (Center for Security Policy, 2010) ISBN 098229476X
  • Gaffney, Frank et al. "The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement" (Center for Security Policy, 2015) ISBN 1507756135
  • Gaffney, Frank, "Securing Freedom: 25 Years of Firefights in the War of Ideas" (Center for Security Policy, 2015) ISBN 1507860595

References

  1. ^ Center for Security Policy website accessed September 7, 2015
  2. ^ Gaffney, Frank. "Frank Gaffney – Security Watch". Newsmax. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  3. ^ https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/about-us/frank-gaffney/
  4. ^ Frank Gaffney on Jihad vs. Free World Centennial Institute press release, June 27, 2015.
  5. ^ "Frank Gaffney". TownHall. Retrieved 2012-11-23.
  6. ^ Ruppert, Michael C. (2004). Crossing the Rubicon. p. 531.
  7. ^ a b Watson, Russell. "At Long Last an Arms Deal". Newsweek. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  8. ^ "Disarmed but Undeterred; His Once Pervasive Power Waning, The Hard-Liner Awaits the Summit". Washington Post. 23 November 1987.
  9. ^ Center for Security Policy website, accessed September 7, 2015
  10. ^ Gaffney, Frank. Reagan: Relevant, revered on his 104th birthday - plus a 21-gun salute to celebrate "Washington Times" February 5, 2015
  11. ^ Center for Security Policy website, accessed September 7, 2015.
  12. ^ Secure Freedom Radio webpage accessed September 7, 2015
  13. ^ Stop Iran Rally website, accessed September 7, 2015
  14. ^ Stop Iran Rally website, accessed September 7, 2015
  15. ^ Gaffney's Center for Security Policy to Rally Against Iran Nuke Deal in DC "Breitbart.com", September 1, 2015
  16. ^ Gaffney, Frank. "Latest Fraud on the Obamabomb Deal", "Washington Times", August 26, 2015
  17. ^ Lopez, Clare. "How the Iran Lobby Sidetracked the Iran Talks", Washington Times, April 15, 2015
  18. ^ Fleitz, Fred. "More Details on Plan to Allow Iran to Inspect Itself", National Review, August 20, 2015
  19. ^ Gaffney, Frank. "Interview with Neil Cavuto on Iran deal" Fox News Channel, June 24, 2015
  20. ^ Gaffney, Frank. If It Walks Like an Influence Operation… Center for Security Policy website, September 18, 2015
  21. ^ "Ahmed Mohamed’s Clock Was “Half a Bomb,” Says Anti-Muslim Group With Ties to Trump, Cruz" theintercept.com
  22. ^ Hansen, Jim. A Clock or a Bomb Trigger? Town Hall.com, Sept. 17, 2015
  23. ^ Irving ISD student detained for 'suspicious device' WFAA website, accessed Sept 18, 2015
  24. ^ Geller,Pamela. Ahmed Mohamed and the ‘Islamophobia’ Clock Breitbart.com, Sept. 17, 2015
  25. ^ Golgowski, Nina. Father of Muslim teen arrested for clock previously battled Fla. Koran burner, has run for president of Sudan twice New York Daily News, Sept. 16, 2015
  26. ^ "Frank Gaffney, Jr". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  27. ^ a b "CPAC Banned Frank Gaffney Over Baseless Anti-Muslim Charges". Talking Points Memo. 15 February 2011. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  28. ^ "Leading GOP Candidates to Appear at Event Hosted by Anti-Muslim Conspiracist". The Intercept. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  29. ^ Bennen, Steve (17 June 2014). "The crumbling of the right's intellectual infrastructure". MSNBC. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  30. ^ "Presidential Candidates Set to Appear at Event Hosted By Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theorist". Bridge Initiative. Georgetown University. 20 July 2015. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  31. ^ Weigel, David (14 October 2008). "Frank Gaffney, Obama Truther". No. Reason Magazine. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  32. ^ Woodruff, Betsy (16 March 2015). "Glenn Beck Thinks Grover Norquist Is a Muslim Brotherhood Mole. Now, the NRA Is "Investigating."". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  33. ^ Benen, Steve. "It never ends". Washington Monthly. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  34. ^ Terkel, Amanda (5 March 2014). "Frank Gaffney Escalates Crusade To Take Down Grover Norquist". Huffington Post. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  35. ^ Brinker, Luke (19 February 2015). "Conservative civil war: Islamophobic activist seeks to oust Grover Norquist from NRA board". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  36. ^ Extremist Highlights from CPAC 2015 "Southern Poverty Law Center website", March 3, 2015.
  37. ^ Kay, Jonathan. "Bachmann, Gaffney, and the GOP's Anti-Muslim Culture of Conspiracy". Daily Beast. No. 23 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  38. ^ "More Republicans Speak Out Against Bachmann Attacks". Huffington Post. 19 July 2012.
  39. ^ Gaffney, Frank (2008-10-14). "GAFFNEY: The jihadist vote". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  40. ^ "Far-right birther's secret funders: Look who's backing Islamophobe Frank Gaffney". Salon. 14 October 2014. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  41. ^ Smietana, Bob (24 October 2010). "Anti-Muslim crusaders make millions spreading fear". Tennessean. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  42. ^ http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/2012-990-PDC-resize.pdf
  43. ^ Gaffney, Frank (2003-09-29). "Take Out Al Jazeera". Fox News. Retrieved 2009-06-26.
  44. ^ "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World". The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2012-08-23.

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