Cork Graham

Frederick "Cork" Graham Jr, is an American author. When he was 19 years old he went looking for buried treasure off the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc with Richard Knight. They were looking for treasure they thought buried by the 17th century pirate Captain Kidd. Knight and Graham were caught, convicted of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory, and assessed each a $10,000 fine. Graham was imprisoned for 11 months until his family paid the fine.

Background

Graham is a registered past combat photographer with the The International Combat Camera Association, (ICCA) an organization "formed in the 1980s to promote high standards and the shared interests of combat photographers." In 1983, as a teenager, Graham claimed to have got assignments from Reuters and the Associated Press, through the mentoring of journalist John Everingham, father of Thai actor, Ananda Everingham. Graham photographed the anti-communist resistance of the Hmong people fighting the Pathet Lao and the fighting between Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese in what was then called Kampuchea.

Graham claims to have been assigned to enter Laos with Hmong fighters to search for MIAs and lost reporters Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, who had been seen traveling under NVA guard through the area years before. The Hmong were ambushed on the Lao side by Pathet Lao. Rumor is they were Hmong drug-runners of an opposing faction and not Pathet Lao. Graham lost his first set of camera equipment in the event. He swam the full width of the river near Vientienne, with a lifeguard hold on a wounded Hmong teenager and the aid of floating material from their capsized boat. The 14-year-old died from his wounds at Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand.

While searching for work, like many expatriates and trekkers in Bangkok, Graham claims to have been hired to play a U.S. Marine in the evacuation scene of The Killing Fields.

Captain Kidd incident

Graham was invited on a treasure hunting expedition off the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc. The expedition was looking for treasure thought to have been buried by the 17th-century pirate Captain Kidd. The leader of the expedition was Richard Knight, who has been described as an "extrovert" and "failed actor". Graham and Knight set off from the Thai resort of Pattaya on speedboat, Knight armed with what he claimed was a 300-year old treasure map traced to Kidd. A diplomat later called the hunt "a hare-brained scheme." 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."

Soon after they began their trip they were arrested on June 16, 1983 by Vietnamese authorities for illegally landing in Vietnam. 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. In November a provincial court found them both guilty of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory and assessed each a $10,000 fine. The boat and all their equipment were confiscated.

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

Graham was released on May 18,1984 after his family paid the $10,000 fine. Graham said "I feel great" when he arrived in Bangkok on his way home from Ho Chi Minh City. Knight, who had been unable to raise the money for his release, was still held. Knight was said to have been suffering from severe depression, and had only raised $2,000. 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.

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

Post incident

Soon after his return Graham continued in combat journalism as a stringer for the Associated Press in Central America. During his coverage of the war in El Salvador, he claimed to have completed the naval special forces course created by the CIA and US Navy SEALs in La Union, El Salvador. He covered the Salvadoran Civil War from 1985 until 1989. Graham provided aid as a field corpsman.

Graham's wrote a memoir about his Vietnam adventure called The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War in which he confronted his case of Posttraumatic stress disorder.

Graham is a past lecturer on the hunting of feral pigs.

Bibliography

• The Bamboo Chest: An Adventure in Healing the Trauma of War (2004)
• The Sacred Art of Hunting (2000)

Television/Radio

• Cork's Outdoors (2009) - writer/host
• KFOG Morning Show (2006) - guest
• Good Morning America (1984) - guest

External links

• Web Site
• Combat Photography Gallery
• PTSD Blog