Richard Behar is an award-winning
investigative journalist who has written on the staffs of leading magazines including
Forbes,
Time and
Fortune over a twenty-two year period from 1982-2004. His work has also appeared on
CNN and
PBS. As of July 2005, Behar coordinates
Project Klebnikov, a global
media alliance launched to investigate the Moscow murder of Forbes editor
Paul Klebnikov and related lines of inquiry. Since 2004, his freelance investigative reports have also appeared in
BBC News,
Forbes, FoxNews.com and Fast Company magazine. In December 2008 he was commissioned by Random House to write a book about Bernard Madoff.
Education and career
Behar was raised on
Long Island and is a 1982 graduate of
University at Albany, SUNY. Before joining
Time in 1989, he was a reporter and associate editor for
Forbes magazine for six years. He has also worked at the
New York Times as a researcher and writer. Behar reported extensively about
organized crime and the business backgrounds of
politicians for
Time, for whom Behar wrote a widely acclaimed 1993 cover story on the
World Trade Center bombing.
In 1991, he wrote "
The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power", a
Time cover story on
Scientology.
[Richard Behar, Scientology poses as a religion but really is a ruthless global scam -- and aiming for the mainstream", book rev. of "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, Time Magazine, May 6, 1991: 50, rpt. in cs.cmu.edu, accessed May 11, 2007. [Part of "Special Report (cover story)".]] The acclaimed article won several awards.
The
Church of Scientology brought several lawsuits over the article, all of which were eventually dismissed.
While investigating the story, he experienced some of Scientology's
Fair game tactics:
I later learned, a copy of my personal credit report -- with detailed information about my bank accounts, home mortgage, credit-card payments, home address and Social Security number -- had been illegally retrieved from a national credit bureau called Trans Union. The sham company that received it, "Educational Funding Services" of Los Angeles, gave as its address a mail drop a few blocks from Scientology's headquarters. The owner of the mail drop is a private eye named Fred Wolfson, who admits that an Ingram associate retained him to retrieve credit reports on several individuals. Wolfson says he was told that Scientology's attorneys "had judgments against these people and were trying to collect on them." He says now, "These are vicious people. These are vipers." Ingram, through a lawyer, denies any involvement in the scam. ... After that, however, an attorney subpoenaed me, while another falsely suggested that I might own shares in a company I was reporting about that had been taken over by Scientologists (he also threatened to contact the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). A close friend in Los Angeles received a disturbing telephone call from a Scientology staff member seeking data about me -- an indication that the cult may have illegally obtained my personal phone records. Two detectives contacted me, posing as a friend and a relative of a so-called cult victim, to elicit negative statements from me about Scientology. Some of my conversations with them were taped, transcribed and presented by the church in affidavits to TIME's lawyers as "proof" of my bias against Scientology.[Richard Behar, Scientology poses as a religion but really is a ruthless global scam -- and aiming for the mainstream", book rev. of The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, Time Magazine, May 6, 1991: 50, accessed May 11, 2007. [Part of "Special Report (cover story)".]]
A 2003 report by Behar in
Fortune explored
Donald Rumsfeld's role in helping
North Korea build its potential
Nuclear weapon capacity, in an article entitled "Rummy’s North Korea Connection: What Did Donald Rumsfeld Know About
ABB’s Deal to Build
Nuclear Reactors There? And Why Won’t He Talk About It?" Behar is the only known journalist to have read the infamous "
Phoenix Memo", the pre 9-11 FBI document that warned that Osama bin Laden supporters were enrolled in flight-training schools across the country.
In October, 2004, Behar left
Time, Inc. to pursue book writing and various independent projects, including the launch of
Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance investigating the July, 2004, murder of
Paul Klebnikov, who was then the editor-in-chief of
Forbes Russia. Behar also serves on the advisory committee of
New York University's business journalism Master's program (BER).
Recognition
Behar was included among the 100 best business journalists (the "100 luminaries") of the 20th century by the TJFR business journalism trade group.
In 1999, legendary investigative columnist
Jack Anderson called Behar "one of the most dogged of our
watchdogs."
Awards
Behar has won more than 20 awards for his reporting, including:
- Four awards in recognition of his 1991 story for Time about Scientology:
- George Polk Award (twice): One for his 1995 story about the strong-arm tactics used by the Allstate Insurance Co. against its own employees; a second Polk for a 2008 story about China's activities in sub-Saharan Africa
- Business Journalist of the Year Award from the City of London Corporation for exposes about counterfeiting in China and organized crime in Russia's aluminum industry
- Jack Anderson Award (twice) for "Top Investigative Reporter of the Year" -- 1997 and 1999
- National Headliner Award, as a member of the CNN Investigation Team, for "outstanding continuing coverage of attacks on America and their aftermath."
- SAPA award (Society of Publishers in Asia) for best feature writing for an in-depth account of the royal family of Brunei
- "Best of the Best" award in 2009 from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers
- Fortune was awarded the National Magazine Award for public interest for two articles written by Behar on organized crime's influence in the garbage-hauling industry (1997)
