Dec 11, 2022

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OffG’s Tribute to David Ray Griffin Friends and colleagues remember him in their own words.

OffGuardian has been privileged to feature the work of David Ray Griffin several times in our history. So when we heard the sad news of his passing we decided to organize a small tribute to his life.

We asked his close colleague Elizabeth Woodworth to say some words and to name the colleagues and friends she thought David would most have wanted to leave a remembrance of him.

Here, with one or two additions of our own, is that remembrance.

Elizabeth Woodworth – David Gapp – David Chandler – Steve Jones – Ted & Nelisse Muga – Kevin Ryan – Richard Falk – Richard Gage – Dwain Deets – Massimo Mazzucco – Ed Curtin – Matthew Witt – Fran Shure – Niels Harrit

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Elizabeth Woodworth

As an author and a former librarian, I was able to help Dr. David Griffin by proof-reading about a dozen of his books, and assisting with his research.

David’s 9/11 work made him famous through two Nobel Peace Prize nominations, through being named among “the 50 people who matter today” by the New Statesman, and through “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited,” which was among the top 51 Publishers Weekly picks for 2008.

David’s life (before his involvement with 9/11 began in 2003) was mostly focussed on the Process Theology of Alfred North Whitehead, who was a close colleague of Bertrand Russell.  Based on Whitehead’s work, David and Dr. John Cobb Jr. co-founded the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology in 1973.

Since then, many such Process Theology centers have started around the world, most notably at Chinese universities.

While teaching at Claremont David wrote many books on the philosophy of religion, which included books on theodicy (the defence of God against evil), and parapsychology.

It was at retirement in 2004 that he became aware of the false flag evidence about 9/11, then engaging in a cat-and-mouse game with the purveyors of the official 9/11 narrative, who continually adapted their story to cover up the weaknesses that David tracked and revealed as their tattered narrative eroded.

In 2011 David and I founded the 9/11 Consensus Panel, comprised of more than 20 professionals expert in various aspects of the 9/11 attacks. In 2018, the 51 consensus points that were developed during this unique evidence-based reviewing project were published under the title 9/11 Unmasked: An International Review Panel Investigation (2018).

Meanwhile, David wrote his encyclopaedic 2015 reference, Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? and in 2016 we co-authored the civil action book, Unprecedented Climate Mobilization: A Handbook for Citizens and Their Governments.

David then turned his attention to the ravaging effects of US imperialism upon the world, writing the incredible work of scholarship, The American Trajectory:  Divine or Demonic, in 2018.

In 2019, he finally got around to completing his magnum opus, his long-planned The Christian Gospel for Americans: A Systematic Theology, and shortly before his death, David left us the beautiful and crowning reflections of his maturing theology, in James and Whitehead on Life after Death.

It was a wonderful privilege to have worked so closely with such a great mind for nearly 15 years. I am glad that he was able to finish his forthcoming book, America on the Brink, during the final week of his life.

RIP, David. You’ve certainly earned it

Elizabeth Woodworth, professional Librarian & writer

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David Gapp

David Ray Griffin was an inspiration to all of us in the 9-11 Truth Movement.

He spearheaded the 9-11 Consensus Panel, of which I was proud to be a participant.  His factual analysis of major facts and also major inconsistencies of the 9-11 Commission’s Report was a tool to be used by people from around the world who were interested in this major event of the 21st Century.

When I first met David Ray Griffin at a speaking event in San Diego in 2009, and realized that someone from such a prominent and educated background was willing to “speak out”. it gave me a bit of courage to do likewise.

Since I had a background as an Air Force pilot and also as an Aircraft Accident Investigator, I had long harbored doubts about the ability of untrained hijackers to fly passenger jets with such precision.  David Ray Griffin was able to point this out to the public, and doing so gave a voice to many of us that had similar questions.

His dear San Diego friends Ted & Nelisse Muga introduced us to David at many events held in their home and at San Diego venues.  We all came to know David as more than an academic – a Regular Guy who had questions that were never fully explained by the 9-11 Commission.

He will be sorely missed by those that knew him, and my thoughts are with his family, friends and fellow academics.  May they all find the strength to speak out to injustice as David Ray Griffin did so well throughout his life.

Sincerely,
Lt Col (Ret) David W Gapp
Tucson, AZ

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David Chandler

I think a lot of people may be wondering why a theologian is a prominent figure in the 9/11 Truth Movement.  I have a little insight into this question because after graduating with a degree in physics, I spent a year in seminary.  I was actually considering going into the ministry at the time.

One of the topics we studied was something called “Process Theology.”  David Ray Griffin and his mentor, John Cobb, have been the preeminent advocates for this view of theology.

For them, God is not some distant omnipotent being who rules over the world like a monarch.  In Process Theology God literally inhabits our world and ourselves.  As we go through our earthly struggles, God accompanies us in those struggles.  He literally rejoices when we rejoice and He feels our pain and anguish.  Our world is where God works, through us and alongside us.

Knowing where David was coming from, it is understandable that shining the light of Truth on a major turning point in history was consistent with his theological perspective.

His most significant contribution to the 9/11 Truth movement was to become an interpreter of the 9/11 events.

Interpretation is critical.  If we were to buy into the framing of 9/11 as a “terrorist attack” our impulse would be to go find the terrorists.  That’s exactly what motivated so many young people to join the military after 9/11.

However, if we interpret those events as a “New Pearl Harbor,” the title of his premier book on 9/11, and especially with the understanding that the original Pearl Harbor event was an attack that was allowed to happen to create a rationale for war, our response would be very different.

David’s insight re-framed 9/11 as a war crime that needed to be investigated.  In a real sense it was his framing of 9/11 that created the 9/11 Truth Movement.

David Ray Griffin has passed on, but the movement to shine the light of Truth on the events of 9/11 continues.

David Chandler, physicist

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Steven Jones

David Ray Griffin has had a major impact on my life, and I wish to give credit and thanks to him.

My 9-11 journey began in Spring 2005, when a few friends persuaded me to look into the events of 9/11/2001 with a scientific eye.   I soon found videos of the rapid collapse of WTC 7 on that day.  I had not seen this footage before.  I was astounded, since this building collapsed nearly straight down and completely yet it had not been hit by a plane.

I pulled out my stop watch and timed the collapse.  I got 6.5 seconds.  Then I found out the height of the building did a straightforward physics calculation:  the building fell at nearly Free Fall Acceleration.  Yikes!  The implications of this were enormous.  (Free fall behavior was later confirmed by detailed analysis with students and with David Chandler.)

I showed the WTC7 video to my Physics Department Chair (I was a Full Professor of Physics by this time) and he affirmed that I had academic freedom to study this if I wanted.  And so I did.

Around September of 2005 I talked to David Griffin by phone and received further encouragement.  He became a thoughtful mentor to me.

With his encouragement, I began writing down my results, and I put these on my faculty web-page.

Opposition mounted and I was placed on Administrative Leave in September 2006.  My main options at this point were: 1- try to fight it, and be fired.  2-  Step down from my full Professorship. 3- Accept an offer of early retirement with a stipend.

David encouraged me to accept option 3. He helped me see how BYU had supported my research and peer-reviewed presentations for over a year, and now they must be feeling great external pressure.

His analysis of the situation mitigated any bitterness I felt, and after BYU declined my request for a hearing in my presence, I did follow his advice and took the offer of early retirement in January 2007.

Three months later in a highly-publicized event on BYU Campus, VP Dick Cheney was given an honorary Doctor of Philosophy, and he was the keynote speaker at BYU Commencement that Spring.

So yes, I recognized at that point that David had been right about some of the external pressure on BYU.

He remained a great friend through the years, and I miss him.

I should note that David and I shared similar beliefs in God and in an after-life existence.  I’m totally confident that he is enjoying that after-life even now.

And so I say, thank you, David, my friend!

Steven Jones PhD, emeritus professor of physics

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Ted & Nelisse Muga

David Ray Griffin will always hold a special place in our hearts.  His kindness and his unflappable mind ushered in a golden age of truth seeking for our San Diego community.  He contributed to many of our best events, and his presentations were always insightful and reassuring.  The highlight of his visits, however, was always his presence in the community gatherings in our living room.  Sharing a home-cooked meal (and a well-chosen Zinfandel), he inspired us to a higher conversation and encouraged us to be optimistic.

We sincerely appreciate his many contributions to truth.
We are grateful for his friendship.
We miss him.

Nelisse & Ted Muga
San Diegans for 9/11 Truth

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Kevin Ryan

When I first spoke out publicly about 9/11, in a 2004 message to a government researcher, I copied in David Griffin as he had recently published the seminal book The New Pearl Harbor.

David asked if he could forward the message and my agreement to do so led to my working closely with David and others for many years.

David and I presented together a few times starting with talks in Berkeley in 2006, for a book we had written together with Peter Scott and Peter Phillips, that were recorded and aired nationally on C-SPAN.

That event made a favorable impression on many people who were just beginning to question the 9/11 events.

We also presented together at The Toronto Hearings on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, along with others. As one of the four primary organizers of the Hearings, I was glad that we were able to accomplish so much with that event and hear from some of the victims’ family members and some of the best 9/11 researchers including David.

In September 2008, David and I had dinner in Bloomington, IN, where he came to speak at an event sponsored by my local 9/11 Truth group. It was probably the only one-on-one time I had with David in our years of working together for 9/11 truth. I remember that my order of a glass of Pinot Noir led him to remark that I should try a more manly wine, maybe Zinfandel.

Although it was a trivial comment, it helped me understand that David, like all of us, was not a Christian saint but was a person with the same kinds of opinions and weaknesses as everyone else. And for the next year or so, I enjoyed some Zinfandel.

David was so important to the 9/11 Truth Movement and did so much for us that it is hard to describe the impact he had. Through his carefully laid out presentations, his calm and thoughtful guidance on pressing issues, and of course his ability to get books published, he was a great mentor for many of us.

He will be missed and remembered as a powerful and effective voice for truth and justice.

Kevin Ryan, Journal of 9/11 Studies

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Richard Falk

For those who knew David, even if they departed from his assessments of the 2001 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, none doubted his integrity and rigor.

For myself personally, our friendship (which in its early years extended to tennis and was deepened by the affectionate interaction of our families and by a variety of political and intellectual affinities), was augmented by our shared status of being ‘controversial’ enough to be sidelined by the mainstream media.

It was a peculiar kind of ‘intimacy borne of exclusion’ that I shared with no one else.

I greatly admired his principled stand on 9/11, especially his perseverance, despite his prodigious scholarship being often dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory.’

As with most such campaigns aimed as discrediting unwelcome views, there was little substantive effort to refute David’s skepticism that was so threatening to the legitimacy of the established order in the country and the world.

What I find most inspirational about David’s scholarly legacy is its amazing display of intellectual versatility that expressed a refusal to be constrained by contemporary academic canons of specialization and propriety.

In the best sense, David was a talented and fiercely independent amateur who was drawn to tackle the most daunting public issues of the day despite their remoteness from his professional training in and influential and illuminating contributions to philosophy and religion.

Over the years David seriously pursued such “fringe” interests as life after death, telepathic communication, and relations between body and mind. David throughout his life was a believer in the liberating potential of knowledge unbounded by conventional epistemologies, an outlook acquired from Whitehead and his mentoring collaborator, John Cobb.

David’s explorations of the post-modern world led him to devote creative energy to such diverse subjects as ecological stability, world government, and American foreign policy, which invariably resulted in published books of high quality.

In the last days of David’s life I had the good fortune of returning from Turkey after five months, enabling several visits at a Santa Barbara hospice where he lay dying. Along with my wife, we became movingly aware of his physical decline, and yet marveled as ever at his abiding commitment to the betterment of all aspects of the human condition.

I still find it hard to believe that at this time, crippled by pain, numbed by painkillers, he completed his final book – America on the Brink: The Ukraine War.

I have little doubt that this extraordinary display of intellectual commitment and spiritual devotion to humanity and nature at the edge of death reflected the love, care, and sacrifice he received from Ann Jaqua, David’s wonderful wife and life partner

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University

David Ray Griffin (center), with Richard Gage (left) and Steve Jones (right)

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Richard Gage

His voice was deceptively gentle on the radio that afternoon.

March 29, 2006. I had by chance turned to the FM station KPFA, on my way back from a construction observation duty in the San Francisco Bay Area. There was a very brave talk show host, Bonnie Faulkner, who was the only one at the station willing to take deep dives into exposing the Deep State, but I didn’t know about that, or her, yet – nor of her mysterious guest that day, David Ray Griffin.

She was asking him to share with her audience his findings, having just discovered Graeme MacQueen’s deep research into the 500 pages of explosive testimonies of the Oral Histories of hundreds of 9/11 first responders – released by New York City under court order in August of 2005.

This professor of theology carefully read many of these eyewitness statements of explosions, one after another. I found myself entering a state of cognitive dissonance. I had never heard any alternative theory about how the Twin Towers came down.

I couldn’t drive and listen to this at the same time. It required all of my brain power to try to process his message. The testimony was powerful – and already contradicting my very world view.

I pulled my car into the parking lot and just sat and listened – in horror actually.

I thought I knew very well what happened on 9/11. I was a Reagan Republican and wanted to go into Afghanistan and Iraq and get those bastards who did this to us.

But here was this very well-spoken, seemingly objective, elderly gentleman, telling me about beams flying out of the towers laterally, dripping with molten metal, impaling themselves into buildings hundreds of feet away.

He even tried to tell me that a third tower came down – one that wasn’t even hit by a plane! “What?! I’m an architect! I would know if a third tower came down! They would have told me!

Either this guy is the biggest con artist – or I had been conned by my own government – and I just couldn’t go there – not yet anyway.

I would prove him wrong.

I went to see him the next night at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, CA. But I was late. And he had attracted a sell-out crowd of 600. I couldn’t get in!

I could listen to him on what they were calling a “livestream” (brand new back then!). What I heard online that night was a deeply moving presentation that covered a whole lot more ground than I had heard on the radio, and it was delivered with a simple logic that I couldn’t fight.

David Ray Griffin stepped aside and let his evidence do the work.

I was in trouble. By the time he was done with me, I felt like I had been turned upside down and inside out. I was confused – raw and vulnerable, yet this had turned to anger in the days and weeks to come, and the anger turned to action, as I independently verified his outrageous insinuations about my government and the media who had lied to me on a colossal scale.

It was his unique unassuming style that had stripped me defenseless and enabled me to see the truth. I learned that millions of others were equally taken apart at the seams by the logic in his 15 books and dozens of presentations around the world.

Looking back on the painful transformation, caused by this innocent man, I have indeed arrived at a state of deep gratitude.

For he, and others inspired by him such as Steven Jones, over the course of the following years, mentored and encouraged me to follow in some giant footsteps and speak my new-found 9/11 truth. He will live in my heart and continue to be heard as long as I am able to speak.

Richard Gage, AIA, Architect

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Dwain Deets

After I retired as Director for Research Engineering and Aerospace Projects at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, David Griffin invited me to serve as a member of the 9/11 Consensus Panel, which he founded jointly with Elizabeth Woodworth.

At one point in the overall effort by the Panel to develop the 51 Consensus Points, I volunteered, upon a suggestion from Elizabeth, to write the draft deliberation submittal for the point concerning Able Danger.

Able Danger was a US military multi-agency intelligence group assessing threats at the turn of the Millennium by international persons in the US.

As I began with a literature search, I quickly realized the only helpful reference was a book authored by David Ray Griffin, “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the cover-up, and the exposé” (2008) [Olive Branch Press]. A 14-page subsection focused on the hijackers, with 63 footnotes, is titled, “Then who were these men? Evidence from Able Danger.”

This subsection exposed a highly complex situation, mainly political intrigue, where Able Danger had completed a superb job, highlighted in a flow chart showing an early presence in the US of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta.

This proved most unwelcome in the eyes of unidentified higher-ups—and was followed up with a wiping out of all records and demoting of Able Danger’s leaders.

The story did end on an upbeat note however, when Republican Curt Weldon, Vice Chair of the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees, made it public on the House floor. Rep. Weldon asked, “Why did they not want to go down that direction? Who made the decision to tell our military not to pursue Mohamed Atta?”

In an entirely different matter from 9/11, I attended a conference on Climate Action and one of the breakout groups, notably led by David Griffin. During the opening business of the group, David told the group he needed a secretary. Since he and I had worked so well together on 9/11 research, he knew I would serve the group as secretary.

The highlight was when the late great Tom Hayden was the breakout-group guest speaker. Having just been released from the hospital and looking very frail, Tom told the group a hospital was not going to come in the way of responding favorably to an invitation from his friend, [indicating] David.

Dwain Deets

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Massimo Mazzucco

I have many memories of David, as during the period 2010-2013 we often exchanged messages and compared notes on different 9/11 issues. I respected his very technical, matter-of-fact approach. Never over-emotional, never polluted by personal opinions. A great lesson for me every time.

One of the last times we spoke is when I wrote to him to ask permission to give my documentary the same title as his most famous book, “The new Pearl Harbor.” David replied that “Not only are book titles no one’s property, but I do encourage you to use it, as it is very appropriate for your film as well.”

One single episode showed me David’s absolute lack of ego and total devotion to the common cause.

Massimo Mazzucco, filmmaker

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Ed Curtin

My introduction to David Ray Griffin took place in 2004 as I was in my third year of research into the tragic events of September 11, 2001.  By then, I had confirmed my immediate suspicion that the official explanation wasn’t true.  David’s first book on those mass murders, The New Pearl Harbor, came out that year and confirmed for me that my research was correct.  Here was a fellow theologian, who, like me, saw the need to connect the sacred to the secular with an urgency straight from the Christian Gospels: That we are called to be peacemakers and expose the lies of the hypocrites.  His work gave me hope, as it did many others.

He was the epitome of the person who, as Harold Pinter said, believes “that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.”  A dozen or so meticulously researched books on September 11 followed until he was satisfied that the case was closed and the U.S. government under Bush and Cheney was indicted by his words.

Because he lived in California and I in Massachusetts, we never met in the flesh, but David and I became good friends.  I favorably reviewed four or five of his books, even criticizing a few points here and there, but he never let the criticism turn him away from me even when it stung.  To me, this confirmed his magnanimity of soul.

His last few books were philosophical and theological and he asked me to review them, which I did, very favorably.  In his hands the theological was social.  His quest for truth and justice was akin to those of the Biblical prophets and Jesus.

In my review of David’s last book about life after death, James and Whitehead on Life After Death, I wrote about him:

He fits T.S Eliot’s description in The Four Quartets:

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise.
In my end is my beginning.

He wrote in that book that he was afraid that many of his intellectual friends and colleagues would think less of him for concluding that there is life after death.

I am not one of them, for I know David lives, and I am so thankful for his witness.

Ed Curtin, author, Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

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Matthew Witt

I owe my acquaintance with David Ray Griffin primarily to Laurie Manwell, a Canadian research psychologist and peer who approached David sometime in the summer of 2011 with the journal issue that Laurie and I, along with several others, produced for the American Behavioral Scientist, examining the relevance of the rubric “state crimes against democracy” for scrutinizing the criminogenic tendencies of state institutions.

Laurie was hoping to attract David to the initiative she was helping lead for a 10th Anniversary inquiry that became The Toronto Hearings (formally, The International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001).

Following the Toronto Hearings, David and his longtime collaborator, Elizabeth Woodworth, approached me for joining them for the Delphi-process inquiry they were convening, Consensus 9-11, which included some of the panelists from the Toronto Hearings, several other outstanding academic and practicing scientists and jurists from around the world, one accomplished screen, stage and television actor (Daniel Sunjata) and myself.

The consensus process entailed a systematic review of hundreds of pieces of best available evidence stacked up against the 9/11 Commission Report findings.

With support from attorney and Berkeley Law professor, William Veale, David and Elizabeth supervised and summarized the findings, eventually publishing them in 2018 under title, 9/11 Unmasked: An International Review Panel Investigation. (Background on the consensus process, best available evidence findings, and panelist information are posted HERE)

Reviewing the evidence was for the most part straightforward. Assembling, arraying, and locating documentary support challenging the mendacious mosaic that was the 911 Commission Report was a Herculean intellectual and forensic task for which David’s protean reasoning and preternatural determination were tailor made.

Along with the Toronto Hearings, I consider Consensus-9/11 to be the greatest truth-seeking inquiry I’ve ever been or likely will ever be affiliated with. I recall once seeing an interview with David by incredulous journalist asking what theology had to do with the “9/11” incident. David’s response was stunning: “Everything.”

Beginning in 2004, David would publish 13 books in total on September 11, 2001, including one with subtitle reference to “state crimes against democracy”, work originating with the political philosopher Lance deHaven-Smith, with whom I worked closely for several years beginning in 2007.

To be cited in a book by David Ray Griffin, from among a dozen other books by him scrutinizing a turning point in US, if not world, history stands as an all-time treasured professional accomplishment for me.

The world has lost a great mind and devotee to truth seeking, wherever that journey leads. The world has gained a corpus of thinking that is astonishing if not unrivaled in scope and perspicacity.

Matthew T. Witt, Ph.D. University of La Vern

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Philip Roddis

Off-Guardian editor Catte Black asked if I’d write a short personal recollection for a tribute to the late David Ray Griffin.

Why? I never met David; we never even spoke on the phone. We’d had two cordial email exchanges, and I had it from both Catte and fellow editor Kit Knightly that he’d thought well of me, but that’s scant qualification for penning his obituary.

Here’s why.

In the 2018 run up to the seventeenth anniversary of 9/11, Catte had asked me to review 9/11 Unmasked, David’s latest book, co-written with Elizabeth Woodworth as a critical interrogation of the official narrative of that epoch-shaping event.

But again, why me? This too is easily answered.

For the fifteenth anniversary I’d written a scathing piece on 9/11 ‘truthism’. The hornets’ nest it kicked up furnished rebukes too numerous and well informed to be ignored, and I’d promised to return with better arguments or a retraction.

Yet two years later I had, for reasons given in my review of 9/11 Unmasked, done neither.

Now my moment had arrived.

The resultant review I now deem among my most significant writings. Not because it’s a great piece of glittering prose. It isn’t. But the processes of reading 9/11 Unmasked, and organising my thoughts for its review, changed my understanding of what happened that day – and what absolutely did not. More fundamentally it led me to examine
the thought processes and implicit worldviews which had led me to write, in such sneering tones, that earlier attack on 9/11 sceptics.

I don’t know what happened on September 11, 2001 and neither, as far as I can tell, did David. What he and Elizabeth claimed, with a force of evidence and reason that persuaded me, is that the official narrative, its fullest form the 2005 NIST Report, is a mess of shoddy science, evidence-defying claims and logical howlers: hallmarks of a gigantic if clunky cover up.

As to why I’d been so scathing (as had David at first) 9/11 Unmasked revealed to me a radical flaw in my thinking. My broadly Marxist take on how imperialism works had led me to the unconscious non-sequitur (my bad not Karl’s) that since no conspiracy is needed, allegations of conspiracy are a-priori baseless.

David’s lucidity, on a topic where lucidity is often in short supply, challenged me to reassess my flawed logic.

For that I am hugely in his debt.

Philip Roddis, anti-imperialist and blogger

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Fran Shure

Gratitude sums up what I feel about my personal interactions with David Ray Griffin. My life is immensely richer for knowing this man — yes, for his prodigious writings and lectures that brought our 9/11 Truth Movement into the academic arena, but truly, it is the heart connection that developed over the years that winds up being the most meaningful to me.

David Griffin and I met when I picked him up from the Denver airport for two speaking events: one in Denver (“9/11 and Nationalist Faith”) and one in Boulder, Colorado (“9/11 Contradictions,” based on his book of that title). I was his constant assistant and chauffeur for four days, so we had much time to reflect on his talks and other subjects.

David’s first presentation was on October 19, 2007, at Denver’s Iliff School of Theology. He was hosted by Dr. Vincent Harding, well known for his role in the Civil Rights Movement and speech writer for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Harding and his wife, Rosemarie, were my friends, so around 2005, I sent to Vincent a personal note along with David Griffin’s book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, but I was taken aback with his curt, “This is an interesting perspective.” I never expected to be blown off by my friend Vincent.

It was actually his son, Jonathan, who convinced his father to look more deeply. So in early 2007 I received an email from Vincent: “I think we need to invite our brother David to speak to us about 9/11.”

So as this event came about, I witnessed these two Methodist theologians connecting like brothers through this terribly disturbing and very taboo 9/11 truth.

David told us that his “9/11 and Nationalist Faith” talk at Iliff was one of his favorite presentations. His words ring strongly in our minds to this day:

“People of faith” are often accused of allowing their faith to override evidence. This is often true. With regard to 9/11, the greatest obstacle to seeing the truth — that 9/11 was an inside job — is not the lack of evidence but what can be called “nationalistic faith” — the conviction that the leaders of our nation simply would not do such a thing. Genuine faith — faith in God the creator and lover of all peoples — can help overcome the insanity created by 9/11.

Fran Shure

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Niels Harrit

We can all point to people who changed our lives in a decisive way.
More than most, David Ray Griffin has bent the trajectory of many peoples lives into a more honest, dedicated, uncompromising and fearless direction.

I became one of them after I discovered the realities of 9/11 in 2006.

Or – rather – 9/11 came to me.

Nobody goes out to look for 9/11.

9/11 comes to you as a revelation.

And for some, there is no way back thereafter.

Truth is a one-way street.

It becomes a categorical imperative to speak out. And like Galileo almost 400 years ago,

David Ray Griffin took the lead.

He was blessed with an enormous capacity for collecting evidence, evaluating it and transforming it into highly readable, meticulous prose which was received by a huge audience. In his presentations we saw a man of ultimate integrity, laying out the facts and the consequences with great clarity.

From the beginning, Griffins books served as the eyeopener and a source for factual evidence for many.

Thus, Griffins book on 9/11 ”The New Pearl Harbor” became the first book of reference for so many people at that time. For me too. It was even published in Danish, which is a tiny speech area.

Immediately, the publisher went broke.

So we sold the book at a nominal prize out of the trunk of my car. And gave it away to some.

I met David Ray Griffin for the first time in 2009 in Switzerland.
And the famous, respected, awesome, academic giant became a down-to-earth, warm, humorous man.

He became David, a friend.

It turned out, that he had played the trumpet in his youth. And since I have a sidekick playing the saxophone, we talked about playing together one day when our mission was accomplished.

It was not to be.

From then on, I have had the honour to cooperate with David on many projects and in my service as member of the panel on ”The Consensus Project”.

We talked on the phone occasionally, but met in person only a handful of times – fewer than I could have wished for.

But simply by being there – somewhere – as the man he was, he remained – and remains – a constant point of reference, a perpetual, shining beacon in the fight for truth.

The man is gone.

But the light still shines.

Thank you David

Niels Harrit PhD, associate professor of chemistry (retired)