Gerald Posner

Gerald Leo Posner is an American investigative journalist , author , and former attorney known for his books challenging conspiracy theories and examining historical scandals, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy , Nazi war criminals, and the pharmaceutical industry's practices.

Posner's breakthrough work, Case Closed : Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (1993), argued based on forensic evidence and witness testimonies that Oswald acted alone, earning a Pulitzer Prize finalist nomination in History and becoming a New York Times bestseller despite criticism from conspiracy proponents. Subsequent books such as Why America Slept Through the Oklahoma City Bombing (2003) and God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican (2015), also New York Times bestsellers, scrutinized government intelligence failures and institutional secrecy through declassified documents and archival research.

His recent book Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America (2020) critiques the opioid crisis and regulatory lapses, drawing on internal company records and legal filings to highlight profit-driven misconduct by drug manufacturers. Posner, who practiced law before focusing on writing, has contributed to outlets like The Daily Beast and The New York Times , though his career includes a 2010 controversy where he admitted to plagiarizing passages from a Miami Herald article in a Beast piece on Haitian earthquake relief, leading to an internal investigation and his resignation from the publication.

Gerald Posner was born on May 20, 1954, in San Francisco , California , to Gerald G. Posner, a shipping executive and official in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, and Gloria Posner, a homemaker. Both parents were native San Franciscans, with his father identifying as Jewish and his mother as Catholic, making Posner their only child in a religiously mixed household .

Posner was raised in the Catholic tradition amid this interfaith family dynamic, growing up in San Francisco's urban setting where his father's labor union role connected the family to maritime industry networks. Limited public details exist on direct childhood experiences, but the household's working-class orientation, rooted in union activism, characterized his early environment.

Posner earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975, graduating summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa ; during his undergraduate years, he also achieved recognition as a national debating champion. He then pursued legal studies at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he served as associate executive editor of the Hastings Law Journal and graduated with honors in 1978.

Posner's legal training commenced immediately upon earning his Juris Doctor, as he joined Cravath, Swaine & Moore—one of Wall Street's premier law firms—as a litigation associate at age 23, marking him as among the youngest attorneys ever hired there. This early entry into high-stakes corporate litigation provided foundational practical experience in legal advocacy and complex casework, bridging his academic preparation to professional practice.

After graduating from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1977 with honors, Posner joined Cravath, Swaine & Moore , a leading Wall Street law firm renowned for its corporate litigation and mergers-and-acquisitions practice, as a litigation associate at the age of 23—one of the youngest attorneys ever hired by the firm. His work there involved high-stakes corporate disputes, reflecting the firm's emphasis on representing major corporations in complex legal matters.

In 1981, Posner left Cravath to co-found the New York-based law firm Posner & Ferrara with a partner, transitioning to independent private practice.