Peter Lance (born February 18, 1948) is an American journalist and author. He is a five-time winner of the News & Documentary Emmy Award, the recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and other accolades detailed below. In April 2010, Lance was appointed as a one-year visiting scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Early life and education
Peter Anthony Lance was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the son of Joseph James Lance, a Navy Chief who had served on the USS Arkansas (BB-33) in World War II. His mother was Albina Marie Lance, the former deputy clerk for the Superior Court in Newport. Lance attended public grammar schools and was valedictorian of his class in 1966 at De La Salle Academy, a Catholic Christian Brothers boys high school. He majored in philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston where he was Managing Editor of the student newspaper, The Northeastern News. While a student, Lance worked weekends as a news producer for WEEI, the former CBS radio owned and operated station in Boston.
After getting a B.A. from Northeastern in 1971 he earned an M.S. at The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 1972 and later a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1978.
Early career
Lance began his journalism career as a cub reporter for The Newport Daily News while a student at Northeastern University. In his second summer with the paper he researched and reported a four-part investigative series on slum housing in Newport that won the 11th Annual Sevellon Brown Award given by the New England Associated Press Managing Editor's Association."Globe Honored for Stories on Deputies Fees" May 19, 1969. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
Working as a researcher for Ralph Nader's Center for The Study of Responsive Law, Lance spent one month each living with the families of a brick layer, a garbage collector and a policeman in Boston as part of a study that was published as The Workers: Portraits of Nine American Job Holders.Internet Archive page for The Workers: Portraits of Nine American Job Holders , 1971 Retrieved August 29, 2012. Lance contributed research and writing to the book, authored by Kenneth Lasson.Credits page for The Workers: Portraits of Nine American Job Holders Retrieved August 29, 2012. The Workers was one of dozens of books and reports produced during Nader's summer "task forces" during 1969–72, the interns of which came to be known as "Nader's Raiders"."History of the Center for Study of Responsive Law" Retrieved August 29, 2012.
In 1972, after graduating from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Lance worked as the assistant to the program director at WNET-TV, the PBS flagship station in New York. He soon began producing for The 51st State, a nightly news magazine where he won the first of his two New York Area Emmy awards for The Great American Land Hustle Part One.1993–1994 New York City Area Emmy Awards The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, New York Retrieved August 29, 2012.
In 1973 Lance moved to WABC-TV, where he won a second New York Area Emmy, the National Station Emmy,Awards page on Peter Lance website Retrieved August 29, 2012. and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for The Willowbrook Case: The People vs. The State of New York.
In 1975, while working as a news producer at WABC-TV, Lance attended Fordham University School of Law as a night student. Studying at NYU Law School in the summer of 1977 he graduated from Fordham with a J.D. in 1978.
ABC News
After graduating from Fordham University in 1978 Lance went to work as a producer for ABC News 20/20, where he won one National News & Documentary Emmy Awards in 1980 for Arson For Profit, and another in 1981 for Unnecessary Surgery, where he also served as a correspondent. In 1984 Lance began reporting as a correspondent for ABC News Nightline (1984–85). In 1985, he joined a new investigative unit on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, where he worked until 1987. He reported dozens of stories, from Pentagon cost overruns to a scandal involving how the FAA had manipulated the number of near mid-air collisions. Between 1979 and 1982, Lance received three additional Emmy nominations for his investigative reporting.
In December, 1987, Lance left ABC News, and began working as a writer, and later story editor, producer and show runner in episodic television."Peter Lance". IMDb. Retrieved August 29, 2012. He worked on several hit television shows, including Miami Vice and Wiseguy, but it was Lance's continuing work as an investigative journalist and nonfiction book author around 9/11 that attracted national attention.
9/11 investigation
Lance was the first mainstream journalist to argue that the two attacks on the World Trade Center—the 1993 bombing and the attacks of 9/11—were linked via Ramzi Yousef. A Kuwaiti national trained in Wales, Yousef was Qaeda's chief bomb maker. He is also the nephew of the terrorist the FBI calls "the 9/11 mastermind" Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). Lance's investigative work linking Yousef and al Qaeda master spy Ali Mohamed to the 9/11 attacks has been cited repeatedly in "The Complete 9/11 Timeline" compiled by the nonprofit History Commons, the respected compendium of open source 9/11 intelligence.History Commons curation of evidence reported by Peter Lance on the links between the two World Trade Center bombings. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
In August 2003, Lance's 1000 Years for Revenge, a broad survey of al Qaeda operations in the US prior to 9/11,Excerpt from 1000 Years for Revenge. USA Today Retrieved September 3, 2012. was published by HarperCollins.. Harper Collins. Retrieved September 3, 2012. The book presents evidence that the FBI missed dozens of opportunities to stop the attacks of September 11, dating back to 1989. Lance describes how an elusive al Qaeda mastermind defeated an entire American security system in "the greatest failure of intelligence since the Trojan Horse".
On September 2, 2003, CBS News Correspondent Dan Rather, broadcasting from Baghdad during the Iraq War, reviewed the evidence presented in 1000 Years for Revenge for two days in a row, devoting two 4-minute segments as the lead stories on The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather. On the first broadcast from Iraq, Rather said: Part I of The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather coverage of 1000 Years for Revenge. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
One thing seems clear, had there not been the murderous attacks of 9/11 there probably would have been no war. Now a new book to be released tomorrow, 1000 Years For Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI, contends that the FBI could have and should have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
(Lance) traces these lapses back to 1989 and an FBI surveillance of a group of Middle Eastern men at a Calverton, Long Island shooting range. Yet inexplicably they (the FBI) suddenly stopped watching after just one month.
Rather explains that the Calverton men became devoted followers of blind cleric Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman brought in professional bomber Ramzi Yousef and the men began to plot the first World Trade Center bombing. The broadcast includes interviews with Lance, who states:
Of the men photographed by the FBI in 1989 three were later convicted in the original World Trade Center bombing, one was convicted in the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and one was convicted in The Day of Terror plot to blow up the bridges and tunnels around Manhattan.... It was absolutely possible for the FBI to have identified and stopped Yousef in the fall of 1992 as he built the bomb. If they had stopped Ramzi Yousef in 1992, they would have stopped 9/11.
The FBI, Lance says in the report, could have stopped Yousef because they had an informant, Emad Salem, already in place. He was close enough to take a video, shown in the CBS Evening News broadcast, of a celebration that included several members of the original Calverton group and to hear whispers about bomb plot. But interoffice fighting at the FBI forced Salem to quit, leaving a chilling warning:
The last thing Emad Salem said to Nancy Floyd, his (FBI) control agent, before he left: 'Don't call me when the bombs go off.'
The next day, on September 3, 2003, Rather again led with coverage of 1000 Years for Revenge: Part II of The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather coverage of 1000 Years for Revenge. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
Ramzi Yousef, the bomber responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had fled to the Philippines where police discovered his bomb factory. Yousef again escaped but his accomplice (Abdul Hakim Murad) was arrested and spilled the chilling plot to Philippines Police Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza.
Dan Rather then shows the Colonel, Mendoza, in a taped interview, talking to Lance:
Lance: "He (Abdul Hakim Murad) said that there was a plan at least to hijack planes and fly them into targets in the United States?"
Mendoza: "Yeah. Targets in the United States. CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia."
Lance: "And did he mention any other targets to you?"
Medoza: "Later, later he told me about the possibility of hitting the Pentagon. He told me also that there is an unidentified nuclear facility."
Rather reported that Mendoza also provided "one more piece of information", quoting Lance as saying, "He said there were 10 Islamic pilots, at that moment in 1995 in America training in U.S. flight schools." Colonel Mendoza, says Lance, gave that information to the U.S. Embassy, including information that Osama bin Laden was funding Ramzi Yousef's plots.
In 2004, HarperCollins published a follow-up book to 1000 Years for Revenge.
Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror concludes that Al-Qaida showed signs of launching the impending 9/11 attacks in 1995, but were able to evade arrest by exploiting the poor relations between the FBI and CIA and problems within their respective infrastructures.
Another follow-on book, Triple Cross:How bin Laden's Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI—and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him, published in September 2006, covers the Al Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed.Timeline published in Triple Cross The timeline shows links between the first and second bombings of the World Trade Center. Retrieved August 29, 2012 A review of the book by Rory O'Connor in The Guardian states: "In the annals of espionage, few men have moved in and out of the deep black world between the hunters and the hunted with as much audacity as Ali Mohamed.... The FBI allowed the chief spy for al-Qaida to operate right under their noses...They let him plan the bombings of the embassies in Africa right under their noses. Two hundred twenty-four people were killed and more than 4,000 wounded because of their negligence."O'Conner, Rory: "Joining the dots of ineptitude", The Guardian, November 16, 2006, retrieved August 29, 2012.
The publisher's summary for Triple Cross states:Publisher's summary of Triple Cross on amazon.com. Retrieved September 5, 2012