Richard Cummings

Richard Cummings is an author, playwright, theorist and critic. His biography of Allard Lowenstein, The Pied Piper – Allard Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, alleges that Lowenstein worked for the CIA. Cummings' biography was met with some controversy; in a New York Times review, entitled "His Innocence Proves His Guilt," written by Ronald Radosh, the reviewer judges that Cummings in that book has offered "a conspiracy theory marked by guilt by association and a failure to examine evidence that contradicts his own views." Radosh notes further that "Lowenstein's friends and family were so upset about the allegations in The Pied Piper that they have gone to great lengths to gather affidavits from scores of individuals mentioned or interviewed by Mr. Cummings, affidavits that dispute the author's research and conclusions." In the second edition of The Pied Piper (paperback) Cummings quotes from Lowenstein's CIA file which clearly indicates that Lowenstein was recruited through the CIA in 1962 and that they planned to use him on an "ad hoc" basis. The CIA file also indicates that Lowenstein himself said that he had already done some work for the CIA.

Cummings' one act play Play on Words or the War Will Be Over Soon was selected by Edward Albee's Playwrights Unit to be performed under the direction of John Lithgow and he is an alumnus of The Lark. He is a contributing editor of The American Conservative and a columnist for Lewrockwell.com. He produced and moderated his public service radio program, Free Speech and also produced and directed a film on the life and work of the Spanish artist, Esteban Vicente.

Cummings is also a contributor to the Underground Alliance's Special Reports which published his article, "The Fiction of the State". The article appeared in a print version in the British publication, Lobster. His article "Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" for Playboy.com is an analysis of how America's largest defense contractor drove the policy that led to the Iraq war.

His column "Politics In Perspective" ran in the East Hampton Star for seven years. He taught at the Haile Selassie I University in Addis Ababa, as a colleague of Richard Pankhurst, the prominent Ethiopia expert and son of the communist activist Sylvia Pankhurst and Italian anarchist Silvio Corio, during a time when that country was in deep political turmoil. While there, Cummings was appointed the editor of the Journal of Ethiopian Law. He also taught the University of the West Indies in Barbados. He has also served as legal advisor for environmental affairs to Assemblyman Perry Duryea, Speaker of the New York State Assembly and later, Minority Leader, and as Director of Natural Resources for the Town of East Hampton, was a founder of The Group for America's South Fork, and authored the Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Law. Cummings has repeatedly identified himself as "a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, having served on the Board of the AFIO-New England chapter."