Richard Cook

Richard C. Cook is a retired U.S. federal policy analyst who served across the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he exposed the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Space Shuttle, documented in his book Challenger Revealed. After 21 years at Treasury, he became a vocal critic of the private bank-controlled monetary system in We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform (2007). As an adviser to the late Stephen Zarlenga, founder of the American Monetary Institute, he co-authored the American Monetary Act, which Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced as the NEED Act of 2011—legislation to replace the Federal Reserve's debt-based system with a genuine national currency implemented through direct federal spending and a citizens' dividend. See also his book Our Country, Then and Now (Clarity Press, 2023).