Eric Ehrmann Biography

Eric Wayne Ehrmann (born in Cleveland, Ohio August 13, 1946) is an American author, columnist, online journalist and essayist whose articles are frequently published on The Huffington Post blog in the United States and the United Kingdom and HuffPo-LeMonde in France. He also does predictive forecasting with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects (IARPA) and authors the fortnightly "Institutions and Competition" blog at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).

Ehrmann is one of the writers who helped pioneer Rolling Stone magazine in 1968, working under co-founder Jann S Wenner. He is a voting member of PEN USA, an affiliate of International PEN, the London-headquartered international literary and human rights organization. He is a citizen of the United States and holds a United States passport. He also holds the permanent residence document in Brazil (RNE).

Appearing on the Huffington Post blog and elsewhere, Ehrmann's political writing examines the emerging digital civilization. He is often engaged in media criticism and discuss the downsizing of social contract democracy, the move from public trust journalism to curated content dominated by public relations and corporate interests, and the downward mobility of the middle class in most G7 economies. His political writing supports the growth of the internet and online media as vehicles to help bridge the growing digital divide and promote social inclusion.

Early life

Eric Ehrmann is an only child and a third generation American from a family of assimilated Jews. His father was a labor union official in Cleveland, Ohio where his paternal grandfather was a union printer with the Cleveland News. Immigration and shipping recods indicate that his antecedents from the Austrian, German and Russian empires found their way to the United States in the late 19th century. He was confirmed in the Reform Jewish Movement by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Fairmount Temple-Congregation Anshe Hesed. He was graduated class of 1964 from Shaker High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. He received additional teaching about the history and politics of the Reform Jewish Movement from Rabbi Albert A. Goldman of the Isaac Mayer Wise Synagogue, who was a friend of his father, Robert. He attended Miami University (Ohio) but dropped out following the death of his father and later studied in France at the Sorbonne. His Meyers-Briggs personality test was evaluated as INTJ.

Rolling Stone

According to the website of Rolling Stone founder Jann S. Wenner, Eric Ehrmann began writing for Rolling Stone from his fraternity house while still a columnist for The Miami Student, the student newspaper at Miami University of Ohio. At Miami he pledged the Kappa chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon and was initiated into the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity as pin number Kappa 1113. As a Miami Deke, he developed a friendship with author P.J. O'Rourke, who signed the Deke pledgebook at Kappa but never completed the program,a friendship that continues today in spite of political and philosophical differences.. As one of the early contributors to "Rolling Stone" working under founder Jann S. Wenner. he looked at the connections between rock music and politics. He also contributed occasionally to the Berkeley Barb in 1969 and 1970 using his own name, and pseudonyms, as was not uncommon among those who wrote for the underground press at that time.

During this period he wrote the song "Ask Me If I Care" which was recorded by the rock band The Lemon Pipers on their on their LP by the same name released by Buddah Records. Since three of the band member were his Deke fraternity brothers they frequently invited him to play and sing the tunes he wrote between sets of their gigs.

Eric Ehrmann's controversial January 1969 Rolling Stone cover story on the Detroit/Ann Arbor political rock band MC-5 was selected by editors as one of the "great stories" in the history of the publication and subsequently featured in the magazine's 25th anniversary edition, and anthologized in a Rolling Stone/Doubleday book. And his November, 1969 coverage of the funeral of beat generation icon Jack Kerouac was anthologized in the successful Rolling Stone Book of The Beats, published by Hyperion and edited by Holly George-Warren. He participated in Wenner-led editorial meetings with the likes of the departed Hunter S. Thompson, photographer Annie Leibovitz, and other icons of the period but in a detached professional context rather than in a social sense. He split with Wenner and Rolling Stone over classic writer-publisher money issues and editorial policy questions. With Wenner paying writers just $50 for a cover story the offer of making more money doing intelligence work was a buck dancers choice and one he did not refuse.

Free Lancing in Europe

During the 1970s he lived in Europe, in Heidelberg, and in Paris, attending the Sorbonne during the Cold War era and, subsequently wrote about politics, cultural freedom and open society issues. At the suggestion of George Bailey, a senior executive at publisher, Springer-Ullstein and a biographer of Soviet Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov, Ehrmann researched the popular collector movement associated with Hummel figurines and in 1976 wrote a book on what was then a novelty popular art subculture.

The book created some controversy when first published because it detailed how the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler used certain figurines, decorated in the popular folk costumes worn by Croatian, Serbian and Czech people to promote friendship and unity between them and the Nazi occupation armies. Leading collectors of the figurines in the United States, many of whom were of European origin, were uncomfortable with this factual information the author obtained from the files of the company that produced the figurines. During a 50 city book promotion tour in 1976 a group of collectors protested at a book signing event at a theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, handing out pamphlets and demanding Ehrmann make changes to the quarto size art book featuring detailed images of ntractthe ceramic collectibles. While some changes were made that added to the market value of certain figurines owned by leading collectors, the publisher of the book at that time, Portfolio Press, did not remove content or photographs of the figurines in folk costumes used by the Nazis to build cultural ties in the nations occupied by their armies. Because of known legal risks associate with the book his writer contract represented at the time one of the few instances where the publisher holds harmless and indemnifies the writer, when in most situations it works the other way round. The contract was prepared for him by noted publishing lawyer Nancy F. Wechsler.

Ehrmann worked during this Heidelberg period at a facility known as Building 28, which served as a secret center for the computerization and analysis of human intelligence data and he held top secret and special intelligence security clearances(prior to the single scope investigation process). Building 28 was the first US facility to be blown up by terrorists- the Baader-Meinhof group- in Europe. Eric Ehrmann also played rugby on the squad of the RG Heidelberg and traveled to France to play matches. He was a friend of their Facebook page before permanently deleting his membership in the social utility for privacy reasons in 2013.

Returning to the US in 1980 Eric Ehrmann worked as a corporate writer for the executive office of consulting firm Peat Marwick in New York, now KPMG. He did ghostwriting assignments for prominent world figures including productivity expert W. Edwards Deming, French publisher Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Manfred Rommel, and nuclear weapons strategist Herman Kahn among others. Eric Ehrmann during the period 1980-1983 was an associate member of the Foreign Policy Association. In 1981, at the invitation of Ed Daly, owner of World Airways and a client of his employer Peat Marwick, Ehrmann travelled to Mogadishu, Somalia to assist in preparation of a study regarding the refugee situation and conflict in the poorly defined region disputed by Somalia and Ethiopia known as the Ogaden.

He also worked in public relations, at the Edelman firm, developing and supervising programs for DATAR a French government trade promotion agency,the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), an Israeli high-tech organization called Scitex, American Express, and the government of Mexico and was registered as such with official US organizations as per legal requirements. Public relations efforts by Edelman during this period promoted international trade at the German Democratic Republic's annual Leipzig Trade Fair. During the ambassadorial tenures of diplomats Rozanne L. Ridgway in Berlin and Dr. Gerhard Herder in Washington increased commerce was viewed as a component of overall détente. But while the GDR's gross domestic product rivaled that of Great Britain at the time an attempt by the regime of Erich Honecker to develop a very costly microchip industry in a highly competitive market depleted hard currency reserves and the trade expansion Ehrmann helped publicize foundered.

South America and the Buenos Aires Herald

Ehrmann lived during the mid-1980s in Buenos Aires when Argentina was transitioning from dictatorship to democracy and wrote columns for The Buenos Aires Herald, working with editors Dan Newland, Ronald Hansen and Michael Soltys. Eric Ehrmann wrote political commentary on South American affairs for US publications including National Review, The Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Journal of Commerce, The Journal of Defense and Diplomacy, among others. He has been writing opinion and commentary on Latin American affairs for 27 years.

He also wrote travel features for Clipper, the award winning in-flight magazine of Pan American World Airways.

Eric Ehrmann was hired as a project consultant by developer Jim Gasperini and worked on developing scenarios and content for the popular government simulation video game, Hidden Agenda, which went on market in 1988. The game helped establish the foundation for the games for change movement and was also purchased by agencies of the U.S. government for use in training.

The University of Virginia at Charlottesville

Returning to the US in 1990 he continued writing and publishing, collaborating with Christopher Barton at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia. He developed editorial content for Time magazine that appeared in sponsored news sections paid for by an agency of the government of Mexico. Ehrmann's commentary in the Spring 1992 issue of Orbis, published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, represents one of few the attempts to call into question the low threat potential of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program after it rebounded and expanded in the wake of the Israeli attack on the Osirak reactor known as Operation Opera. He also investigated and published articles in The Journal of Commerce and The Christian Science Monitor discussing cooperation between Iraq and South American companies in connection with the Iraqi medium range guided missile program known as "Tammuz" in Iraq, and "Condor" in the West.

The University of New Mexico, Colon Cancer and the Web

In 1995 he was named writer in residence at the University of New Mexico Department of Communication and Journalism by Associate Provost David E. Stuart. Eric Ehrmann also did radio political commentary for KUNM, the National Public Radio affiliate at the University of New Mexico.

In July 1995 he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He took a long hiatus from writing and served as a volunteer citizenship mentor and trainee in a program conducted at that time by Catholic Social Services of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2000 he participated in the nationwide Presidential Cancer Panel, which at the time operated under the aegis of the sitting president George H.W. Bush.

After being diagnosed with depression and chronic anxiety disorder in 1992 his psychiatrist prescribed the SSRI anti-depression medication Zoloft, which, while helping to mediate his feelings dealing with his cancer diagnosis, modified his personality in ways that are described in product literature and other publicly available information. He titrated himself off of the medication in late 2007. He opted for a change of scene and relocated in 2008 to Brazil, immersing himself in another language and culture.

In 2009, Ehrmann returned to writing and blogging, doing columns about Brazil and Latin America on The Huffington Post in English. He was one of the original bloggers on the Huffington Post World section as it was being developed by editor Hanna Ingber Win. He blogs in French at HuffPo-LeMonde, and at Al Huffington Post, Maghreb Edition covering North Africa.

Eric Ehrmann's columns and blog posts are mirrored by a range of online media to include The Dallas Morning News, Forbes, The Times of India Silobreaker and USAToday, among others. He is divorced from Valeria Fernandes, a physical education professor and beach volleyball referee who was a classmate and friend of Brazilian female basketball legend "Magic Paula" Goncalves at the Methodist University of Piracicaba UNIMEP. Eric is a lifelong fan of the Cleveland Browns and an 18 year Dukes C-3 colon cancer survivor. His motto is "God Is My Co-Pilot, Football Is My Religion."