BecomingMy Brother's Keeper

Alan Robert Foringer graduated magna cum laude from Duke University in 1976, with a dual major in political science and economics. To his parents and five siblings, he spent the next decade as a traveling salesman: medical supplies in Pittsburgh, industrial equipment in Atlanta, timeshares in the Florida Keys. Then, in the mid-1980s, he moved to the Philippines.

On August 9, 1991, Alan died at a hospital in Metro Manila. For ten years, his family believed he died of natural causes. Then, in July 2001, his younger brother recognized a face in a History documentary about the Green Berets: Major General John K. Singlaub, the retired general he had met in Alan’s Manila living room in 1986. A few Internet searches later, he found accounts describing Alan’s work with the CIA, and his death called “likely foul play.”

What followed was a search of more than 25 years. Through FOIA requests, documents, and interviews with Navy SEALs, Green Berets, intelligence veterans, authors and the men who worked beside Alan, John David Foringer pieces together a hidden life: a locked gate and a World War II–era barracks in Key Largo in 1979, divers taking Alan’s directions at the dock, and the Philippine Treasure Hunt for Yamashita’s gold, the plunder Japan buried across the islands in the last years of the war, alongside partners whose names surfaced in the Iran-Contra affair.

The title comes from Cain’s question in Genesis 4:9: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Part memoir, part investigation, this is a brother’s answer. The evidence is laid out so readers can weigh it and decide for themselves.