On small paving stones of truth, the late Harald B. Malmgren (1935-2025) built lofty towers of grandiose fantasy.
In a journalistic investigation so far extending more than four months, I gathered numerous documents that discredit stories that Malmgren told in 2024-25– stories that have been widely circulated on YouTube, X, reddit and other social-media platforms, newspaper tabloids, UFO-oriented blogs, and NewsNation, a national news and opinion network owned by Nexstar Media Group.
Detailed FBI files declassified in May 2025 in response to my Freedom of Information Act requests contain incontrovertible evidence that Malmgren fabricated some of his principal 2024-25 claims about the jobs and authorities he held, and the activities he engaged in, during 1962-64. For example: the FBI files prove that Malmgren never held a security clearance from the Atomic Energy Commission, as he repeatedly claimed in posts on X and in interviews– a key component of his 2024-25 UFO-adventure tales.
Federal job applications and job histories signed and certified by Malmgren himself in 1963, 1964, 1967, and 1970 are among the other documents I obtained that provide compelling evidence that some of the widely circulated Malmgren stories were fabrications.
In his 2024-2025 stories, Malmgren claimed that in 1962 he was personally recruited by National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, was immediately made a key personal aide ("whiz kid") to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and McNamara's personal liaison to the National Security Council. Malmgren said that as McNamara's personal agent, he directly faced off against USAF Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay at a critical moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an exchange that Malmgren promoters insist prevented a nuclear catastrophe. Malmgren said that he held a "Q" clearance from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and that thus empowered, he personally investigated for President Kennedy a UFO knocked down by a U.S. nuclear test in October, 1962 and recovered in part by the AEC. [1][2]
All of those claims were fiction.
By the time of Malmgren's death on February 13, 2025, at the age of 89, Malmgren and his promoters had drawn a picture of an extraordinary individual who had been instrumental in multiple matters of world-shaking consequence over a span of generations. A long post on X by Jesse Michels, creator of the American Alchemy YouTube channel, posted April 22, 2025, distilled many elements of that narrative; I have reproduced that post in its entirely near the end of this article, as part of APPENDIX B. In it, Michels asserted, "Harald is a hero who saved the world (and more than once)."
Well, no, Harald didn't save the world--no, not even once. He did once do his part to save the Japanese whaling industry, for $100,000/year– but I digress.
In the real world, Harald Malmgren was a very much less consequential figure than he led Michels and some others to believe. A half-century ago, Malmgren was for a time a very significant player in one particular sphere of federal public policy: trade policy. After that, for decades he was a successful consultant and lobbyist, dealing with trade and other international economic issues. He also was associated during different periods with various think tanks, institutes, councils, and government advisory committees. He was a professor or lecturer at several universities, dealing with the same subjects.
And that is pretty much it. Malmgren was really not a "senior advisor" or any kind of advisor to any U.S. presidents, except on trade policy to Presidents Nixon and Ford. He was never an advisor or aide to President Kennedy. He was not a roving super-statesman or secret-mission ambassador, not a behind-the-scenes intergenerational power broker. He was not influential in the development of ballistic missile defense plans, nor an expert on nuclear strategy– indeed, his serious involvement in defense-related issues, as such, was fairly marginal and short-lived. He did not demonstrate (or, until recently, claim) any special training or competence in any field of science or engineering.
There are weighty reasons to be extremely skeptical of Malmgren's 2024-2025 representations that he had a close relationship with, and received extensive shocking revelations from, Richard Bissell, Jr., a famous figure in the history of the CIA.
Malmgren's explicit claim to have become a member of the Kennedy Family "inner circle" through a close association with President Kennedy's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, was contradicted in communications to me from Shriver's son, Mark Kennedy Shriver; from the executive director of Shriver's foundation, Dr. Lucy di Rosa; and from Shriver's biography, Scott Stossel. And for the most part, this was the pattern I found wherever I went to check the more interesting Malmgren claims: Harald who?
Overall, it is a curious tale, for Harald Malmgren was generally regarded as a highly intelligent man– albeit also often perceived as egotistical and abrasive– and he had some substantial accomplishments in his chosen field (international economics, trade policy). Many men in their later years would have looked back on those genuine accomplishments with satisfaction. But for whatever reason, for Harald Malmgren his true history apparently was much less than what he felt he deserved to be remembered for. Some years ago he began to make up an alternative, much more exciting version of his life– stories in which he played a vastly more important role in world affairs than the mundane, respectable reality. Over time and with encouragement, those stories multiplied, and they grew ever more self-glorifying. With each new revelation, enthusiasts encouraged him to tell more. He proved more than willing to oblige.
