Dr. Wheeler, a NewsMax.com Pundit, has had two parallel careers for many years: one in the field of adventure and exploration as the owner of Jack Wheeler Expeditions; the other in the field of political and economic freedom as president of the Freedom Research Foundation. Regarding the first, at age 12 he was honored in the White House by President Eisenhower as the Youngest Eagle Scout in the history of the Boy Scouts. He climbed the Matterhorn at age 14, swam the Hellespont (LIFE Magazine 12/12/60) and lived with Amazon headhunters at 16, hunted a man-eating tiger in Vietnam at 17, started an export business in Vietnam at 19, and wrote The Adventurer's Guide (New York: Mackay, 1975), described by Merv Griffin as "the definitive book for anyone wishing to lead a more adventurous and exciting life." He has three "first contacts" with tribes never before contacted by the outside world: a clan of Aushiri in the Amazon, the Wali-ali-fo in New Guinea, and a band of Bushmen in the Kalahari. He has retraced Hannibal's route over the Alps with elephants; led numerous expeditions in Central Asia, Tibet, Africa, the Amazon and elsewhere, including 18 expeditions to the North Pole; and has been listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for the first free fall sky-dive in history at the North Pole.

Regarding the second, Dr. Wheeler received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Southern California, where he lectured on Aristotelian ethics. Author of numerous articles in political philosophy and geopolitics, he began in the early 1980s a series of extensive visits to anti-Soviet guerrilla insurgencies in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Laos, and Afghanistan, and to democracy movements in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, becoming an unofficial liaison between them and the Reagan White House. Based on this, he developed the strategy for dismantling the Soviet Empire adopted by the White House known as the "Reagan Doctrine." It worked. The Freedom Research Foundation, founded by Dr. Wheeler in 1984, continues to provide information to a number of Congressional offices on issues regarding political and economic freedom throughout the world and in the United States.

Dr. Wheeler has been called the "real Indiana Jones" by the Wall St. Journal, the "creator of the Reagan Doctrine" by the Washington Post, and an "ideological gangster" by the Soviet press. He has traveled to over 180 countries and all seven continents, leads 2 to 3 expeditions a year, and is a consultant to a number of international corporations on geopolitics

Source of the text: http://www.newsmax.com/pundits/bios/Wheeler-bio.shtml

Dr.Jack Wheeler and his son Jackson. Photo by Jack Sheremetoff. June 2002

Jack Wheeler, born in 1943 in Los Angeles, has lived a life endlessly jam-packed with adventure. And one reason he has lived such a life is that he got up one day and said, "You know what? I want to have a lot of adventures."

As a Boy Scout, young Jack fantasized he could become a Life scout in record time. When his friends taunted him, he took their discouragement as a dare and became in fact the youngest Eagle scout in the history of the organization. President Eisenhower had him over to the White House to congratulate him.

Next Jack read Halliburt's account of climbing the Matterhorn. He said to his father, "Dad, I want to climb the Matterhorn." "Okay," said his father.

Next he spent time in the Amazon jungle hobnobbing with headhunters. Then he read about Leander's attempt (failed) to swim the Hellespont in Bullfinch's Mythology, and it was obvious what he must do: ask Pan American for a plane ticket so he could go swim the Hellespont. No biggie; Pan Am gave him the ticket.

Wheeler won prize money on a game show; toured the far east; shot a leopard, an elephant, and a tiger; became a stunt flyer; ran Youth for Reagan in 1966; read Atlas Shrugged; and, inspired by Atlas, decided to become an intellectual. The novel "made an enormous impact on me. She defended America and capitalism, and gave me a respect for the world of the intellect I never had before." In 1970 he earned a philosophy degree from the University of Hawaii.

More adventures followed, thanks to work Wheeler did for a travel agency. Then, in 1975, he wrote up his philosophy of adventure in The Adventurers Guide while finishing a doctoral dissertation in Greek ethics. And then-

Jack Wheeler: Part Two

The year was 1975. Jack Wheeler was finishing up his Adventurer's Guide while also writing a dissertation on Greek ethics (good prep work for a 1984 essay by Wheeler, published in The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, comparing the ethics of Rand and Aristotle).

An incident in Egypt around this time seemed to symbolize Wheeler's evolution as a man of both thought and action: he climbed the Great Pyramid (had to bribe a guard first), then spent some time perusing Aristotle at the apex. After publishing the Guide, the next natural step for Wheeler was to professionalize the adventure-seeking. He founded a company to take people on safaris around the world. He also married a kindred spirit, Jacqueline Vial-King, and they did fun honeymoon stuff like discovering a tribe of cannibals in New Guinea and retracing the steps of Hannibal through the Alps, on elephants.

In 1980 Wheeler faced his most difficult challenge when Jacqueline died of cancer. A few days later, his father, who had told his son as a young boy to go ahead and climb the Matterhorn if he wanted to-and who helped him do it-also died, in the same hospital. Wheeler only gradually bounced back from the double blow-partly with the help of his friend Nathaniel Branden, who had also tragically lost a spouse.

But a year or so later he was back in action, skydiving onto the North Pole. Then Wheeler took some actions with further-range consequences: he noticed a pattern of anti-Soviet guerrilla wars; did some bullet-dodging globe-trotting to report on the conflicts for a magazine series; and hatched what would evolve into the "Reagan Doctrine," a theory on how to "dismember and disarm" the increasingly shaky Soviet empire. He brought his ideas to the attention of the White House, and they were put into action.
In 1984 he founded the Freedom Research Foundation, which continues to debrief movers and shakers on the struggle for political and economic freedom around the world.

Wheeler has lived life the hard way, one trial by fire after another. But at the end of the day, the payoff has been huge.
"I want to possess myself, by living up to the best within me, by living up to integrity, by trying to achieve a deep sense of self-esteem," he told Oasis magazine's ace reporter, Robert James Bidinotto, in 1987. "I'm not some mindless person doing death-defying feats. I have a life wish, not a death wish. But damn it, I don't want to just sell insurance. I want to go to the North Pole....

"We only get one crack at life. It lasts but the snap of a finger. What a waste, what a shame, to be lowered away for all eternity without once having your mortal soul purged with the emetic of high adventure."