Robert Allen Griffin was the creator and owner of the Monterey Peninsula Herald. His first wife also became a co-owner of the newspaper. Griffin purchased and owned the Carmel Pine Cone. He created KDON-FM. He was one of the founders of the Monterey History and Art Association, and served as one of its 15 directors. During World War I, he commanded Company F of the 364th Infantry Regiment. During World War II, he commanded the 13th Infantry Regiment in Europe. During the Cold War, he was appointed by Harry S. Truman to serve the president at the Economic Cooperation Administration for several years in Asia. He was involved in the creation of the Monterey Peninsula College, the first civilian postsecondary institution in the area. He was one of the 32 founders of the Community Foundation for Monterey County. He served as president, and later executive director, of the International Press Institute. He served on the board of the Monterey Community Hospital. He was an Episcopalian, and a member of Monterey's St. John's Episcopal Church.
Early life and high school journalism
Robert Allen Griffin was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1893. His father was William Black, and his mother was Francesca Black. His father owned a hardware store and a wholesale plumbing supply company.
His experience in journalism began as a student at Central High School (CHS), where he was a student journalist for the school's student newspaper, the Luminary. In his junior year, he was Luminary's business manager, and also president of the Central Writers' Club (CWC). In his senior year, he was the newspaper's Managing editor, managing a newspaper staff of thirteen students. In the senior ballot published in the yearbook of his graduating class, his fellow students wrote that he was: "...going to Princeton, and [he] doesn't care who knows it."
When Griffin's father retired, the family moved to Edenvale, California.
Journalism at Stanford University
In 1913, Griffin arrived at Stanford University, where he continued his student journalism career. He worked on the staff of the Sequoia, Stanford's literary magazine, where he had been contributing to the magazine for nearly two years by the time of his election to that position. In 1914, he wrote for the Sketch Book, one of Sequoia's sections. In 1915, he wrote the leading feature of the winter edition of Sequoia; a fictional story entitled Metamorphosis.
He also worked as an Associate Editor at The Chaparral, Stanford's humor magazine, for several years.
On January 5, 1915, Griffin was one of the 5 founding members of the Stanford chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, alongside Edwin Ford, Milton James Bennet, Harold Levy, and Glenn Hughes.
On January 26, 1915, he was elected Senior editor of The Stanford Quad, the campus yearbook. The Quad was only allowed to be staffed by juniors, and it called itself a "junior publication." His staff manager was H. L. Hews. His election to the position was called one of the closest races ever run for the Quad. Griffin received 102 votes, while his competitor, Collins, received just two votes less.
On November 9, 1915, Griffin was one of four members of The Collection, which were that year's initiates into the Stanford Press Club. The Stanford Press Club, founded in 1894, was an upperclassman honor society which initiated students at the end of their junior year, who had shown prior excellence in student journalism at Stanford. This club was designed to provide student journalists with networking opportunities in the industry.
Founding the Stanford Illustrated Review
In his junior year, Griffin also created and served as the founding president of the Stanford Illustrated Review, the first-ever student sports magazine published at Stanford University. He served again in that position in his senior year. The Stanford Quad wrote of Griffin's sports journalism contributions that:"Griffin's editorials have been, for the most part, clear, thoughtful and well expressed, though at times he has been vague and hard to follow. He has ventured into questions of national importance as well as topics of campus life, and has shown in these treatises a mind well stocked with information and able to think clearly and arrive at sane conclusions."Griffin graduated Stanford in 1917. He had been a member of Phi Delta Theta, Sigma Delta Chi, the Stanford Press Club, and the Hammer and Coffin. His name as a reporter for most of these student publications was written as "R. A. Griffin," but at The Chaparral, he was known as "Al Griffin."
In 1917, the Illustrated Review transformed from an independent publication, the Stanford Press Club took over management. The year after Griffin's graduation, as more and more students from campus were being called to fight in World War I, the Stanford Press Club was temporarily dissolved, and the Illustrated Review was taken-over by the Stanford Alumni, awaiting the return of all the student journalists who interrupted their studies to fight.
The Stanford Press Club permanently dissolved in 1923, when it merged into Sigma Delta Chi.
World War I
Creator of military training and ROTC at Stanford While he was still at Stanford, as World War I kept raging in Europe, Griffin was one of only two Stanford men, alongside Frank C. McCulloch, who were directly responsible for the creation of Stanford's first military training programs to prepare soldiers to fight in an eventual war in Europe. On March 28, 1916, with Griffin taking some sort of organizational role, Brigadier General Franklin Bell and retired captain Samuel A. Purviance spoke at the men's assembly of the Stanford Union. They were there to discuss whether Stanford would or should establish a military training program, simply called the "Drill." The president of Stanford, Ray Lyman Wilbur, heard from the men on whether they would be for or against the program.
In July 1916, thanks largely to Griffin's efforts, Stanford joined its first Citizens' Military Training Camp in either Pacific Grove or Monterey, on an extension of land belonging to the Presidio of Monterey. George C. Marshall was on the cadre of one of these camps in Monterey, at the Hotel Del Monte.
On July 14, 1917, Griffin married Phyllis Hayes, the daughter of Congressman Everis Hayes.In the fall of 1916, Griffin's campaign to establish a military training program at Stanford proved successful. Jens Bugge was sent to Stanford to organize the Stanford University Reserve Officers' Training Corps (Stanford ROTC). Bugge took up the Stanford title of "Professor of Military Science and Tactics." Bugge's initial cadre were all non-commissioned officers, until Bugge selected a core group of qualified student leaders. On October 9, 1916, Bugge appointed Griffin to serve as a Cadet Captain of Stanford ROTC, and the companies were organized the following day. As Cadet Captain, Griffin commanded Company B, which on October 31, 1916, won the Competitive Drill and Ceremonies competition. Due to the fact that Stanford ROTC had not yet received any permanent uniforms or rifles to issue new cadets, the "dress and equipment" category was not graded heavily.
On November 3, 1916, at the Sigma Chi house, Griffin and J. H. Eastman recruited for the French section of the American ambulance service. They were seeking men between the ages of 21 and 35, and in sympathy with the Allied cause.
On December 8, 1916, Major Bugge promoted Griffin to cadet major of the battalion. As Cadet Major, he was in command of the entire Stanford ROTC, meaning that all student cadets at the school were under his supervision. At the 25th Founders' Day anniversary celebrations, celebrating 25 years since the university's founding, Cadet Major Griffin led his battalion to escort the colors onto the field at 9:30 am.On the night of March 14, 1917, Major Bugge, Cadet Major Griffin, and his company commanders, performed an inspection of the troops for the first time, and they did not perform well. Bugge and Griffin issued criticisms and marks of demerit for over half the men. When Major William David Davis and Major Bugge expected the battalion on April 24, 1917, Davis said that the battalion had made a "remarkable showing," and was pleased with Griffin's command.
In the spring of 1917, Stanford ROTC was reorganized, and "Griffin's Battalion," now called the Second Battalion, was placed under the roster of a regiment. The First Battalion was commanded by a member of the NCO cadre, Sergeant Bates. They experienced their first field training exercise on a hike into the hills around Stanford in April, 1917, where "moving pictures" were captured of Griffin's battalion.
Prior to Griffin's graduation, he was expected to join the rest of his fellow Stanford men in the service of the Stanford Unit of the American Ambulance Service, which had been organized by J. H. Eastman and a group of San Francisco businessmen.
Major Bugge later went on to become the Superintendent of West Point.
Military commission and deployment When Griffin graduated in 1917, he was commissioned as an officer into the Infantry Branch of the United States Army. He was given a direct commission as captain, and sent to the European theatre of World War I. He commanded Company F of the 364th Infantry Regiment, 91st Infantry Division.
On September 26 or 27, 1918, during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, F Company was trapped in a cloud of smoke and fog. Under heavy artillery fire, Griffin led the company to take cover in a trench. As he was getting into the trench himself, he was knocked to the ground by a shell burst. When the enemy artillery barrage stopped, Griffin and his men went back toward the enemy.
The next day, Griffin led eleven soldiers to charge an enemy machine-gun nest. Later, during the continued attack on Épinonville, Griffin carried wounded soldiers off of the battlefield while under continued and heavy enemy machine-gun fire.
On September 29, Griffin was severely wounded while on a patrol. He continued working, wounded, and under heavy machine-gun and artillery fire, and accomplished his assigned mission.
On July 9, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson awarded Griffin the Distinguished Service Cross "for extraordinary heroism in action."
In 1918, the CMTC camp where Griffin originally trained was named Camp John P. Pryor, in honor of John P. Pryor, the son of the mayor of Pacific Grove, who had just died in battle.
On January 1919, one of Griffin's Sergeants, Lloyd Seibert, was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Involvement in Polish-American relations
In 1919, Griffin left the Army. He decommissioned while he was in Upton, New York, hoping to get a job in journalism somewhere in New York. He applied for more journalism jobs in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco. For a brief time, he served as a newspaper reporter in Portland, Oregon. While in Portland, he worked for two competing newspapers, the Portland Oregonian and the Portland Journal.
Later in 1919, as the Second Polish Republic had recently been established as a world state, Griffin was ordered to appear in Washington, D. C., where he was made Secretary to the first-serving Polish Minister to the United States, Kazimierz Lubomirski.
From 1920 to 1921, Griffin served as the director of the Polish Information Bureau.
Creation of the American-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the United States