William Northrop

William Warren "Will" Northrop (born c. 1944) is a military historian, investigator and writer. He is best known in recent years for the controversy regarding his claims of military and combat service, and prior to that for his role in the so-called "Brokers of Death" arms case, a precursor to the Iran–Contra scandal in 1986. He is a writer and has written articles over the years for such diverse venues as Penthouse, New Dimensions magazine, and The Jerusalem Post. He has also written several articles in Recall, the magazine of the North Carolina Military Historical Society, mostly battle analyses.

William Northrop was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he attended public schools. In 9th grade, he attended a New England prep school for one year, but returned to North Carolina for high school. He was sent to Oak Ridge Military Institute (class of 1962) and from there to The Citadel (class of 1966) where he studied history.

Northrop claims that after graduating from The Citadel in May 1966, he joined the United States Army, serving almost three years, including a tour in South Vietnam and being badly wounded at the Battle of Lang Vei in February 1968. However, since his claims were first publicized in 1992 their validity has been questioned by investigators, historians, and veterans of battles he claimed to have participated in.

In 1980, he was in California studying for a graduate degree and working part-time as an investigator for the California Public Defender. He was asked by Mary Welcome, attorney for Wayne Williams, to head up the defense investigation in the Atlanta child murders case. Williams was convicted in February 1982 and in 1984, with the appeals exhausted, Northrop penned an op-ed for Penthouse magazine in which he covered the facts of the case. (Over the years since, numerous Atlantans, including some of the families of the victims, have come to believe Williams is innocent.)

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