George Crile: In a high profile career US journalist George Crile attracted a $120 million (€94.1 million) libel suit from the head of US forces in the Viertnam war, and exposed the extent of the CIA's operations in Afghanistan during the Reagan administration.
A longtime producer for CBS's 60 Minutes Crile, who has died aged 61, was author of the best-selling book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, which detailed the CIA's secret support for the Afghan rebels in their war with the Soviet Union.
It was in 1982 that Crile and Mike Wallace produced The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception, a 1982 documentary that accused Gen William C Westmoreland, US commander of forces in Vietnam, of being involved in "a conspiracy at the highest levels of American intelligence" to deliberately distort and minimise enemy troop strength.
The motive, the programme claimed, was to mislead Congress and the White House into believing the US was actually winning the war. Westmoreland sued CBS Inc for libel and sought $120 million in damages. He withdrew the suit before the case went to the jury, settling for a joint statement with the network that included an acknowledgment that he had not been "unpatriotic or disloyal in performing his duties as he saw them".
While covering Afghan rebels in their war with the Soviets in the 1980s, Crile came to know a flamboyant, scandal-prone Texas congressman named Charlie Wilson, who was working with the CIA to secretly funnel billions of dollars to the Afghan fighters. He spent years investigating Wilson's incredible tale, which culminated in his best-selling book, Charlie Wilson's War (2003).
He wrote that the clandestine involvement in Afghanistan by the US was "the largest and most successful CIA operation in history". The book remained on the New York Times bestseller list for months.
George Washington Crile III was born in Cleveland, where his grandfather was a pioneer of modern surgery. His father, Dr George "Barney" Crile Jr, was an outspoken opponent of unnecessary surgery, particularly radical breast surgery. Crile's mother, Jane Halle Crile, died of complications from breast cancer.
He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1968 and also studied at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the Defence Language Institute Foreign Language Centre at Monterey, California. He decided early in life to forsake the family profession, and after meeting publishing executive Walter Ridder at the Washington home of an aunt, Kay Halle, he asked for a job on the Gary Post-Tribune in Indiana. He was promoted to the newspaper's Pentagon beat in the early 1970s.
After a falling-out with Ridder over a story involving a Gary tax assessor, he left the paper and began working as a reporter for Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. He also was Washington editor for Harper's Magazine and had articles published in Washington Monthly, New Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times. He joined CBS News in 1976, where his documentaries included The CIA's Secret Army, which chronicled the story of the CIA's clandestine campaigns against Fidel Castro after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He also produced The Battle for South Africa (1978), which won a George Foster Peabody Award.
In 1985, he joined 60 Minutes, where he produced documentaries on the disintegration of the Soviet Union, civil war in Nicaragua, genocide in Rwanda and the US-Saudi connection, among numerous other topics primarily dealing with international affairs.
His marriage to Anne Patten Crile ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 22 years, Susan Lyne of New York City, former president of ABC Entertainment and now president and chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; two daughters from his first marriage, Katy and Molly; two daughters from his second marriage, Susan and Jane; and two sisters.
George Crile born March 5th, 1945; died May 15th, 2006