George Crile

Biography

George Crile has been with CBS News since 1976 when he joined the network to produce “The CIA’s Secret Army,” his trail-breaking documentary that chronicled the previously untold story of the CIA’s secret wars on Castro after the Bay of Pigs. In commenting on this broadcast, the historian Henry Steele Commanger wrote that it would go down as one of the most important journalistic reports in American history.

It was the first of a collection of seminal broadcasts in which Crile, based on his original reporting, has taken viewers into previously closed and inaccessible worlds. Among his notable documentary reports are “The Uncounted Enemy, a Vietnam Deception;” and “The Battle for South Africa,” which won a Peabody.In 1985 he joined 60 Minutes where he worked with Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley and Harry Reasoner, producing scores of reports and establishing his credentials as a specialist in the coverage of international affairs. He was on the forefront of covering the disintegration of the Soviet Union and, in collaboration with a Russian counterpart, Artyom Borovik, became the only American reporter ever to gain access to the Soviet’s nuclear empire.

His initial 60 Minutes reporting, revealing the Soviet nuclear command’s willingness to consider a halt to the targeting of America, played a significant role in helping to set up a summit between the US and Soviet Nuclear commanders. His numerous reports from inside the deadly secret worlds of Russia and the United States have appeared on 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes 2 as well as in an hour long documentary he produced and reported for CNN. The Overseas Press Club has twice awarded Crile its Edward R. Murrow Award for these broadcasts.

Crile’s reports include such subjects as Three Mile Island, the changing boundaries of death, judicial corruption in Texas and many more. But throughout the years he has focused primarily on covering crises in U.S. foreign affairs. Broadcast subjects have included reports on:

_ The revolution in Haiti;

_ The Battle over the Panama Canal;

_ US Cuban Policy;

_ The Afghan War;

_ The Contra War;

_ The Sandinistas;

_ General Singlaub and the World Anti Communist League;

_ Prince Bandar and the special U.S. Saudi connection;

_ The African National Congress;

_ America’s Losing War on Drugs;

_ The Search for Archbishop Romero’s murderers;

_ Jonas Savimbi and the US backing of UNITA;

_ The Gulf War;

_ The USS Harlan County Incident;

_ The CIA’s Man in Port au Prince;

_ The Killers of Rwanda;

_ The Unsung Heroes of the US Military campaign in El Salvador;

_ The KGB and the world of Soviet Intelligence;

_ Russia and America’s nuclear arsenals; and

_ America’s Secret Warriors, the Copes Commandos of Colombia.

Since 9/11 Crile has repeatedly drawn on his extensive experience and contacts in Afghanistan,

Pakistan and the Near East to provide breakthrough reports into the worlds of Osama bin Laden and militant Islam.In the late 1980s while covering the Afghan War,he began a process of reporting and research that culminated this year in his best selling book,“Charlie Wilson’s War.” It is the chronicle of a missing chapter in the political consciousness of America - the story of how the United States funded the only successful jihad in modern history - the CIS’s secret war in Afghanistan that

gave the Soviets their own Vietnam.

“Charlie Wilson’s War” has been widely and favorably reviewed and is currently in its 10^th printing. Tom Hanks and his production company have optioned the book and Hanks himself plans to play Charlie Wilson in the movie. Before joining CBS in 1976, Crile was Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. In addition to Harper’s, his articles were published in The Washington Monthly, New Times, The Washington

Post Outlook Section and the New York Times. After the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and Trinity College in Hartford, Crile worked as a reporter for Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson and served as Pentagon correspondent for the Ridder Newspapers in the 1970s.

Crile springs from a line of pioneering surgeons. His grandfather, Dr. George Crile Jr., one of the founders of modern surgery, was the principal founder of The Cleveland Clinic. Crile’s father, Dr. George Crile Jr., was the leading figure in this country in challenging unnecessary surgery, best known for his part in eliminating radical breast surgery.

Crile is married to Susan Lyne, who is the President of ABC Entertainment. He has four daughters and lives in New York City.