George Washington Crile III (March 5, 1945 – May 15, 2006) was an American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News.[1] He specialized in dangerous and controversial subjects, resulting in both praise and controversy.[2][3] He received an Emmy Award, Peabody Award, and Edward R. Murrow Award.[3]
Crile joined CBS News in 1976 to produce The CIA's Secret Army, his trail-breaking documentary that chronicled the previously untold story of the CIA's secret wars against Castro after the Bay of Pigs Invasion.[1] It won an American Film Festival Blue Ribbon.[3] Historian Henry Steele Commager wrote that it would go down as one of the most important journalistic reports in U.S. American history.
It was the first of a collection of broadcasts based on Crile's reporting, in which he took viewers into previously closed and inaccessible worlds. Among his notable documentary reports were The Battle for South Africa, which won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award.[3]The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception aired on January 23, 1982, and alleged that General William Westmoreland had purposely underestimated the number of enemy troop in the Vietnam War.[2] Westmoreland responded by bringing a $120 million libel lawsuit.[2][1][3] After an eighteen-week trial, Westmoreland and CBS settled out of court with what the former considered an apology—money was not involved in the settlement, and CBS stood by its story.[3][6]David Boies, representing CBS and Crile, credited Crile’s "unflappable testimony under cross-examination with effectively ending the trial."[6]
Crile was embroiled in another controversy following the 1980 CBS Reports program "Gay Power, Gay Politics", which he reported, wrote, and co-produced.[3] The program focused on gay politics in San Francisco following the assassination of openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978.[3] It was widely denounced as manipulative and dishonest, a view partially upheld by the National News Council, an industry self-policing body not known for its willingness to criticize the networks.[7]
When 60 Minutes II premiered, it included his story on Krasnoyarsk-26, a secret city built inside a mountain in Siberia which had nuclear reactors.[8]
CBS Reporter
In 1985, Crile joined 60 Minutes, where he produced scores of reports with Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley and Harry Reasoner and established his credentials as a specialist in coverage of international affairs.[1] His initial 60 Minutes report, revealing the Soviet nuclear command's willingness to consider halting the targeting of the United States, played a significant role in helping set up a summit between the United States and Soviet nuclear commanders. His numerous reports from inside the deadly secret worlds of Russia and the United States appeared on 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II as well as an hour-long documentary for CNN.[3] The Overseas Press Club twice awarded him the Edward R. Murrow Award for these broadcasts.[3]
In the late 1980s, Crile began the research and reporting on the Afghan War that led to his 2003 best-selling book, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, which tells the story of how the United States funded the only successful jihad in modern history, the CIA's secret war in Afghanistan that was intended to give the Soviet Union their own Vietnam.[1] The support for these jihad leaders was channeled through Pakistan, leading to the creation of a new threat to the United States and its allies—which Crile claimed to have foreseen.[4]
He married Anne Patton, but that marriage ended in divorce.[1] They had two daughters: Katy Crile and Molly Crile.[1] His second wife was Susan Lyne, former President of ABC Entertainment and former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.[1] Their children include Susan Crile and Jane Crile.[1]
^For an account of the program's misrepresentation, see Larry Gross, Up From Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America (Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 50–54, ISBN9780231119535 ). For a critical account of Crile's Vietnam program's bias, see Stephen Klaidman and Tom Beauchamp, The Virtuous Journalist (Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 166, ISBN0195042050 ).
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