George Crile III
Crile in Afghanistan
Born
George Washington Crile III

March 5, 1945
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
DiedMay 15, 2006 (2006-05-16) (aged 61)
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
EducationTrinity College
Georgetown University
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • producer
TelevisionCBS News
60 Minutes
60 Minutes II
RelativesRip Esselstyn (nephew)
AwardsEmmy Award
Peabody Award
Edward R. Murrow Award
American Film Festival Blue Ribbon

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]

Early life and education

Crile was born March 5, 1945, in Cleveland, Ohio.[1][4] He was the son of Jane Murphy (née Halle; 1909–1963) and George "Barney" Crile Jr. (1907–1992).[1] His father was a leading figure in the United States in challenging unnecessary surgery, best known for his part in eliminating radical breast surgery.[1] His mother died of breast cancer.[1] His stepmother was Helga Sandburg (1918–2014), daughter of Carl Sandburg.[3] His grandfather, Dr. George Washington Crile, was a founder of the Cleveland Clinic and a pioneer of modern medical surgery.[1]

He attended Trinity College, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1968.[1] There, he was a member of the fraternity St. Anthony Hall.[5] He also attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the Defense Language Institute's Foreign Language Center at Monterey, California.[1][4]

From 1968 to 1974, He served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a lance corporal.[3][4]

Career

After college, he became a reporter for the Gary Post-Tribune in Indiana and was assigned to The Pentagon beat in the early 1970s.[1] When he left the newspaper, he was a reporter for Washington columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, and was The Pentagon correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers.[1][3]

Crile was Washington editor of Harper's Magazine from 1973 to 1976.[3] He also wrote for The Washington Monthly, New Times, The New York Times, The Washington Monthly, and The Washington Post Outlook Section.[1]

CBS Producer

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]

His broadcast subjects included reports on:

After the September 11 attacks, Crile repeatedly drew on his extensive experience and contacts in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Near East to provide behind the scenes look into the worlds of Osama bin Laden and militant Islam.[3][4]

Crile with Charlie Wilson in Afghanistan

Charlie Wilson's War

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 Statesand its allies—which Crile claimed to have foreseen.[4]

Charlie Wilson’s War has been widely and favorably reviewed and spent months on The New York Times best seller list.[4] It was the basis of the Tom Hanks/Mike Nichols film, Charlie Wilson's War, which was released by Universal Studios in December 2007.[9][10]

Personal life

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]

Crile died May 15, 2006, at age 61 at his home in New York City from pancreatic cancer.[3][1] His papers are housed at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas Austin.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Holley, Joe (2006-05-16). "George Crile III". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2022-03-12.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The George Crile III Papers". Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Martin, Douglas (16 May 2006). "George Crile, CBS Documentary Producer, Dies at 61". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Pace, Gina (May 15, 2005). "CBS Journalist George Crile Dies At 61". CBS News. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  5. ↑ "IFC Faces Extinction; TX Threatens Withdrawal; Rosenberg Resigns". Trinity Tripod. December 12, 1967. p. 1. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
  6. 1 2 Dana, Rebecca (2006-05-22). "George Crile Dies: CBS News Producer, Reported on C.I.A." Observer. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  7. ↑ 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, ISBN 9780231119535 ). 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, ISBN 0195042050 ).
  8. ↑ "60 Minutes II | Dan Rather". danratherjournalist.org. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  9. ↑ "Charlie Wilson's War". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
  10. ↑ Interview on Charlie Wilson's War at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library
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