Contra Temps

The Cockburn family has long been distinguished for its tough-minded reporting of political folly. Now Leslie, a news producer for CBS and PBS—and a Cockburn by virtue of her marriage to Andrew— has taken up the pen. As early as 1984, she and her colleagues at West 57th started to turn up stories that made the higher-ups at CBS nervous: "private sector" cowboys running contra armies, shady characters claiming affiliation with the White House, U.S.-government involvement in drug trading. "It was wild," Cockburn remembers. "Even to us it sounded wild." Her new book, Out of Control (Atlantic Monthly Press), is a walk on that wild side of Reagan's Central American policy—as played out in Miami and Honduras, as well as Washington, D.C.

ELISE O'SHAUGHNESSY