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- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
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- In his 44 years as a writer, foreign correspondent and
- editor, Roy Rowan has built a reputation for adventurous,
- penetrating and durable journalism. From his eyewitness report
- of the fall of Saigon for TIME in 1975 to his expose of the
- Mafia's top bosses for FORTUNE in 1986 and an extraordinary
- account in PEOPLE in 1990 of two weeks spent as a homeless
- wanderer on the streets of Manhattan, his stories have
- established Roy as a master reporter, one of the few at the very
- top of the profession who are both unstoppable investigators and
- caring chroniclers of the human condition. This week's cover
- story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 -- the fruit of a five-
- month investigation by Roy -- is the most far-reaching account to
- date of the mystery behind the 1988 tragedy over Lockerbie,
- Scotland. The trail of the story led him through Scandinavia,
- Germany, England, California and Washington, where he conducted
- more than 200 interviews and examined thousands of documents,
- including confidential memos from former U.S. and foreign
- intelligence agents. "This story just kept building and
- building," says Rowan. "Some of the real breakthroughs came in
- the past couple of weeks."
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- Rowan has more than a little experience with strange and
- difficult stories. He joined LIFE as a correspondent in China
- in 1948 and spent, in separate assignments, 15 years in Asia as
- bureau chief for LIFE and TIME in Shanghai, Hong Kong and
- Saigon. He covered the fall of Shanghai, the Korean War, the
- Mayaguez crisis and the fall of Saigon. In between, he ran LIFE
- bureaus in Rome, Bonn and Chicago and was national-affairs
- editor and assistant managing editor of LIFE. Among his many
- accomplishments at our sister publication was a pretty good
- personnel move: he trained a green kid named Henry Muller, a
- Stanford junior, as an intern. Muller passed muster, moved to
- TIME, and is now our managing editor.
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- In 1986, after a spell editing at FORTUNE, Roy retired to
- write books and report a few special stories. He is still a
- close member of our professional family, admired not only for
- his judgment and experience but also for his calm good humor
- and empathy. "The human factor always fascinates me," says Roy.
- "Stories where a corporation or government is trying to stymie
- news coverage, that's a challenge, and that intrigues me, but I
- like dealing with the people whose lives are affected by a great
- drama. As a reporter you have to establish a rapport with
- people."
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- Elizabeth P. Valk
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