April 20, 2004
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.-Steve Coll, the managing editor of The Washington Post and author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004), will speak about "The Secret Hunt for Bin Laden" on Tuesday, April 27, at 7 p.m. in the Amherst Center For Russian Culture (Webster Hall, second floor) at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Office of the President at Amherst College, Coll's talk is free and open to the public.
A foreign correspondent and editor for the Post since 1985, Coll became managing editor in 1998. He previously edited the Washington Post Magazine, wrote features for the Style section and covered finance from Wall Street. Coll received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism (with David A. Vise) in 1990, for coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the time of corporate takeovers and the 1987 market crash.
As a foreign correspondent, Coll covered India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal in the three years after 1989, becoming the Post's first international projects and investigative correspondent, based in London.
Coll's previous books include The Deal of the Century: The Break Up of AT&T (1986) The Taking of Getty Oil: The Full Story of the Most Spectacular--& Catastrophic--Takeover of All Time (1987), Eagle on the Street: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Account of the SEC's Battle With Wall Street (with David A. Vise, 1991) and On the Grand Trunk Road: A Journey into South Asia (1993).
Coll has a B.A. degree in English and history from Occidental College in Los Angeles.
###