BADASS WOMEN IN HISTORY SERIES.
The Badassery of Leslie Cockburn
Women who took the initiative and became a leader. The audacity of Leslie Cockburn pt. 1.
If you were to ask me what I thought about past jobs I’ve had I could give you a litany of grievances and endless gripes. After a few strong drinks ask me about past bosses and weird eclectic supervisors I’ve worked under and there’s not a single sob story of mine that even comes close to the job that Leslie had. If given the choice to wear her shoes for a day, I wouldn’t even attempt it. After researching her, not one of my past experiences could even begin to compare to the badassery of Leslie Cockburn.
Lessons learned:
Barge through every door even if you have no business being there.
Leslie Cockburn
Better to ask for forgiveness and get the story than to wait for permission and get denied.
Where to begin with this story:
Not enough can be said of Leslie Cockburn. She literally barged through every door that was available to her. She worked in a field dominated by men and so was expected to do 3 times the work of a man just to stand out to her peers. She often found herself as the only woman in the room and thus, became a curiosity.
Women working for the network were expected to either remain childless, married to the network, or regulated to the office secretarial duties and research pools.
When Leslie became a journalist, she had a taste for danger. While on assignments in dangerous war torn countries, she considered it a privilege to be shot at so she could prove her bonafides to the all boys club that she had every right to be there. She had street cred and was not going to sit idly by as a wilting wall flower.
Origins
Leslie Cockburn came from a family of pioneers who had moved West from Virginia to California in 1865 after the Civil War which had left the family impoverished and defeated.
Granny Mabel Agnew was 14 when she watched San Francisco burn right after the devastating earthquake in 1906.
She told Leslie of her childhood riding her pet giant tortoise across the desert and shooting rattlesnakes.
Granny would be Leslie’s inspiration for travel and adventure.
When you do a piece of journalism, you may have to cut away 95% of what you’re experiencing.
Leslie Cockburn
After graduating from Yale, Leslie cut her teeth in Africa at the age of 18 studying the women of the Akamba tribe in Kenya. The tragedy of that study was that they were losing large swaths of land and territory due to the expansion of Big Game Parks for rich hunters from Europe and America. Ironically, today, we get to see pictures of them posing with their kill as if they had achieved some great feat.
Clandestine Operations
After that, she moved on to journalism covering life behind the Iron Curtain in the Czech Republic. Through her mentor, Irv Margolis, she learned how to establish and finance her own personal smuggling operation to spirit 16mm cameras and canisters of film of video footage of dissidents she interviewed which showed the machinations of brutal authoritarianism.
Total anonymity and secrecy was crucial to this operation who’s operators who shuttled this forbidden cargo back and forth from Prague to London. They were referred to as charter 77.
The operation became so prolific and successful, rumors started circulating that Leslie was a CIA agent. No one seemed to be able to come to grips that it was a woman running the entire operation and that she was capable of being so resourceful and discreet. Everyone seemed to have forgotten all about the highly talented and effective female spies of WW2. One of the most decorated and notorious had an artificial leg who walked with a noticeable limp, spoke several languages, and operated in Italy, France as well as Germany but I digress.
Operation: Afghan Unveiling
This part of her career made me sit up and take notice. Leslie Cockburn and Diane Sawyer hopped on a U.N. chartered jet and went to Afghanistan to cover life under Taliban rule.
And now, in 2023, we have had to witness Afghanistan slide back under the authoritarian rule of the Taliban. We are literally watching history repeat.
Leslie brought this stark reality to our attention:
Soldiers slashed paintings and ancient works of art. Ripped out the magnetic tape of audio cassettes.
Educated female doctors were forced out of their jobs and male doctors were forbidden to examine women so women were often left untreated for a plethora of sicknesses and preventable diseases.
On top of all that, Kabul was called the city of widows. Russia has buried thousands upon thousands of mines to the point that they were stacked on top of one another like tiles. If an engineer found a mine and attempted to remove it, there was more than likely another one underneath that one ready to go off at the slightest disturbances.
400,000 children had been killed in the 18 years of fighting with the Russians
One orphanage they managed to sneak into had over 800 children and only 4 caregivers to run the entire facility.
Talk about misplaced priorities.
Her aim was to use all this information to pressure Washington to censure the Taliban who had been receiving foreign aid, bank loans, rocket launchers, and also wanted a seat at the UN.
They actively opposed Iran and Hezbollah so Washington was more than happy to acquiesce to their demands. Nearly all their footage and interviews with Afghani women and officials would be considered illegal, confiscated by the Taliban and all participants would be severely punished.
Getting all this out of the country was going to be a trick and a half. Not only were the recorded tapes forbidden by the Taliban, but the UN had weird rules about taking videos on their planes as well. Leslie and Diane wore all Afghan garb and had the video cassettes strapped to their bodies under their robes (5 years before 9–11 just to give you a little perspective). Needless to say, the trip back home was beyond awful as they sat uncomfortably with all this contraband footage under their clothes.
Journalism, for me, has always been a calling. There are things that must be exposed to the light, truths that must be uncovered, stories worth risking your life for.
Leslie Cockburn
I could go on and on about the horrific atrocities committed by the US backed contra terrorists down in Nicaragua, or her bizarre meeting with Muammar Qaddafi who was supplying the Irish IRA with weapons but I will end with this, her marriage to her equal partner is what helped propel her further in that quest for truth.
Meeting future husband
Leslie met Andrew Cockburn at a well known nightclub that big name journalists such as David Hockney, Harold Pinter, Antonia Fraser and Christopher Hitchens would hang out at. Andrew was an investigative journalist who specialized in American foreign policy and arms dealing who would go on to write the expose of American dealings with Iran and Israel which encompassed a scheme of selling drugs to buy shipments of arms from Iran to Nicaragua called “Dangerous Liaisons”
Needless to say, this did not endear them to the Right Wing republican fascists of their day.
Making it work
In any marriage, there has to be an agreed cooperation of both persons. Both Les and Andy had high octane demanding jobs that had them hopscotching and criss crossing the entire globe. They spent 70% of their first year of marriage apart from each other. Normally, this would spell disaster for any marriage, but they were both journalists who respected each other and each other’s work.
Our phone bills were equivalent to the gross domestic product of a small country.
Leslie Cockburn
And I couldn’t possibly think of a better way to sum up their success in their relationship and their careers.
Further Reading:
- “Looking for Trouble” Leslie Cockburn
- “Out of Control” Leslie Cockburn
- “Dangerous Liaison” Andrew Cockburn
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, please consider giving me a follow. If you are interested in learning about other badass women would like to suggest one for me to write about, send me a message. Cheers!
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