Bergen noticed al-Qaeda long before most. Photograph by David S. Holloway/Getty Images.
No journalist has been more closely associated with the life, and now the death, of Osama bin Laden than Peter Bergen. The author of four books on al-Qaeda and its elusive founder, Bergen was also the producer of bin Laden’s first television interview, for CNN in 1997.
Bergen’s latest contribution to the bin Laden chronicles is Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad, which he began after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs last year. Bergen has said that, in a sense, he’s been preparing to write this book ever since he and bin Laden first met in a mud hut in Afghanistan. It’s a mix of old reporting and new, including an exclusive February tour of bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. Bergen was the only journalist allowed inside before the Pakistani government razed the building.
What you won’t find in the account is much sense of how Bergen felt standing in the room where the man he had hunted met his end, with one bullet to the head and another to the chest.
Instead, there’s an emotional detachment, on the page and in person, that’s as conspicuous as the absence of the terrorist mastermind himself. Bergen says he was neither depressed nor overjoyed when bin Laden died; the man is simply gone.
But now the most wanted man in the world is wanted no more, leaving the man who has spent much of his career writing about bin Laden in an unsettling place.
“Is it like being a Sovietologist in 1989?” Bergen joked when we met for coffee in Washington this spring as he wrapped up his book tour. “A bit. Al-Qaeda will linger, but I’m moving on.”
Bergen was heading out the next day for a hard-earned vacation in Germany. Halfway through his quick ten-month reporting and writing of Manhunt, he and his wife, journalist Tresha Mabile, welcomed their first child, Pierre Timothy Bergen.
The author has no plans to leap into new journalistic terrain. He’s still keen on writing about the war in Afghanistan, US-Pakistan relations, the broader Middle East conflict: “I’m interested in the fact that President Obama grew up in a Muslim country. Since the Carter administration, the really big issues all come out of the Muslim world.”
This article appears in the August 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.
Peter Bergen Made a Career Hunting Osama bin Laden . . . Now What?
The author penned four books about the world’s most wanted man, and his future works may stay in familiar territory.
No journalist has been more closely associated with the life, and now the death, of Osama bin Laden than Peter Bergen. The author of four books on al-Qaeda and its elusive founder, Bergen was also the producer of bin Laden’s first television interview, for CNN in 1997.
Bergen’s latest contribution to the bin Laden chronicles is Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad, which he began after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs last year. Bergen has said that, in a sense, he’s been preparing to write this book ever since he and bin Laden first met in a mud hut in Afghanistan. It’s a mix of old reporting and new, including an exclusive February tour of bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. Bergen was the only journalist allowed inside before the Pakistani government razed the building.
What you won’t find in the account is much sense of how Bergen felt standing in the room where the man he had hunted met his end, with one bullet to the head and another to the chest.
Instead, there’s an emotional detachment, on the page and in person, that’s as conspicuous as the absence of the terrorist mastermind himself. Bergen says he was neither depressed nor overjoyed when bin Laden died; the man is simply gone.
But now the most wanted man in the world is wanted no more, leaving the man who has spent much of his career writing about bin Laden in an unsettling place.
“Is it like being a Sovietologist in 1989?” Bergen joked when we met for coffee in Washington this spring as he wrapped up his book tour. “A bit. Al-Qaeda will linger, but I’m moving on.”
Bergen was heading out the next day for a hard-earned vacation in Germany. Halfway through his quick ten-month reporting and writing of Manhunt, he and his wife, journalist Tresha Mabile, welcomed their first child, Pierre Timothy Bergen.
The author has no plans to leap into new journalistic terrain. He’s still keen on writing about the war in Afghanistan, US-Pakistan relations, the broader Middle East conflict: “I’m interested in the fact that President Obama grew up in a Muslim country. Since the Carter administration, the really big issues all come out of the Muslim world.”
This article appears in the August 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.
Most Popular in News & Politics
What It Felt Like for a Virginia Marching Band to Win Metallica’s Contest
What’s IN and OUT in DC Restaurant Trends for 2024
Introducing 8 of DC’s Most Stylish
Best of Washington 2023: Things to Eat, Drink, Do, and Know Right Now
Washingtonian Magazine
May 2024: Great Getaways
View IssueSubscribe
Follow Us on Social
Follow Us on Social
Related
13 Major Concerts and Music Festivals in the DC Area This Spring
Mary Timony on Her Emotional New Album, “Untame the Tiger”
The Beatles in DC: A New Exhibit in Maryland Looks Back on Early Beatlemania
Northern Virginia High School Wins Metallica’s Marching Band Competition
More from News & Politics
These Volunteers Wake Up at Dawn to Collect DC’s Dead—and Injured—Birds
Guest List: 5 People We’d Love to Hang Out With This May
Democrats and Republicans Pass Balls, Not Bills, at Congressional Soccer Game
3 New Memoirs by Prominent Women
Everything You Wanted to Know About Urban Bear Sightings but Were Afraid to Ask, Because Who Wants to Get That Close to a Bear?
Rockville Police Are Searching for Culprits of a $4,500 Pickleball Paddle Heist
Dozens of Vintage Planes Will Fly Over the National Mall This Saturday
PHOTOS: “Rupaul’s Drag Race” Queens Work It at the National Mall