George Crile III

NEW YORK < George Crile III, the CBS producer who wrote the best-selling book "Charlie Wilson"s War" and produced a contested documentary that said Gen. William Westmoreland deliberately under-reported enemy troop strength in Vietnam, has died. He was 61. Crile, who fought a $120 million libel suit over the 1982 CBS documentary, died Monday of pancreatic cancer at his Manhattan home, CBS News spokesman Kevin Tedesco said. Crile adamantly defended "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception" against Westmoreland"s charges that the broadcast was an unfair and malicious assault on his reputation. The dispute was settled shortly before it was to go to the jury in 1985. Though CBS stopped short of claiming victory, it said at the time that testimony during the 18-week trial had vindicated the documentary. Westmoreland, who died last year, said he was vindicated by the network statement, which called him a patriot. Crile"s book "Charlie Wilson"s War" chronicled the CIA"s support for Islamic mujahedeen fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. It was based on a 1988 profile he produced of Wilson, a former U.S. House member from Texas who used his position on the Appropriations Committee in the 1980s to prod Congress to buy arms for the mujahedeen. Tom Hanks bought the film rights to the book, and a movie version featuring Hanks as Wilson is in preproduction for Universal Studios Inc., according to a statement from CBS News. Crile worked for CBS News for more than 25 years. Among the stories he produced for "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II" were interviews with the wife of deposed Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and reports on Three Mile Island and the Gulf War. Survivors include his wife, Susan Lyne, president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., four daughters and two sisters