4-625: Christopher Robbins (19 November 1946 – 24 December 2012) was a British writer and journalist. He is best known for his 1978 bestseller Air America , a non-fiction book which was made into a film in 1990 . It is about the secret airline run by the CIA for covert operations during the Vietnam War . Christopher Robbins was born on 19 November 1946, in Bristol, where he grew up and attended Taunton School . A gifted schoolboy, he started working for free on
8-800: Is a 1978 non-fiction book by journalist Christopher Robbins . The book is a history of Air America , an airline covertly owned by the United States Central Intelligence Agency from 1950 to 1976. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, Indochina had been the landscape of major drug and military operations, conducted by many actors including European and communist countries. When US military involvement started, costs rose and new resources, especially for covert operations, were needed. Air America's pilots flew dangerous missions, those no one else would fly, frequently under enemy fire. Many missions were in fact aid-oriented missions to provide logistical support and food to allies who were fighting
12-672: The Evening World and then the Evening Post . At the age of sixteen he won a talent competition and become "junior jazz critic" for The Daily Telegraph another Bristol local newspaper. He later specialized in investigative work—especially about the CIA—writing pieces for the Observer Magazine . During the 1970s, prior to the publication of his bestseller, Robbins was just a freelance journalist, unable to pay off all his debts or pay
16-706: The rent. In 2008, In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land that Disappeared (also published as Apples Are from Kazakhstan ) won the Dolman Best Travel Book Award . Another book of his, The Empress of Ireland won the Saga Award for wit . Robbins wrote for many newspapers and magazines both in Europe and the US, spending most of the last years working as a journalist and scriptwriter. He died of pancreatic cancer on 24 December 2012. Air America (book) Air America
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