Raymond Bonner
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Raymond Bonner (born 1942) is an American investigative reporter for The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. He has also contributed to The New York Review of Books.
Bonner is best known as one of two journalists (the other was Alma Guillermoprieto of The Washington Post) who broke the story of the El Mozote massacre, in which some 900 villagers at El Mozote, El Salvador, were slaughtered by the Salvadoran army in December 1981.
A Times staff reporter at the time, Bonner was smuggled by FMLN rebels to visit the site approximately a month after the massacre took place.
When the story broke simultaneously in the Post and Times on January 27, 1982, it was dismissed as propaganda by the Reagan administration, as it seriously undermined efforts by the US government to bolster the human rights image of the Salvadoran government, which the US was supporting with large amounts of military aid.
The Times was strongly criticized by the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Accuracy In Media] and the Reagan government for running the story of the massacre. The Times was pressured to pull Bonner from the Central American desk, and then managing editor Abe Rosenthal moved Bonner to the Business desk, and Bonner resigned soon afterward. He continued to contribute as a freelance correspondent, and returned to the staff of The New York Times in 1992, after details of the massacre as first reported by Bonner and Guillermoprieto were verified.
He currently reports from Asia and Australia.
[edit] Personal
Bonner is married to Jane Perlez, former Jakarta bureau chief of the Times.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Agony of El Salvador. New York: Times Books, 1981. ASIN B0007266AY
- Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador. New York: Crown, 1984. ISBN 0812911083 ISBN 978-0812911084
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy. New York: Crown, 1987. ISBN 0812913264 ISBN 978-0812913262
- At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa's Wildlife. New York: Vintage, 1993. ISBN 0679400087 ISBN 978-0679400080
