Here's a posting a bit out of historic sequence.

The above slideshow is built from photos we shot in the Spring of 1989 in the capital city of San Salvador. We were shooting a segment for the long-defunct CBS news magazine, West 57th.  The 17 minute segment we wound up producing correctly predicted that within months and in spite of Bush 41 assertions that the guerrilla movement was dead, the Salvadoran FMLN insurgent had in fact expanded from the countryside into the city and would soon launch a major offensive.

A few months later, in November 1989 that's exactly what happened. It was a decisive fight that proved the war was stalemated and eventually led to a UN-brokered peace settlement.  Both sides de-escalated and democratic reforms were imposed.  As history would have it, the FMLN was elected to the presidency of El Salvador in late 2009. Funny how things work.

There's also a sort of tragi-comic story behind this slide show.

In 1988, as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor TV show, I conducted the first on-camera interview with then FMLN guerrilla commander, Joaquin Villalobos.  There's a gigantic story embedded in that adventure that I will tell in a later posting.  Anyway, our 1/2 hour exclusive show was a big hit. PBS saw it and gave our team a chunk of change to go back to El Salvador and shoot more footage for an eventual 60 minute version of PBS Frontline.

That was also a big hit and by then our team left the Chri Sci Monitor. So we pitched an update to CBS who bit and more or less our same team went back to shoot the West 57th segment. Richard O'Regan was our producer. I was Field Producer. And the intrepid "KB" -- Karen Burnes-- was our correspondent.

So we get back to New York to edit this exclusive behind-the-scenes story of the Salvadoran guerrillas preparing a major offensive right in the country's capital.  It was pretty radical stuff for network TV and KB did a great job of drafting the final script.

Our segment airs and basically asserts that Reagan-Bush counter-insurgency policy in El Salvador was an abject failure. Which it was.

The next day, my contract was literally expired and I was preparing to come back home to L.A.  I'm sitting at O'Regan's desk when the phone rings and some arrogant voice on the other end identifies himself as Mr. X,  the then-V.P. of CBS News. I'm saying to myself "Sorry, pal. You can't fire me because my contract is already up."

In a curt tone, Mr X says: "Is this O'Regan."

"No. This is Marc Cooper," I answered.

"Oh," said the CBS official. "Did you work with O'Regan on that piece last night?"

"Yes. I was the field producer and I wrote the script," I said, untruthfully, trying to protect my friends from their imminent dismissal.

"Oh. Wonderful," said the CBS Veep. "Just wanted to let you guys know that was the best damned piece we've ever done on the Sandinistas."

I thanked him and didn't bother to point out that the Sandinistas were in Nicaragua and our piece was about El Salvador.

Later that day the Foreign Editor of CBS News rejected our proposal to do the first-ever full-length interview with Ayatollah Khomeini. He didn't speak English, you see, and subtitles or dubbing would be too tedious for the office.

We also learned that day that West 57th, which was a Yuppie version of 60 Minutes, was being canceled. The show was being replaced by Connie Chung's Eye to Eye.  Remember that?

Man,those CBS guys were smart.