Charles Glass

Charles Glass (born November 18, 1951) is an American-British author, journalist, broadcaster and publisher specializing in the Middle East and the Second World War.

He was ''ABC News'' chief Middle East correspondent from 1983 to 1993, and has worked as a correspondent for ''Newsweek'' and ''The Observer''. He writes regularly for ''The New York Review of Books'' and his work has appeared in newspapers and magazines, and on television networks, all over the world.

Glass is the author of ''Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East'' (1991) and a collection of essays, ''Money for Old Rope: Disorderly Compositions'' (1992). A sequel to ''Tribes with Flags'', called ''The Tribes Triumphant'', was published by HarperCollins in June 2006. His book on the beginning of the American war in Iraq, ''The Northern Front'', was published in October 2006 by Saqi.

His next book, ''Americans in Paris'' (HarperCollins and Penguin Press), tells the story of the American citizens who chose to remain in Paris when the Germans occupied the city in 1940. He also wrote "Deserter: The Untold Story of World War II" (Penguin Press and HarperCollins) His most recent book is ''They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France'' (Penguin Press, 2018).

One of Glass's best known stories was his 1985 interview on the tarmac of Beirut Airport of the crew of TWA Flight 847 after the flight was hijacked. He broke the news that the hijackers had removed the hostages and had hidden them in the suburbs of Beirut, which caused the Reagan administration to cancel a rescue attempt that would have failed and led to loss of life at the airport. Glass made headlines in 1987, when he was taken hostage for 62 days in Lebanon by Shi'a militants. He describes the kidnapping and escape in his book, ''Tribes with Flags''.

Personal life

Glass was born in Los Angeles, California, on January 23, 1951, and holds dual US/UK citizenship. Raised as a Catholic, he earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Southern California (USC), then undertook graduate studies at the American University of Beirut.

He lived in Beirut, Lebanon, for six years. He was married to Fiona Ross for seventeen years. He has three sons, one daughter and two stepdaughters and lives variously in France, Italy, Britain and Lebanon. His maternal grandmother was a Lebanese Maronite Catholic from Ehden, and his father's family emigrated from Ireland to Maryland in 1700.

Professional life

Glass began his career in 1973 with ABC News in Beirut, where he covered the Arab-Israeli war in Syria and Egypt with Peter Jennings. He became the network's chief Middle East correspondent, a position he held for ten years, before deciding to freelance. Since then, he has also worked with CNN and the BBC
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