Author Phillip Bonosky, a member of the Communist Party since 1938, died March 2, 2013, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was 96. Known for his labor novels “Burning Valley” and “The Magic Fern,” Bonosky distinguished himself as one of the first U.S. journalists to visit socialist China and one of the few to interview Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. He also was one of a handful to witness the removal of the notorious Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the destabilization of Afghanistan prior to the rise of the Taliban.
In 1981, Bonosky, a journalist for the Daily World, was an eyewitness to America's clandestine war against the Afghanistan government. His book "Afghanistan – Washington’s Secret War," published by International Publishers of New York, is based on the author's personal observation of events in Afghanistan and encompasses a view of U.S. activities there that in hindsight may be recognized as prescient.
