Tim winer is one of the few journalists ever to have won both a pulo surprise and a national book award. His first foreign assignment was covering the overthrow of the filippino dictator ferdinand marcas. When weiner came back, he convinced his editor to send him to afghanistan where the c i a was then secretly funding the muja haddin in their battle against the soviet occupation. Why didn't he want money because he said that he was doing this for his conscience, to make up i was an act of expiation,.