From The Publisher: Apr. 27, 1992

IN HIS 44 YEARS AS A WRITER, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and editor, Roy Rowan has built a reputation for adventurous, penetrating and durable journalism. From his eyewitness report of the fall of Saigon for TIME in 1975 to his expose of the Mafia’s top bosses for FORTUNE in 1986 and an extraordinary account in PEOPLE in 1990 of two weeks spent as a homeless wanderer on the streets of Manhattan, his stories have established Roy as a master reporter, one of the few at the very top of the profession who are both unstoppable investigators and caring chroniclers of the human condition. This week’s cover story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 — the fruit of a five-month investigation by Roy — is the most far-reaching account to date of the mystery behind the 1988 tragedy over Lockerbie, Scotland. The trail of the story led him through Scandinavia, Germany, England, California and Washington, where he conducted more than 200 interviews and examined thousands of documents, including confidential memos from former U.S. and foreign intelligence agents. “This story just kept building and building,” says Rowan. “Some of the real breakthroughs came in the past couple of weeks.”

Rowan has more than a little experience with strange and difficult stories. He joined LIFE as a correspondent in China in 1948 and spent, in separate assignments, 15 years in Asia as bureau chief for LIFE and TIME in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Saigon. He covered the fall of Shanghai, the Korean War, the Mayaguez crisis and the fall of Saigon. In between, he ran LIFE bureaus in Rome, Bonn and Chicago and was national-affairs editor and assistant managing editor of LIFE. Among his many accomplishments at our sister publication was a pretty good personnel move: he trained a green kid named Henry Muller, a Stanford junior, as an intern. Muller passed muster, moved to TIME, and is now our managing editor.

In 1986, after a spell editing at FORTUNE, Roy retired to write books and report a few special stories. He is still a close member of our professional family, admired not only for his judgment and experience but also for his calm good humor and empathy. “The human factor always fascinates me,” says Roy. “Stories where a corporation or government is trying to stymie news coverage, that’s a challenge, and that intrigues me, but I like dealing with the people whose lives are affected by a great drama. As a reporter you have to establish a rapport with people.”