Lara Logan, a swimsuit model in her native South Africa, will become CBS News's leading foreign correspondent. While people have muttered about her looks, Logan has also proven her courage in the field.

Some excerpts from the NYT story:

Since joining CBS News as a correspondent in 2002, Lara Logan has been periodically told that her relentless knack for gaining access to dangerous places is reminiscent of a young Dan Rather or Mike Wallace.

In 2003, for example, viewers of a segment she reported from Afghanistan for the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes" saw the horizon suddenly turn upside down as a military vehicle ferrying her and a cameraman was upended by a roadside mine. ...

In November 2001, for example, Ms. Logan, then a correspondent for the British morning show "GMTV," managed to infiltrate the upper ranks of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, where she gained exclusive interviews at Bagram Air Base with General Babajan, a commander.

Writing in The Spectator, one of Ms. Logan's rivals, Julian Manyon of the television network ITN observed, "Some of our jealous competitors have unkindly suggested that the unique access we have hitherto enjoyed to Bagram has less to do with my journalistic talents than the considerable physical charms of my traveling companion, the delectable Lara Logan of GMTV."

He added that Ms. Logan "exploits her God-given advantages with a skill that Mata Hari might envy."

Over a recent lunch in Manhattan, during a break in her coverage of the Saddam Hussein trial, Ms. Logan said, "There isn't a journalist alive who won't admit to you they use every advantage they have."

In that respect, she said, she was no different from the generations of male reporters who had employed various means to ingratiate themselves with the military. "Some guys come from a military background, and they'll use that," she said. "Some guys are very sporty, and they'll play on the sporty thing."

"As a woman, I have lots of advantages you don't have," she told a male interviewer. "I can be vulnerable. Usually you don't have to do anything. Men do it to themselves. They feel like they want to protect you." ...

If there is an aspect of Ms. Logan's work that has long given her bosses pause, it is that she occasionally appears fearless to the point of recklessness.

"She takes her fearlessness to the point that it possibly puts her life in danger," Ms. (Liz) Clarke (an editor and family friend) said.

It is an assertion that Ms. Logan, when asked about her war reporting, does not necessarily dispute.

"I think you're not really thinking about being afraid," she said. "For me, I'm just so happy to be there, in that situation. It's so fascinating. You get a view into life that you wouldn't otherwise have. That's what you're thinking."