Leslie Kean was formally the full time director of the Burma Project USA, a human rights and media advocacy group, and is the co-author of Burma's Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for Democratic Freedom and Dignity (Aperture, 1994).   In early 1996, she spent over two months in Burma in close association with Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and leaders of her democracy party, many of whom are now in prison. Upon returning, she was interviewed by Dennis Bernstein on . Flashpoints. and began a prolific writing collaboration with him about the serious ramifications of the Burmese junta's decision to use proceeds from Burma's booming heroin trade to fuel the economy.  

Bernstein and Kean's 1996 cover expose for The Nation on this subject  was selected by the magazine's publisher as that years's nominee for the George Polk Award. Kean presented testimony about the junta. s role in the drug trade to the New York City Council and the California State Assembly in hearings considering legislation against Burma.  

Bernstein and Kean's 1997 feature for The Nation, .Singapore's Blood Money,. exposed the Singapore government's business relationships with drug lords from Burma and prompted a response from the Singapore government.  Kean's additional articles with Dennis Bernstein have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world such as the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the International Herald Tribune, the San Francisco Examiner, the Sacramento Bee, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Journal of Commerce, the Globe and Mail, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Kyoto Journal, the Bangkok Post, and The Progressive. 

Kean also co-authored with Bernstein the 1999 book "Henry Hyde's Moral Universe: Where More than Time and Space are Warped" (Common Courage Press). Her essay based on her meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi appears in the book "Stone Soup for the World" (Conari Press, 1998).  

In May 2000, Kean published a story in the Boston Globe about a report from high level French military and space officials called "UFOs and Defense: What are We Prepared For?" Versions of the story, "UFO theorists gain support abroad, but repression at home," have appeared in other US papers, the Irish Independent, and the French magazine VSD.