Word: hannifin
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Macoy asked "Tacho" Somoza, who does control Nicaragua, just what part of the story wasn't true. "Oh, that stuff about me getting some money to pay somebody. That all came from the opposition, but I don't mind. Hell, when they (TIME Correspondent Jerry Hannifin) told me about doing a story, I said, 'Why bother about me? I'm a friend of the United States.' But they said they needed the story, so I said go ahead. Hell, that's a lotta propaganda - didn't cost me a penny...
...preparation for the story Correspondent Hannifin covered the ground thoroughly before undergoing the first of several interviews with Tacho, whom he found "a very tough and sentimental character, able and articulate under questioning, with what is undoubtedly the most calculating, retentive, audacious, and coldest mind in the Caribbean area." Before each interview Tacho would say: "Ask me anything, anything you want; I am opening my heart. Of course, I'm only a farm boy, not a politician...
Being a farm boy himself (from Idaho), Hannifin got along fine. Knowing that the Dictator was accustomed to censoring personally all outgoing cables about himself (in order to delete embarrassing copy and to see what others were saying about him), Hannifin typed out his copy and filed it from San Salvador, where censorship applies only to stories about El Salvador. There were no deletions and Hannifin, who by that time was "about the color of the background of Chaliapin's portrait of Somoza," went to the hospital with a severe attack of jaundice, answering the editors' remaining queries...
Actually, the photograph very nearly failed to reach TIME'S Costa Rican readers. The censors held all copies of the April 5 issue at San Jose's airport and they were released only after TIME Inc.'s Central American correspondent, Jerry Hannifin, had protested successfully to the Government. Thereafter hundreds of reproductions of the picture and caption began to appear. They are still selling throughout Costa Rica for about 22? apiece. For many Costa Ricans, who framed the picture and hung it in their homes, it was the first time they had seen a photograph of Figueres...
After the rebels had won their five-week war, Hannifin retired to Mexico City for a rest and, recently, sent us an account of his coverage. Some excerpts...