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New York Times Correspondent Nathaniel Nash, based in Frankfurt, Germany, died when the plane of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown crashed in Croatia on April 3. Nash, 44, who previously was based in Buenos Aires, was beloved by colleagues.
-Whenever I remember Nathaniel Nash, I think about Sundays in South America. That's the day our paths seemed to cross the most. Seeing Nathaniel on Sundays-with terrorists in a prison interview, with a fishing rod in a stream, or with his family at an outdoor markettaught me more about being a foreign correspondent than any journalism program could have.
The first Sunday we spent together was in 1991, at the fetid prison called La Cantuta in the desert hills outside Lima, Peru. It was visitors' day, and we were going to see the women of Shining Path, the guerrilla group that was terrorizing Peru at the time. We trudged single-file through walkways strewn with garbage, then we entered the one clean, well-organized room in the whole complex-the women's unit.
Picture the setting: a dark cell, a picnic table in the middle, banners with revolutionary slogans hanging from the ceiling, murals of Lenin and Mao on the walls,...