• U.S.

From the Publisher: Jan 8 1990

2 minute read
Louis A. Weil III

James Wilde’s presence in revolutionary Rumania last week surprised none of us: after all, the foreign correspondent is hardly a stranger to bloodshed and chaos. In 30 years with TIME, Wilde has reported on wars from Viet Nam, Africa and the Middle East. During the war in Biafra in the late 1960s, when the eastern part of Nigeria tried to secede, Wilde not only came under frequent ground fire but was strafed by Nigerian jet fighters as well.

One of his most terrifying moments, though, came not in some far-off jungle but in New York City in 1981 when he was interviewing a 14-year-old mugger known as “Baby Love.” “When I held out my hand to say goodbye, the kid drew a Magnum on me,” Wilde recalls. “I told him if he killed me, he wouldn’t get into TIME.” “Right on, Mr. James, right on,” said Baby Love and put the gun away.

Born in Ottawa, Wilde began his career with TIME in 1959 in Indochina. He has since roved from Saigon and Paris to Nairobi and San Francisco, and is currently a senior correspondent based in Rome. One of Wilde’s most memorable stories was a 1983 cover on the death penalty. He wrote so gripping an account of what it felt like to sit in an electric chair that the first paragraph of his story was printed on the cover itself. Occasionally, his travels around the world have proved to be somewhat disorienting: when he was covering a kidnaping in California in 1976, a rental agency refused to provide a car for him since he was carrying only a driver’s license from Zaire.

Over the years — maybe because he has led so charmed a life — Wilde has developed a deep interest in religion and has garnered a museum-quality collection of Buddhas and crucifixes. Wilde, says assistant managing editor Richard Duncan, is a “very spiritual man.” Duncan recalls that when the correspondent left for an assignment in Africa some years ago, he expressed his special feelings for the continent. “What I love about Africa,” Wilde said, “is that God is in the air over there.”

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com