Henry Raymont

Henry Raymont

Henry Raymont, a Washington newspaperman, has lived in Berlin since August 2003, after working for over half a century as a journalist in South America, Europe and the Middle East as well as in the United States.

Having grown up in Argentina, where his parents emigrated from Germany in 1936, he joined the United Press bureau in Buenos Aires in 1944. Three years later he was sent to Norway on an assignment that enabled him to expose an illegal scheme that would have brought a group of Quislings--collaborators with the Nazi regime--to Argentina to start a whaling enterprise for the Peron regime. The government had already acquired a huge whaling factory from Britain named "Eva Peron" but the plan was foiled when the Norwegian authorities withheld their passports.

After a tour of duty in UP's London bureau Raymont went to New York where he worked the overnight desk for Latin America while attending courses in the humanities at Columbia University's School of Gneral Studies and an opera workshop at the Juilliard School of Music. The following year, 1949, he obtained a fellowship to study and teach at Indiana University's School of Music. Two years later he joined the United Press bureau in Washington where he became UP's diplomatic correspondent for Latin America. In that connection he traveled extensively across the continent, interviewed heads of state and foreign ministers. He also covered all major inter=American conferences. In 1955 he traveled five weeks with Vice President Richard M. Nixon to Cuba, Mexico and Central America.

He was also assigned to cover the U.S. tours of Presidents Luis Batlle Berres of Uruguay; Arturo Frondizi of Argentina; Juscelino Kubitschek of Brazil and Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala of Colombia.

In Havana he was arrested and sentenced to be shot after telephoning the first flash reporting the Bay of Pigs invasion . Premier Fidel Castro later conceded that the arrest and reported threat of a firing squad had been "a very bad mistake, because we would never have shot an American journalist and given the U.S. an excuse to invade us".

Raymont continued to retain his interest in Latin America when he joined The New York Times in 1962, after spending a year at Harvard University, having received a Nieman Fellowship, a prestigious journalistic award, for his coverage of Cuba. He returned to New York in 1966 and married to Wendy Marcus, the press aide of Lady Bird Johnson. After another stint at the Washington bureau of the Times, he joined the Metropolitan staff of the paper in New York where he covered publishing news on a world wide basis. In 1973 he left the Times to live and write in Mexico where his daughter was born. Two years later he was appointed director of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Organization of American States to develop a strategic plan to renew and expand the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Prior to his current position as a visiting professor at the Lateinamerika-Institut at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin, he taught at American University in Washington, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. For several summers he was invited to chair a seminar on Latin America at the Aspen Institute in Colorado. Prior to his current position at the Lateinamerika-Institut at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin, he taught at American University in Washington, and lectured widely at the New School for Social Research and New York University in New York City, Vanderbilt University, University of California at Berkeley.

For several summers he was invited to chair a seminar on Latin America at the Aspen Institute in Colorado. advisory group focused primarily on Latin America and the US Hispanic Sector. Previously, he was always, and continues to be, an enthusiastic mentor and supporter of liberal arts students and musicians, particularly in Latin America. In 1957 he instituted a fellowship program to bring young Western Hemisphere musicians to the Casals Festival of Puerto Rico. Among those who subsequently developed distinguished professional careers were the pianists Anton Kuerti, Lee Luivisi and Malcom Frager, the violinists Arnold Stainhardt and Michael Tree, the cellists Adolfo Odnosopoff, Edgard Fischer and Carlos Botto.

Before joining the Freie Universitaet, Henry Raymont was a Visiting Professor at the History Department at American University where he taught several summers. Prior to his move to Germany he had spent several years as editorial adviser to the Fondo de Cultura Economica in Mexico and teaching at the Communications Department at Hebrew Universitgy in Jerusalem.

In addition to being a Board Member at the Overseas Press Club of New York and the American P.E.N. Club, Henry has also been on the Cultural Advisory Council of the Inter-American Development Bank and a guest speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations and numerous other academic and professional groups.