Lester Ziffren, dead at 101

Lester Ziffren, 101, who broke news of the Spanish Civil War as a young U.S. reporter in Madrid, died Nov. 12 at his home in Manhattan. He had congestive heart failure.

I didn't know who he was either, but it's always the same, you find out about someone when's it's too late.

"Ziff" Ziffren was thought to be the oldest surviving reporter for the United Press wire service. He earned a place in the news agency's lore for his Spanish Civil War scoop revealing that army units were revolting against the government.

On July 17, 1936, he used a simple code to defy censors and get word to his editors in London. His apparently scrambled message began: "Mothers Everlastingly Lingering Illness Likely Laryngitis Aunt Flora Ought Return Even If Goes North Later Equally Good If Only Night ..."

The London desk was quick to see the news in the first letters of each word -- the army had launched its fight from Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa.

One of Ziffren's stories said Gen. Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces could easily have taken the capital had their intelligence been better. The report was said to have so angered Franco, soon to become Spain's longtime dictator, that Ziffren's editors in London feared for his safety. The journalist arranged to leave the country with the Mexican ambassador.

Ziffren's journalism career was over, despite the wire service's offers to relocate him. He told an interviewer in 1937: "Even now I have violent nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat. When I start talking about Spain, I start weeping for no reason at all."

In New York, he kept thousands of items of tauromachy -- bullfighting memorabilia -- that included books, paintings and sculptures. His bullfighting infatuation began in Spain and brought him close to Ernest Hemingway as they covered the war. He once wrote that he and Hemingway used to "enjoy fried shrimp and fresh 'bola' cheese washed down with beer."

News story supplied by the The Washington Post