The 'desaparecido' who bounced back

Enrique Jara was a dynamic editor of Latín, the ill-fated regional news agency set up by Reuters and Latin American newspaper publishers. Bursting with ideas and witticisms, he once compared a Central American stringer to a parking meter - “you have to keep feeding him with coins or he will not function.”

But he seemed lost when he arrived in Mexico City without his luggage which had been mislaid by the airline. I offered to take him shopping for essentials. Very embarrassed, he said: “I do not know my size. My wife buys all my clothes.”

A few years later I took him to lunch in Madrid while he was on holiday. Through the journalists’ grapevine I knew he had been jailed and tortured by the Argentine military regime. Quiet and withdrawn, he seemed to have lost his ebullience. He did not talk about his time in prison and I did not press him.

I was glad to see him bounce back, helped by his loyal friend Peter Job, to become head of Reuters TV. ■