Obituary - Jim Foley: veteran correspondent and bon viveur

His 26-year career with Reuters began in London in 1967 and spanned postings to Brussels, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Nairobi, Bahrain and Dubai.

An early stint covering NATO gave him a deep interest and expertise in military affairs, later informing his reporting on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - with associated assignments to Pakistan, India and China - and the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

Foley, a big Canadian built like a wrestler, once boasted that his expertise allowed him to identify the class of a Soviet warship from a photo of the top of its mast.

Andy Hill, a trainee in Brussels during Jim's tenure in the early 1970s, remembers a colourful and imposing man who loved life, eating at top restaurants and teasing his colleagues.

"Jim kept a set of dumbbells in the Brussels office," recalls Hill. "He would break often from his latest think-piece on NATO to stand up and flex his muscles with them while looking over the Berlaymont EU Commission building." 

Hill said Jim was "full of mischievous fun" aimed at colleagues - bureau chief Bob Taylor and Tony Winning among others. He told them he was doing "real news" while they were fixed on European Union "trivia". "Tanks, warplanes, guns," he would declaim as a story took shape in front of him. "Real news. Not bullshit."

He also had a serious love of good food. "He liked to drive across Europe to Strasbourg for EU Parliamentary sessions because there was a three-star Michelin restaurant en route whose menu he would recite to me as the countryside slipped by," Hill recalls. "He was the kind of gourmand who would tell you about his dinner plans while he was having lunch."

Foley was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec. After graduating from Toronto's Ryerson University in 1963 he worked for various newspapers in England, joining Reuters in 1967 as a sub-editor and then chief sub-editor.

He was assigned to Brussels in 1973 after Britain joined the Common Market, but he was always more interested in military history than “wine lakes and butter mountains”. He was handed the NATO beat and was correspondent there from 1975-78, with assignments in all alliance states.

A move to Asia followed, and from 1978-83 Jim was chief correspondent Japan, Korea and Northern Pacific based in Tokyo. While there he covered the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with a broad ranging geographic beat.

From 1983-84, he was Editor-in-Charge of  World Desk in Hong Kong, then Special Features and Diplomatic Writer for Asia from 1984-85.

Jim suffered from heart problems but after recuperating from an operation in  London he was assigned in 1985 to Nairobi as chief correspondent East Africa.  From 1986-88 he was Iran-Iraq War correspondent, based in Bahrain and Dubai.

In December 1988, following medical advice, he returned to Canada and retired from Reuters the following year.

He and his wife Myrna spent 15 winters in Ajijic, Mexico. But a few years ago dementia set in and then evolved into severe Alzheimer's.

Jim died peacefully from Alzheimer's and pneumonia. He leaves Myrna, three children and seven grandchildren. ■