SHAHE GUEBENLIAN, PROMINENT REUTERS JOURNALIST PASSES AWAY

AZG Armenian Daily
The Times (London), April 10, 2007, Tuesday
24/04/2007

Shahe Guebenlian was born in the ancient city of Adana in turkey in
1920. He never lost his roots as an Armenian and like so many in that
community was a talented musician and a multilingual raconteur. He
was taken by his parents to Cyprus aged must 6 months, wrapped, so
he said, in a valuable rug. It was in Cyprus that the family became
British citizens.

Guebenlian was educated at Nicosia’s English School where he learnt
to play the viola and showed a talent for languages. By the end of
his life he spoke six well and had a smattering of three others.

In 1957 he marries Iris Russell, a highly regarded staff reporter for
the Daily Mail. They lived in a part of Nicosia known to the British
Armey as "Murder Mile".

There was so much violence that they had to be careful when they
ventured out and were often in danger. But their home always provided a
haven and lavish hospitality to foreign correspondents and many others.

Guebenlian was a member of the Reuters team that covered the Suez
invasion in 1956 and was involved in reporting much else in the
region. This included the trial, conviction and hanging in 1962 of the
Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who had been located by the Israeli
secret service in Argentina in 1960 and brought to the country in
secret to stand trial for his crimes.

In 1968 he was posted to London as manager for Africa, the Middle East
and later the Caribbean. He was thus in charge of trading operations
for Reuters media and commercial services for a large part of the
world. His final task before retirement was as publicity manager for
the whole company.

But he continued to serve Reuters as a consultant primarily on matters
concerning the developing world.

He was also one of a panel selecting candidates for the Reuters
Foundation, which brought journalists from all over the developing
world to study at universities in Britain, France and the United
States.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress