Of what contemporary readers undoubtedly have no knowledge: that when I joined the United Press in 1944, the agency no longer had any competition in Latin America. UP had swept the field clean: the flagship, of course, was LA PRENSA of Buenos Aires, though in Argentina it also led with all the major provincial papers: La something of Bahia Blanca, Los Andes of Mendoza, Los Principios de Cordoba, etc, And so it also went in every other Latin American country. To the point of almost turning every tour by a UP correspondent, not to mention a New York executive, into something resembling a State Visit by a government VIP. We often were met not only by our correspondents or stringers but by some high government officials, sometimes a foreign minister, as was the case of Central America.
And how not to get a swollen head under these circumstances. After joining The New York Times I would annoy Sydney Gruson, the foreign editor, by telling him that after I had joined the NYT, every time I traveled to Latin America, people would still say, "there comes Raymont of the UP".
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