Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:01pm GMT PARIS, June 26 (Reuters)
Thursday 30 June 2011 -
Funeral of Gilbert Sedbon, Cimetière Parisien de Pantin,
164 avenue Jean Jaures, Pantin, France.
Veteran Reuters journalist Gilbert Sedbon, who joined the international news agency in pre-World War Two Egypt and was for decades its diplomatic and aerospace correspondent in France, died on Saturday aged 94, his family said on Sunday.
Sedbon was born in 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt, to a family of Tunisian Jewish origin with French citizenship.
click here to read the article
click here to read more about Gilbert Sedbon
He joined Reuters Economic Services aged 18 to report on the price of cotton, the country's main export, and worked for the company until his retirement in 1982.
His first scoop was about a secret wartime "gentlemen's agreement" between British and French admirals to disarm Force X, a French naval contingent based at Alexandria, without bloodshed to prevent it serving Vichy France and its German allies.
In 1952, Sedbon scored a world exclusive with news of the Egyptian army's coup to overthrow King Farouk after receiving an anonymous telephone tipoff.
International communications were cut but Sedbon managed to intercept the senior army officer who was about to broadcast news of the military takeover. The officer not only helped him write an English version of the Arabic announcement but ordered the military censor to release his story.
Sedbon had a scoop plus a first rate contact: the officer was Colonel Anwar Sadat, later to become president of Egypt.
However, the coup eventually led to his departure from Egypt after the 1956 Franco-British military intervention against the nationalisation of the the Suez Canal.
Sedbon was given 48 hours to leave his home country and go into exile with his wife, Yolande, and their baby son, Eric
After short assignments in Rome and London, he was posted to Paris for three months and stayed the rest of his life.
He covered French presidents from General Charles de Gaulle to Socialist Francois Mitterrand, specialising in Cold War diplomacy and defence in Europe and the Middle East. He was awarded France's Ordre du Merite medal for his work.
Sedbon reported with enthusiasm on the rise of the Airbus, the French-based European competitor to U.S. planemaker Boeing. A familiar face at airshows around the world, he continued to work as a freelance journalist for aerospace and defence magazines after retiring from Reuters.
"He was an exceptionally endearing human being -- frail, loveable, sensitive... and addicted to Reuters to which he devoted 47 years," said Bernard Edinger, a longtime colleague.
His memoirs, "From the Nile to the Seine", were published in English in 2010. He is survived his wife, Yolande, and sons Eric and Thierry.
(writing by Paul Taylor)
Thursday 30 June 2011 -
Funeral of Gilbert Sedbon, Cimetière Parisien de Pantin,
164 avenue Jean Jaures, Pantin, France.
Veteran Reuters journalist Gilbert Sedbon, who joined the international news agency in pre-World War Two Egypt and was for decades its diplomatic and aerospace correspondent in France, died on Saturday aged 94, his family said on Sunday.
Sedbon was born in 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt, to a family of Tunisian Jewish origin with French citizenship.
click here to read the article
click here to read more about Gilbert Sedbon
He joined Reuters Economic Services aged 18 to report on the price of cotton, the country's main export, and worked for the company until his retirement in 1982.
His first scoop was about a secret wartime "gentlemen's agreement" between British and French admirals to disarm Force X, a French naval contingent based at Alexandria, without bloodshed to prevent it serving Vichy France and its German allies.
In 1952, Sedbon scored a world exclusive with news of the Egyptian army's coup to overthrow King Farouk after receiving an anonymous telephone tipoff.
International communications were cut but Sedbon managed to intercept the senior army officer who was about to broadcast news of the military takeover. The officer not only helped him write an English version of the Arabic announcement but ordered the military censor to release his story.
Sedbon had a scoop plus a first rate contact: the officer was Colonel Anwar Sadat, later to become president of Egypt.
However, the coup eventually led to his departure from Egypt after the 1956 Franco-British military intervention against the nationalisation of the the Suez Canal.
Sedbon was given 48 hours to leave his home country and go into exile with his wife, Yolande, and their baby son, Eric
After short assignments in Rome and London, he was posted to Paris for three months and stayed the rest of his life.
He covered French presidents from General Charles de Gaulle to Socialist Francois Mitterrand, specialising in Cold War diplomacy and defence in Europe and the Middle East. He was awarded France's Ordre du Merite medal for his work.
Sedbon reported with enthusiasm on the rise of the Airbus, the French-based European competitor to U.S. planemaker Boeing. A familiar face at airshows around the world, he continued to work as a freelance journalist for aerospace and defence magazines after retiring from Reuters.
"He was an exceptionally endearing human being -- frail, loveable, sensitive... and addicted to Reuters to which he devoted 47 years," said Bernard Edinger, a longtime colleague.
His memoirs, "From the Nile to the Seine", were published in English in 2010. He is survived his wife, Yolande, and sons Eric and Thierry.
(writing by Paul Taylor)
No comments:
Post a Comment