A Murder in Managua .

For Nicaragua's foreign press corps, hazard is a way of life

Arriving at a national guard outpost in northeast Managua, the heart of the fighting last week in strife-racked Nicaragua, ABC Correspondent Bill Stewart sensed it would be safer to approach on foot. Though his van was emblazoned with FOREIGN PRESS signs, he did not want to do anything that might spook the government troops. In one hand Stewart carried his government-issue press pass; in the other, he held a white flag. His interpreter walked several yards ahead, explaining that they meant no harm.

One of the soldiers raised his rifle, and Stewart dropped to his knees. The guardsman motioned to him to lie down and kicked him sharply in the side. Then the soldier stepped back a few paces and calmly took aim, and shot the correspondent behind the right ear, killing him. Out of sight near by, Interpreter Juan Francisco Espinoza was also murdered. The grisly episode was filmed from the back of the van by ABC Soundman Jim Cefalo and Cameraman Jack Clark, who were not molested.

That evening, Stewart's assassination flickered across millions of U.S. television screens, shocking viewers and touching off a series of official condemnations in Washington. In Nicaragua, most of the 97 foreign journalists covering the war protested the murders in a strongly worded letter that they delivered to President General Anastasio Somoza Debayle at a press conference. The letter also assailed the country's only remaining newspaper (owned by the Somoza family) and the government radio station for an "inflammatory media campaign" depicting the foreign press as "part of the vast Communist propaganda network." Wrote the correspondents: "This is a blatant lie. It foments hostility toward us and makes our work even more dangerous than it already is."

Indeed, covering the Nicaraguan civil war has become one of the most dangerous assignments in journalism. Stewart, 37, was the first foreign press fatality in the 19 months of fighting, a providential record considering the grave risks that many journalists have been taking. Snipers, street-corner gunfights and indiscriminate government bombing and strafing are ever present threats. Areas of control shift constantly, and both sides are showing a tendency to shoot first and ask questions never. "This is a war of murder," said U.S. Vice Consul John Bargeron. "Executions are normal. They kill like this every day."

With the fighting spread over a vast area, and with official information either unreliable or lacking, correspondents developed a cooperative news-gathering system of their own. They would venture forth in groups of three or four, attaching themselves to one faction or the other while they witnessed a few hours of combat. At the end of the day, they would return to the Hotel Inter-Continental in Managua, where all of them were staying, and pool what they had seen.

Brushes with tragedy have been frequent. A grenade landed next to Photographer Susan Meiselas but miraculously failed to explode. CBS Correspondent George Natanson was robbed at gunpoint, and Photographer Matthew Naythons was slugged with a rifle butt.

Guard riflemen fired on TIME'S Richard Woodbury and two Associated Press newsmen, despite the fact that their car was covered with press markings. Freelance Cameraman Carl Hersch was driving in the city of Esteli when national guardsmen opened fire without warning; his passengers were wounded. The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, the Chicago Tribune's Mark Starr and two Brazilian reporters escaped a mortar attack on the guerrilla-held town of Leon. In Managua last week, TIME Mexico City Bureau Chief Bernard Diederich and three other reporters were caught in an artillery bombardment as they attempted to keep a rendezvous with Sandinista leaders. Says the Baltimore Sun's Gilbert Lewthwaite: "It's Russian roulette. Everybody is trigger happy. You don't know where your enemy is or whom they're firing at."

With the risks rising daily, about a third of the foreign newsmen, including all but one of the American networks' 24 representatives, were airlifted out of the country late last week. For them, the balance between their job and their personal safety had tipped under the weight of Bill Stewart's murder. Said ABC Producer Ken Lucoff: "No story is worth a man's life."

Early Friday morning, the Inter-Continental's valiant staff abandoned the hotel after the Sandinistas declared it a military target. The remaining correspondents split up into small groups and sought accommodations elsewhere in the city. Fending for themselves might prove more difficult, but it could scarcely be any more tense. They had shared the Inter-Continental with rancorous government officials and pistol-packing Somoza sycophants, who spent their days drinking morosely and blaming the foreign press for their troubles.

At week's end Bill Stewart's body was flown back to Ashland, Ky., his widow's home town, for funeral services. The national guard arrested a corporal for the murder, but he claimed Stewart was shot by a private who was killed in action later that day.

Ironically, the Nicaraguan rebellion erupted into civil war early last year after the assassination of another journalist, Pedro Joaquin Chamarro Cardenal, editor of the opposition newspaper La Prensa. Stewart's death, which has seriously diminished the Somoza government's dwindling international support, may turn out to be equally decisive.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.