Longtime AP correspondent Isaac Levi dies at 76

Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 7:05 AM Posted by Beijing News


MEXICO CITY – Isaac "Nick" Levi, who chronicled Latin America for The Associated Press during a wide-ranging four-decade career, died Friday of complications of pneumonia. He was 76.

Levi joined the AP in Argentina in 1963 and worked there and in Uruguay until 1969. He became bureau chief in Santiago, Chile, covering the rise of leftist President Salvador Allende, before moving to head AP's Lima, Peru, bureau in 1973 as the region was wracked by coups and civil conflicts.

He transferred in 1978 to Mexico City, where he covered more than two turbulent decades in the country's history. Levi documented the lives and deaths of such luminaries as film star Maria Felix, poet Octavio Paz and comic legend Mario Moreno, better known as "Cantinflas."

He also covered Central America and wrote extensively about the brutality of the early days of El Salvador's 1980-1992 civil war.

Born in Cairo on Feb. 22, 1933, Levi completed high school there before moving to Argentina, where he worked as a reporter for the Buenos Aires Herald from 1954-58, and for Time magazine until 1961.

Levi was a constant student, dabbling in literature, medicine, art, aviation and psychology, and that breadth of interests and knowledge was reflected in his stories.

"He was a brilliant writer and intellectual, and a demanding editor," said longtime friend and colleague Susana Hayward, who has covered Mexico for the AP and Knight-Ridder.

Levi remained in Mexico City after his retirement in 2001.







The top of a dandelion seed head is seen in Marysville, Pa. AP/Carolyn Kaster

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