Christopher Wren, a veteran foreign correspondent for the New York Times and author, died last month at his home in Thetford. He was 89.
Wren spent 28 years at the Times and reported from all over the world. He served as the newspaper’s bureau chief in Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, Ottawa and Johannesburg, according to his obituary. He covered Nelson Mandela’s release from a South African prison, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, and discovered the bodies of an all-female Soviet climbing team who died in a blizzard.
“I thought being a foreign correspondent was the greatest way to make a living because you get paid to satisfy your curiosity and do it overseas on [an] expense account,” Wren said during an interview on Vermont PBS in 2005.
Wren, the son of actors, was born on Feb. 22, 1936, in Hollywood, California. He got an undergraduate degree in English from Dartmouth College, where he also studied Russian. He joined the U.S Army after school, and later earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia School of Journalism, his obituary said.
Wren's career in journalism started at Look magazine and Newsweek. He covered the Civil Rights Movement and made several reporting trips to Vietnam to cover the war, the New York Times wrote in its obituary of Wren.
Wren told Vermont PBS it was an easy choice for him to accept the job to cover Moscow for the Times, though he admitted his family had some conditions.
“Our children said, well, they would go, but they wouldn't leave without the cat,” Wren said.
Henrietta the cat joined Wren’s family as they started what became the first of 17 and a half years overseas. Wren even wrote a book about the family pet — The Cat Who Covered the World.
While his work as a foreign correspondent often took him to dangerous places, Wren told Vermont PBS he was uncomfortable to have the spotlight turned on the risks he faced.
“I had a flak jacket, I had thousands of dollars in a money belt, I had a U.S. passport, I had a newspaper that would try to get me out if I got hurt,” he said. “And the people who I was covering, they didn't have that luxury.”
Wren wrote several other books, including a biography of Johnny Case and an examination of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. He also contributed to Vermont Public Radio’s commentary series.
When Wren retired from the New York Times in 2001, he decided to walk from New York City to Vermont. He wrote a book about the journey and his retirement called Walking to Vermont: From Times Square into the Green Mountains.
“Vermont is a very sexy state,” Wren told Vermont PBS. “If I told people at the Times I'm going to walk to New Jersey, I don't think anybody would pay attention.”
Wren is survived by his wife Jacqueline, his daughter Ceila, and his granddaughters. His son died in 2014.
