Arie Wallenstein acted for 25 years as chief of the Reuters bureau in Israel. He died at the age of 55 of a heart attack during a vacation in Switzerland, 1975.

Wallenstein, known to his friends as “Wally,” was a fifth generation Jerusalemite. He graduated from the Hebrew Gymnasium and went to Beirut to study medicine. But he was attracted to journalism and joined Reuters there in 1944. From 1945 to 1948 he covered the events leading to the establishment of the State of Israel. Wallenstein covered Israel’s four wars with the Arab states and was the only foreign correspondent to witness the execution of Adolf Eichmann.