Dear Time-Reader Reproductions of the photograph below with its accompanying caption have been circulating for weeks in Costa Rica, land of good coffee, good climate, beautiful women and, recently, civil war. When TIME'S editors wrote the caption and ran the picture in our April 5 issue, the war was on between Rebel Leader Figueres' men and the forces of a Communist-dominated Government whose Congress had annulled the recent presidential election won by Newspaper Publisher Ulate. It had obviously not occurred to the editors that their work might become a symbol of rebel hope for the Second Republic.

Actually, the photograph very nearly failed to reach TIME'S Costa Rican readers. The censors held all copies of the April 5 issue at San Jose's airport and they were released only after TIME Inc.'s Central American correspondent, Jerry Hannifin, had protested successfully to the Government. Thereafter hundreds of reproductions of the picture and caption began to appear. They are still selling throughout Costa Rica for about 22-c- apiece. For many Costa Ricans, who framed the picture and hung it in their homes, it was the first time they had seen a photograph of Figueres and Ulate together. The original photograph was taken by an American woman resident of Costa Rica last fall and released to TIME and the Associated Press.

After the rebels had won their five-week war, Hannifin retired to Mexico City for a rest and, recently, sent us an account of his coverage. Some excerpts:

"The war was three days old when the Government slapped on a tight censorship, meanwhile telling everybody that the fighting would be over in a couple of days. The Chicago Tribune's aggressive, indignant Jules Dubois filed a piece on Communism's part in the Government and was promptly sought in our hotel by four soldiers toting submachine guns. They told him he was under hotel arrest and that the Government could not be responsible for his safety.

"It was more or less the same with all of us from that time on. The Government tried in every way--censorship, threats, violence--to prevent honest reporting. The United Press's Ed Thomas sent a short message that the rebels had captured Puerto Limon and was immediately visited by an angry little man who gave him twelve hours to leave the country. For sending a story that the rebels were winning (which they were), the Panama Star & Herald correspondent was jailed. He had to leave the country under protection of the Panamanian flag.

"When Figueres took Cartago, the Government canceled the international plane flights and our last communications link was gone. A member of the rebel underground pressed a note into my sleeve promising uncensored use of Tropical Radio's transmitter at Cartago, Figueres' provisional capital. So I borrowed a jacket and a pair of hiking shoes and, with a Tropical Radio telegraph operator, lit out over the mountains for Cartago.

JOSE FIGUERES guide got us safely Second Republic." through the Government lines and, after 30 perspiring, anxious miles, we ran into a rebel patrol. It was like old home week. The patrol leader was a former Ohio college student. He gave us some warm milk sweetened with sugar and sent us on to Figueres' headquarters. There I met a Louisiana State University graduate who was Figueres' best machine-gunner and, so help me, the red-bearded Puerto Limon garrison commander was a classmate of mine at the University of California. (All three, of course, were Costa Ricans.) California '42 and I celebrated with fresh coconut juice, remarking that you certainly meet the most unexpected people in insurrections." James A. Linen

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