Reporters on the Job

• Meeting Hizbullah's Leader: The last time that staff writer Scott Peterson interviewed Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was in his office in Beirut's southern suburbs in January six years ago. What sticks in Scott's mind most was the thorough security check – equivalent in the region only to precautions taken if one is going to be in the presence of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mr. Nasrallah's predecessor was assassinated. Israeli jets bombed Hizbullah's headquarters – where Scott did the interview – and Nasrallah's home on July 14, but the militant leader was away.

In 2000, Scott arrived for the interview well in advance. His cameras and tape recorder were taken away while he went through a pat-down search. "Every pen was examined and every notebook thumbed through," says Scott. He then sat talking to Hizbullah apparatchiks in a tiny, overused waiting room.

"Finally, I was ushered through a curtain into a side room , and reunited with my gear," says Scott. He was seated on a stuffed chair in front of a coffee table with the obligatory box of tissues in an ornate plastic container. "Then, Nasrallah swept in, shook hands, and settled down to tell me his view of the world."

David Clark Scott
World editor