John Fischer Burns, senior New York Times correspondent, in Baghdad in 2003. Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
CAMBRIDGE, England — THE light was fading on the hills above the Arno, and my closest friend in the careworn ranks of foreign correspondents was sitting cross-legged on a canopied Chinese daybed, in a lovely old tree-shaded house in his native village, a brisk walk from the heart of Florence.
