Robert Capa — born a hundred years ago today — was famous as a dashing, brave photojournalist who often put himself in danger. He was a pivotal figure in the history of photography and helped found Magnum before his death covering the French Indochina War in 1954.

But in the last few years, accusations that he set up one of his most famous photos — “Falling Soldier,” from the Spanish Civil War — have tarred his reputation.

And of course he couldn’t speak up to defend himself.

At least until today, when the International Center of Photography released a recently discovered recording of a radio interview made in October 1947 during which Mr. Capa describes what happened when that photo was taken (Audio below).







Mr. Capa says that the “Falling Soldier” photo — taken in Andalusia — came while he was in the trenches with 20 green Republican soldiers with old rifles “who were dying every minute” as they faced a Fascist machine gun. He recounted that there were several bloody but unsuccessful attempts by the Republican soldiers to rush the machine gun nest.

David Scherman

“So the fourth time I just kind of put my camera above my head and even didn’t look and clicked a picture when he moved over the trench and that was all,” he said. “I never looked at my pictures there. And I sent my pictures back with lots of other pictures that I took. I stayed in Spain for three months and when I came back, I was a very famous photographer because that camera which I hold above my head just caught a man at the moment when he was shot.“

The studio recording of the “Hi! Jinx” NBC radio interview was with the husband-and-wife talk show hosts Jinx Falkenburg and Tex McCrary. Apparently, Mr. Capa knew them both. Mr. McCrary was a journalist and, as a former Army Air Corps colonel, led the first journalists into the ruins of Hiroshima.

It is the only known recording of Mr. Capa’s voice, and until its discovery earlier this year by Brian Wallis, the chief curator of the International Center of Photography, there was no way to know what Mr. Capa sounded like, unless one knew him 60 years ago.

Previously one had to rely on the representations of Mr. Capa’s friends and colleagues at Life magazine or Magnum, who sometimes seemed intent on continuing the mythic image that Mr. Capa — born in Hungary as Endre Erno Friedmann — himself created (Audio below). Richard Whelan, his biographer, never heard his voice, though he had searched radio archives for a recording of this interview.







Mr. Wallis learned about this recording quite by accident.

“I had an alert on eBay, for the name Robert Capa, which I usually don’t check,” he said in a phone interview last week. “I happened to look at the e-mail one day and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that this thing actually existed and the starting bid was something like 99 cents.”

Mr. Wallis quickly put in a high bid and the International Center of Photography then bought the recording for about $2,000 directly from the seller, who had acquired it from an estate sale. But to Mr. Wallis, the recording is priceless.

“It’s an exciting interview and you can see why people were drawn to him,” he said. “He’s really sharp, really articulate, and a spellbinding speaker. And it is the only known time that Mr. Capa discussed the ‘Falling Soldier’ in public.”

Robert Capa/International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos

In the interview, Mr. Capa said “the best picture” he ever took was one he never even saw in the viewfinder. When Mr. McCrary said Mr. Capa created his own luck by being in the trenches and throwing himself into these dangerous situations in the first place, Mr. Capa joked that it was one habit he would “like to lose.”

Mr. Capa admitted that he created the persona of Robert Capa, making up the name. The interview also reveals that Mr. Capa was not a reckless war photographer — he knew when to hide.

When Mr. Capa was distressed by reading tepid reviews of his autobiographical novel, “Slightly Out of Focus,” while he was working with the writer John Steinbeck in Moscow, Steinbeck offered sage advice: ignore the review.

“He said first that if I want to be intelligent or something like that I should not read them,” Mr. Capa said. “So I was ashamed and I went into the bathroom to reread my review.”

Robert Capa/International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos

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