The man behind that now famous but frightening image, the photograph of a hostage with a gun to his head was born 38 years ago in Princeton New Jersey. Daniel Pearl a bright young man graduated Stanford University with a degree in communications, journalism was his calling. He returned to the north east to begin his career." He was such a sharp kid that you knew he was going places". He joined the Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts in 1988 and won an award for a story the following year." The way he interviewed people and the way he wrote stories made it clear that he was destined for the big leagues." And the big leagues it was, the Wall Street Journal hired him in 1990 and for the last decade he's seen the world. He was first headquartered in Atlanta, then Washington, and then overseas to London, then to Paris where he met his wife Malieanne." We are two people who met and fell in love because we have the same ideal, you know and all my life and all his life and our life together is just a big effort to try to create dialogues between civilizations." His next stop was the Indian city of Mumbai better known as Bombay. He arrived there in December of 2000 and his most recent articles for the journal dealt with the increasing tensions between India and Pakistan. He was in Karachi working on a story about the Islamic militant underground when he was kidnapped on January 23rd.Initially his captors claimed he was an agent for the CIA.
