Juan J. Walte is a professional journalist who worked for the newspaper USA TODAY for 21 years as member of the editorial board, deputy foreign editor, military affairs correspondent and international or foreign correspondent. He is completely fluent in English and Spanish, and fluent in German. Walte retired from USA TODAY in March 2003 and has since done bilingual (English-Spanish) contract work (translations, copy editing, proof-reading) for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and AARP for its bilingual (Spanish-English) bimonthly magazine Segunda Juventud. Walte joined USA TODAY shortly after it was founded on Sept. 15, 1982, and his assignments included covering Latin American affairs (where he reported from most of the countries in the region, including Cuba on at least a dozen occasions); U.S.-Soviet security and military issues during the Cold War; the first Gulf War as Pentagon correspondent; and U.S.-Europeans relations (including the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the end of communism in East Germany and the former Czechoslovakia). Before joining USA TODAY, Walte worked for 17 years with United Press International (UPI), reporting from Caracas, Venezuela; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, D.C., mostly on U.S.-Latin America affairs, and also as State Department correspondent. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism and his first job was with the English-language newspaper The Daily Journal of Caracas, Venezuela. He is a graduate of a high school in San Miguel, El Salvador, and also attended a middle school for three years in Bad Godesberg, Federal Republic of Germany.