Khrushchev's report "On the Personality Cult and its Consequences" (known as the "Secret Speech") and being aware that a Reuters journalist planned to file the story once outside of Russia, he sought verification from the Soviet Communist Party, arguing that it would be better a sympathetic journalist such as himself to tell the story than for it to be first reported in the capitalist press. He was told, however, that "just because you are a friend doesn't mean you can look in our cupboard." He later said that despite his having filed a 12-page report to his London newsroom, only a few paragraphs appeared in the paper. As foreign editor, Lesser was based in London but reported from Nigeria, where he covered the 1960 independence celebrations, and from Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, where he conducted a five-hour-long interview with Che Guevara. Guevara told him that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, Cuba would have retaliated against perceived aggression from the United States by firing on American boats and cities. In 1963 he published a pamphlet on the execution of the Spanish Communist politician Julián Grimau entitled Murder in Madrid, which sold over 5000 copies. Lesser later reported from Prague during the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, of which he was critical; and from North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Lesser was in Chile during the 1973 coup d'etat, his report of which began "I saw democracy murdered in Chile by a rabble of Rip van Winkle general and admirals recruited by the CIA to impose a savage military dictatorship on a people which had seen and welcomed the dawn of a new era". Tribune's obituary for Lesser named his 1973 report from Chile as "possibly his finest hour – a great testament to his reporting skills and political commitment." He also reported on the beginnings of a new democracy in Spain following Francisco Franco's death in 1975. During his career with the Daily Worker and Morning Star, Lesser held the positions of home reporter, diplomatic correspondent, Moscow correspondent and foreign editor. He retired in 1984 at the age of 69, but continued contributing articles to Seven Days, the Communist Party's own weekly newspaper. Personal life Lesser's younger brother Frank also served in the International Brigades, and preceded his older brother as Moscow correspondent for the Daily Worker after the Second World War. While in