It was a measure of Jerry Hannifin's stature as an aerospace journalist that although he was never in the military he was allowed to fly fighter jets and a B-52 bomber.

Hannifin, who died last month in his adopted home of Cocoa Beach, Fla., had the sort of high-flying career most reporters can only imagine. Wistfully, and with a touch of envy.

He was born in Boise and grew up in his family's home at 1111 N. 11th St. His father was the patriarch of Hannifin's Cigar Store, a Downtown institution now beginning its second century. Hannifin had a lifelong love of cigars, but from an early age he loved airplanes even more.

"He was in R.O.T.C. in Boise High School and always wanted to be a pilot," said his cousin, John O'Rorke. "But he couldn't get in the military. He'd lost a kidney from having tuberculosis when he was young."

Instead, he studied journalism and worked briefly at the old Boise Capital News. Hannifin never lost his affection for his home town, but his talent and the call of the Big Story took him far beyond Idaho. He became, among other things, an expert on Latin American affairs and editor of the Spanish edition of Life magazine.

Hannifin was there in 1958 when Fidel Castro led the revolution that overthrew the Batista government in Cuba.

"He spent several days with Castro," O'Rorke said. "He used to send me Cuban cigars while he was down there."

I met Hannifin by mail, early in my tenure as a Statesman columnist. He wrote to comment on something I had written, launching an intermittent correspondence that lasted for decades. By then he was the chief aerospace correspondent for Time magazine.

Tom Trusky, a Boise State University English professor and director of the Idaho Center for the Book, had a similar experience, only his had an element of intrigue.

"He started corresponding with me out of the blue," Trusky said. "I'd been named one of the top professors in the country, and he sent me a congratulations letter. He was a BSU fan and kept up through the alumni publications."

Trusky's interest in arcane Idaho literary history led him to ask Hannifin whether he knew fellow Idahoan and master spy James Jesus Angleton, the Central Intelligence Agency's longtime counter-intelligence chief.

"He wrote back and said he had lunch with him every so often," Trusky said. "I about fell over."

Trusky hoped Angleton could verify a story that he had used his influence to help spare the life of poet Ezra Pound (another Idaho native) when he was imprisoned in Italy during World War II. It took Hannifin's repeated plying of Angleton over lunch before he finally said he'd like to help, but couldn't because people who were then still living could be compromised.

"He never could verify that it happened." Trusky said. "But Hannifin did."

Could Hannifin's association with Angleton have meant that at some point he was associated with the CIA? Or was it just two well-known guys from Idaho having lunch?

We'll probably never know. What is known is that as an aerospace journalist, Hannifin had few equals. He interviewed pioneers from Igor Sikorsky, who developed the world's first fixed-wing, multi-engine aircraft and the first successful American helicopter, to stealth aircraft designer Kelly Johnson. He won enough awards to fill a cockpit, covered dozens of space launches, led a delegation of journalists to space installations in the Soviet Union and lectured at the National War College.

"I think he only missed a couple of space shots," O'Rorke said. "He traveled on the press plane with the president, and Time considered him its aerospace historian. He spent most of his life in the D.C. area, but he never lost interest in Boise. I think he always considered this home. He loved to come here and walk in the Foothills, and he always kept up with what was going on here."

Hannifin corresponded with me off and on throughout much of my career and was gracious enough to write a blurb for my first book of columns. One of my lasting regrets was that we never met in person.

Trusky was luckier. While in Washington for a conference, he was Hannifin's lunch guest.

"He was a sweet guy," Trusky said. "He showed me around and took me to lunch at the National Press Club. My impression was of a professional older gentleman. And it was touching how interested he was in Idaho. He always wanted to know how the cigar store was doing."

My last letter from Hannifin was about a column I'd done on revisiting Lowell Pool, one of my childhood haunts, after many years away. A onetime lifeguard at the Natatorium, he waxed nostalgic about his time there and at Boise High. He ended by saying he was "glad the North End is still there."

He covered space and some of the giants of his time, but a part of him never left the neighborhood of his youth. He personified the local kid with the talent to make it big, and the levelheadedness to value how and where it started.

Tim Woodward: 377-6409