A Letter From The Publisher, Sep. 26, 1949

Herewith some news about recent TIME stories you may have read:

A fortnight ago TIME’S International department carried a story about a display of 200 TIME cover portraits in the window of the United States Information Service Library in Prague.

At the request of a Czechoslovakian Foreign Office official, the portrait of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary (TIME, Feb. 14) was withdrawn. Its presence there, said the official, was “an unfriendly gesture to Czechoslovakia.” This week U. S. Press Attache Joseph Kolarek had more to say about the gesture:

“The TIME covers were chosen because they were the only form in which so many pictures of world personalities were available. Czechs see very few pictures of world personalities these days. All they see are behind-the-Iron-Curtain personalities. The exhibit drew more crowds than ever before. We’re not going to protest because this is the kind of minor day-to-day trouble you have running an American library in this part of the world. I’d have to be making protests every other day.”

When the news broke that escaped Russian flier Anatoly Barsov was returning to the Soviet Union, Reporter Anatole Visson, of our Washington bureau, headed for the hotel where Barsov had stayed during his last days in the U.S. Visson, who was born in Russia and speaks five other languages besides Russian, found two notebooks among Barsov’s effects. Visson translated the diary that night, gaining a clean newsbeat for TIME, then turned the notebooks over to the State Department.

Thanks to LIFE Photographer John Phillips, TIME and LIFE had a firsthand news and picture story on Yugoslavia’s beleagured—and hard to see —Marshal Tito in their Sept. 12 issues. Phillips has had the Marshal’s confidence from the time he made a long, grueling march with a Yugoslav Partisan guerrilla column campaigning against the Nazis in 1944. Tito awarded him the Order of Merit. Later, when the Marshal was made “Hero of the Yugoslav People,” Phillips was the only foreign guest among the 24 people at the ceremony. For his part, Phillips says he gave Tito the first can of American beer he had ever tasted.

Word has come from E. Haldeman-Julius, of Girard, Kansas, publisher of the famed Little Blue Books, that TIME’S Press story on him in the Aug. 8 issue produced a fine response. “I must have heard from two thousand people by now,” he said. “People wrote ordering books, sending in manuscripts, asking for racks full of books to sell. I heard from French Morocco, Brazil, and everyplace.”

John Mecklin, TIME’S Ottawa bureau chief, turned in 22,000 words of firsthand reporting for our Sept. 12 cover story on Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. He had two long sessions with St. Laurent (the most time the Prime Minister has given to any publication since taking office), another with ex-Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who fed him tea, toast, and honey made by his own bees.

Mecklin reported that St. Laurent’s record and reputation are so unspoiled that he was unable to find anything unfavorable about him. Even his political enemies praised him. After interviewing 25 people who knew him well — including five cabinet ministers and the porter and housekeeper at his apartment building — the worst that Mecklin could say about the Prime Minister was that he has a quick temper, which he keeps under control. Said Mecklin: “This was very gratifying because up to that point I was beginning to feel somewhat like Lil Abner and One-Fault Jones.”

Cordially yours,