A Letter From The Publisher: Aug. 9, 1963

“THE ruling family of South Viet Nam is both long enduring and long talking. Correspondent Charles Mohr has had interviews of five hours at a stretch with President Diem, of two or three hours with Brother Nhu, and for this week’s cover, one five-hour and one three-hour session with Mme. Nhu. The males in the family tend to lecture; Mohr found Mme. Nhu a vastly more fascinating talker. She seemed to enjoy the process, too: “You know, I have told you things I have never told anyone else.” Mohr found her candor both pleasing and formidable, and the evidence is in the cover story written by Contributing Editor Greg Dunne.

Getting other people in Saigon to talk was less easy. Correspondents Mohr and Jerrold Schecter had to resort to odd expedients in a capital caught up in a nasty war, where secret police crack down relentlessly on opponents and where fear is a feeling in the air. To one oppositionist source who dared not see them, they sent a messenger with questions typed on plain paper and got back typewritten answers with no signature.

Hong Kong Bureau Chief Mohr had planned a farewell party for Schecter, who is leaving for a year’s Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. Both found themselves wholly preoccupied with the Mme. Nhu story in Saigon, so the Hong Kong party for 48 guests took place last week without either the guest of honor or the host. But Mohr reassured Schecter (a father of five) that the hours spent with Mme. Nhu would at least leave him well prepared for dealing with “the callow girls of Radcliffe.”

SOME weeks ago, when the Tom Swift craze was making—or ruining—conversation everywhere, we invited readers to get in on the gag by submitting Swifties of their own, either about TIME or about advertisers. We got 15,000 entries. Last week, their senses of humor put to the supreme test, six judges led by punning Publisher Bennett Cerf announced the winners. Among them:

“I feel A-l,” said Tom Swift saucily.

“My camera broke again,” cried Tom Bellowing and Howelling.

“Time is made up of past, present and future,” said Tom tensely.

“I wished I’d used ketchup instead,” Tom said Heinzsightedly.

“I don’t have an air rifle,” said Tom lackaDaisycally.

“Please pass the Log Cabin,” said Tom surreptitiously.

“Please don’t pan American,” said Trippe Juanly.

Enough, said the judges resignedly.