A Letter From The Publisher: Jul. 19, 1963

One way to see the world is to follow Conrad Hilton about. This is what Andy Kopkind of our Los Angeles bureau has been doing in recent weeks: interviewing his subject on planes, watching him delightedly go through the inevitable ceremonies—a “topping off” in Montreal, hotel openings in London and Rotterdam, groundbreakings in Brussels and Paris—and discovering the precarious world of the newly built. At the London Hilton, Kopkind suffered through a 15-minute elevator ride with Hilton, while the elevator stopped at 25 floors. Something had gone wrong with the mechanism, and once started in its cycle, the elevator had a mind of its own. Hilton was unperturbed; the elevator boy was in tears.

Everett Martin, who wrote the cover story, also had files from correspondents in 32 places around the world to work from, so that this globe-circling hotel empire could be seen in the round. Martin himself spent the summer of 1946 working in Hilton’s Palmer House in Chicago, and once mistakenly sent a letter from the girl friend of a hotel executive to one of the guests. When Hilton came through town, Martin was forbidden to touch the mail. A sound executive decision, Martin now agrees.

This is Conrad Hilton’s second appearance on TIME’S cover. Characteristically, he keeps a copy of the first story (Dec. 12, 1949), framed page by page under glass, in his Southern California home.

WE’RE not quite sure what TIME’S affinity with Ireland is based on —perhaps it is the fact that though our language is English, we are not. At any rate, TIME’S Atlantic Edition has more readers in Ireland per capita than anywhere else in Europe. Last week’s cover story on Prime Minister Lemass quickly replaced Kennedy’s visit as a subject of Irish conversation. News dealers in Dublin and Cork had to put copies under the counter for their regulars, though thousands of extra copies were rushed over from London. It was a great day for the Irish—so much so that when the leader of the parliamentary opposition, whose name was unfortunately not mentioned in the story, took to the floor to accuse the government of being too euphoric about being written up in TIME, the Finance Minister, Dr. James Ryan, answered him: “You are as low as any man can get, talking about a thing like that.”

It would not be Ireland if there were no contention, and disputed judgments. So we rather like the measured praise of the Dublin Evening Herald: “It must be admitted that, except for a rather small dose of shamrockery, which foreign writers on Ireland like to disport themselves with, this is a comparatively objective article—often coming refreshingly close to sensitiveness.”