A Letter From The Publisher, Dec. 8, 1947

Early last month John Snedaker, TIME-LIFE International’s Cairo office manager, was feeling fine. As the man responsible for getting TIME branch-printed each week for distribution to 16 Middle Eastern countries, he had dispatched copies of TIME to members of the U.S. Congressional Armed Services Committee, newly arrived in Cairo from a tour of Europe. They had responded by expressing surprise and pleasure at finding the current issue of TIME awaiting them at their hotel.

A fortnight later Snedaker was deep in the kind of trouble that he—and TLI—have grown used to. This time it was that ancient ravager, cholera. Egypt’s efficient efforts to control the epidemic produced a web of anti-cholera regulations which extended to nearby countries. Snedaker felt their effect when the plane carrying the films from which TIME is printed was ordered to avoid Egypt. Substitute films, rushed from the U.S. via London, arrived just two days before issue date.

Fortunately, all of Snedaker’s pressmen were on the job—thanks to the U.S. Embassy, which helped supply vaccine, and to a private physician, who administered inoculations at the printing plant. Unfortunately, one of the two presses (“the big, automatic one, of course”) chose this inopportune moment to break down. By working the smaller, hand-fed press all night, Snedaker and his staff had TIME on the newsstands and in the mail a day before issue date.

At that juncture Snedaker’s troubles multiplied. The anti-cholera regulations had ruined standard bus, train and plane schedules; service from Egypt to many countries was discontinued. To ship TIME to Beirut, for example, copies had to be moved from Cairo by truck over the desert to Kantara on the Suez Canal, ferried across the Canal and dispatched by train over the Sinai desert to Haifa, passed through troubled Palestine in a private car, over the mountains of Lebanon and along the Mediterranean coast road into Beirut, from which they could be airborne to Middle East subscribers and readers.

Having overcome this and other transportation problems, Snedaker had to meet still another: fear that a magazine from Egypt would transmit the cholera vibrio. To clear up this misapprehension, Egypt’s Ministry of Public Health satisfied itself that a cholera vibrio could exist no more than three hours on a diet of TIME — or any other periodical. This fact was duly spread by the Egyptian press, and TIME continued to move over the Egyptian border by special truck — giving the vibrios plenty of time to expire.

In the midst of these complicated arrangements Snedaker received an unexpected setback: the Egyptian government confiscated the residue of TIME’S Oct. 27 issue because the cover story on India had carried a picture of Mohamed. Repercussions had extended throughout the Moslem world, one of whose basic tenets is that no likeness of the Prophet may be reproduced, and protests had been made to the Egyptian government because the likeness had been permitted to appear in a magazine printed in Egypt. Snedaker explained that TIME’S editors had meant no offense to Islam.

During the ensuing working out of all these complications, an express letter (equivalent to U.S. special delivery) arrived from a Middle East reader. He had taken TIME’S latest Current Affairs Test and wanted to know — by return express letter — the answer to one question: ”Who was Harvey’s pal for the summer?” If he won his bet, it meant “a free night at Tommy’s bar” (favorite wartime hangout of British officers). Twenty minutes later the correct answer (Cinemactor Jimmy Stewart) was on its way, together with best wishes for having won his wager. At that point, Snedaker and his staff felt that it might have been appropriate to join him.

Cordially,