A Letter From The Publisher, Aug. 3, 1959

To be able to sum up, analyze and assess the news, TIME’S writers and editors need a superior brand of energetic reporting from their correspondents. Some examples of reporters at work for stories in this week’s TIME:

IT was quite a week for Charlie Mohr, TIME’S White House correspondent. He had to rush away from a reception at the home of the Vice President of the U.S. one evening so that he would not be late for dinner with the President. Two days later he flew from New York to Moscow in the Boeing jetliner that set a new speed record. There he dogged the steps of Richard Nixon, was so close at hand so much of the time that at one point in the historic “kitchen summit” at the U.S. exhibition, Nikita Khrushchev swung around, mistook Charlie for an official member of the party, and heartily pumped his hand in fine Nixon-Kefauver fashion. After filing his reports for the cover story in NATIONAL AFFAIRS, Correspondent Mohr cabled somewhat apologetically: “I have had only six hours’ sleep in the last 52 and have to knock off for a while.”

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TIME Correspondent George de Carvalho arrived at Rio de Janeiro’s Central Jail to cover the capture of slippery Financier Lowell Birrell, and found the police studying earlier TIME stories on Birrell, easily convinced them that he should be allowed to interview the prisoner, who put on a tie for the occasion. De Carvalho’s exclusive interview aroused the ire of Rio newspapermen, none of whom had been allowed to see Birrell. But like newsmen everywhere, they did not let professional jealousy stand in the way of a story, reproduced TIME articles and besieged De Carvalho for more details.

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WHEN TIME’S Calgary correspondent Ed Ogle headed down the Mackenzie River on assignment for this week’s report (see THE HEMISPHERE) on the Canadian North, he was touring a familiar beat, where he is the most widely known reporter from “outside.”‘ Within the last year Ogle has gone north of the Arctic Circle three times. This time he missed one of his planned stops, reported: “I had no luck getting into Tuktoyaktuk. I hired a seaplane, but storms blew ice into the bay so that no landing was possible. I finally landed ten miles out in the Arctic Ocean, then was unable to get ashore when the canoe coming out to get me was swamped in heavy seas.” In his richly detailed file on “The Great Tomorrow Country.” Reporter Ogle made it easy to get along without Tuktoyaktuk—until the next time.