To answer some of the questions our subscribers have been asking about how TIME gathers, verifies, writes, and distributes its news.

If you had to take off for India--or Sicily--or just England--where would you start looking for transportation ? What permits would you need ? What would you do about inoculations--and insurance--and money?

Right now we have sixteen TIME & LIFE correspondents, editors, writers and cameramen slated for foreign assignment--so multiply your own imaginary travel difficulties by sixteen, and I think you will see why Jack Manthorp has a full-time job here just helping our editors get quickly to where they need to go overseas.

Outside the Western Hemisphere getting anywhere except to England is almost impossible unless the correspondent is officially accredited to the Army or Navy. That means weeks being looked up by the F.B.I., G2, or Naval Intelligence, and then getting cabled permission from the U.S. Area Commander. (For that matter, there is absolutely no way of getting through to most war zones except on Army or Navy ships or planes.)

Before a correspondent can even apply for a passport he must get permission from his local draft board to leave the country--and after the passport comes through the visa rush begins. Manthorp got one correspondent visas for thirteen countries in a single day, but some governments are not so easy. For example, no visa for India is granted without a cabled O.K. from New Delhi, and Portugal is even harder.

Currency regulations change so fast that they always have to be looked up again at the last minute. In Mexico, for instance, you can carry all the money you want-- provided it is all in silver and two-dollar bills. England, on the other hand, set a $50 limit. For most countries the best rule is to take as little cash as possible--but Costa Rica won't take a chance on letting you in unless you have $250. (Incidentally, it is almost impossible to estimate costs on trips like these. Some expense accounts run over $10,000--but Senior Editor Wertenbaker's three months with our Army in North Africa cost only $850!)

Manthorp also helps each man buy the right correspondent's uniform for the climate he will work in (average cost $358). He sees that they get the right inoculations against as many as nine diseases--typhoid, paratyphoid, smallpox, tetanus for everywhere--plus yellow fever and typhus for the South Pacific or Africa--plus cholera, bubonic and pulmonic plague for Asia (the tetanus inoculations alone take 42 days). And through Lloyds of London we take out a $25,000 personal insurance policy for each TIME traveler.

If a correspondent carries a camera, Manthorp must register it with the customs. And the censors must have a look at any printed matter--even dictionaries and travel guides--that our man may want to take along.

Since Pearl Harbor TIME'S correspondents and editors have traveled overseas (see map) on everything from top-speed troop transports to six-knot tankers (some have even gone by munitions boat)--but whenever possible the government tries to grant our request for plane priority. Flying time is remarkably fast in these wartime days. Duncan Norton-Taylor left Australia Tuesday morning, crossed the international date line, reached San Francisco early Thursday. And when Edward Lockett flew in from London last week he had lunch in Scotland--dinner in Iceland --breakfast in New York!

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