There were 400 newsmen present at the opening of the United Nations organization in New York City's Bronx. They were there to tell readers everywhere what went on as U.N. settled down to work. They were there also to subject the proceedings to the kind of journalistic observation and recording which has become a significant part of the U.S. brand of democratic government.

TIME was there, too; in force, but not in numbers. Covering U.N., now that it has gone to work, is not like covering a national political convention. For that kind of job you need a posse of experienced reporters to keep track of all the fast-breaking, variegated happenings which add up to the selection of a U.S. Presidential candidate. In U.N., however, the debate takes place in front of you among the members of the eleven-man Security Council. A transcript of it is available at the close of each session. What counts is the research and background and the expert knowledge which, together, can unravel the economic and diplomatic snarls of each week's meeting and present them to you as a clear, integrated, dramatic story.

It is not a job for amateurs. A university journalism student could tell you, more or less, what went on at U.N., but what it means is another matter entirely. That is why we have assigned Robert Elson, chief of TIME'S Washington bureau, to cover these important opening sessions. Elson, who was a fledgling reporter at the old League of Nations in Geneva in 1928, has been the cornerstone of our U.N. coverage from the beginning.

With him at the birth of U.N. in San Francisco were Max Ways, now editing International and Foreign News, Anatole Visson, who can get along fluently in six foreign languages, and our Pacific

Coast bureau head, Sidney James. Later, when U.N. reassembled in London for its first formative meeting, our continuity of coverage was upheld by John Osborne, new London bureau head, who, as Foreign News and International editor, had handled the San Francisco copy of Elson, Ways, et al.

Now, Elson's only assistant at U.N. in The Bronx is Visson--but he has a very important function. Russian-born and a onetime European journalist, he has the job of seeing that we get the full drama and feel of the meeting. You have to hear the delegates speak and know what they are saying in their own tongues to catch the full flavor and sharpness of the debate. It also helps to be able to talk to them between sessions in their own languages.

So much for the staff directly representing us at U.N. Those who complete our presentation to you of U.N. and its doings are the International, Foreign News and National Affairs writers, editors and researchers.

Altogether, they illustrate two basic concepts of TIME'S kind of journalism: 1) that news, to be adequately presented, has to be studied deeply before it can be written, and 2) that the pool of knowledge to which our reporters, writers, editors and researchers contribute, and from which they draw, is superior to the information that any single journalist can provide.

Of course to have U.N. operating just twelve miles away from our home office here in Manhattan (see map) saves our writers, editors and researchers a lot of travel time. It is also pleasant to learn that ten of the eleven members of the Security Council read TIME regularly. Although they will undoubtedly turn out to be our severest critics.

Cordially,

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.