To bring you the election results, this issue of TIME has gone to press about 36 hours late. In spite of this, a good many of you will receive your copies on time anyway.

TIME'S weekly editorial deadline is Monday night and was not designed for full coverage of national elections, which always fall on a Tuesday. To meet this situation, two pages of National Affairs were left open when the rest of this issue was closed on Monday night. By 4 a.m. Wednesday a special staff of editors, writers and researchers was on hand to write the election stories.

At that point all but 16 pages of the magazine had been printed. The printing and production schedule called for a final O.K. of the election copy by noon Wednesday, with the first copies of TIME leaving the printing plants by 5 o'clock that night.

To get these copies to newsstands and subscribers as quickly as possible, our traffic department had rearranged all of its schedules. Copies from our printing plants in Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles were to go to the most distant points by special airlift. For example, copies for Spokane would leave the Chicago plant at 9 p.m., arrive in Spokane via Northwest Airlines plane at 9:44 a.m. Thursday, be sped by special truck to newsstand distribution centers, and go on sale at the newsstands before noon.

With speeded distribution by plane, train and special truck, few of you should suffer more than a slight delay in receiving this election issue.

As the first shots were being fired in last week's attempted assassination of President Truman, TIME Photographer John Zimmerman was approaching the corner between Blair House and the White House grounds in a car with other news photographers.

They were ready to accompany the President to a dedication ceremony at Arlington Cemetery. Luckily, Zimmerman had his Rolleiflex camera hanging around his neck. Most of the other photographers had stowed their equipment in the trunk compartment. When what sounded like "firecrackers" proved to be gunfire, Zimmerman hit the street, arriving at Blair House in time to make a shot of one policeman falling to the pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue. He was the first photographer to get his camera into action. Not far behind him were Reporters Win Booth and Ed Darby, of TIME'S Washington bureau. Darby, who was returning from lunch with White House Secretary William D. Hassett, saw people running toward Blair House, leaped from Hassett's car and got to the scene just as the firing stopped. Booth, who was also on his way to cover the Arlington ceremony, was entering Lafayette Park in front of the White House when he heard the shots. He sprinted to Blair House and, while a policeman inspected his credentials, asked a bystander what had happened.

"They've broken into Blair House," she said calmly."They've killed the President and seven secret service men."

Within 15 minutes of the time the first shots were fired TIME Inc. had nine reporters and photographers on the scene. This was due to good luck and a telephone call to our office from a security officer in the old State Department building across the street from Blair

House. He reported that there were two or three dead bodies in front of Blair House and that shooting was going on. Bureau chief James Shepley ordered all available reporters to the scene. For Zimmerman's pictures, see National Affairs; for the press story, see Press.

Cordially yours,

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