One TIME Inc. publication that most of you never see is f.y.i. ("for your information"), an informal, chatty periodical distributed each week to all our employees and shown by many of them to their families and friends, f.y.i. tells of anything and everything from the cleaning of office rugs to major corporate changes. It revises its appearance at will and thumbs its nose at its own precedents. But one of the few features which have appeared year after year is an annual summary of the most notable activities in TIME Inc.

This year's review was a fact-crammed report of changes, innovations and TIME's coverage of the big news stories of 1952. I have written you about some of them in this space, but I would like to borrow from this recent issue of f.y.i. to give you a more complete report on TIME in 1952.

From Mossadegh the Man to Elizabeth the Woman (of the Year), said f.y.i., TIME selected for its cover 42 men, six women, the U.S. taxpayer, the eye of television fixed on the political conventions, the Eisenhower-Nixon combination on the election issue, and Artist Artzybasheff's incredible space pioneer. One cover story, on Adlai Stevenson (Jan. 28, 1952), gave much of the nation its first good look at the man who was to become the Democratic presidential nominee. Inside TIME's covers were special reports on atomic medicine (TIME, April 7), The Fighting, Waiting Eighth Army (TIME, Dec. 22), and human relations in industry (TIME, April 14), for which we have received requests for hundreds of thousands of reprints; concentrated coverage of such major news events as the death of Britain's king and accession of the new queen, the conventions, the election and the campaigns leading up to both, the war against Communism on three fronts in Asia, and bloodless revolutions in Egypt and Cuba.

New features which became fixtures during the year included the Personality section (a more movable fixture, it turned out, than was contemplated at first, when Personality always appeared opposite the People section), News in Pictures, color pages in TIME's Art section, and color portfolios on areas of the world of special news interest. Among them: Sao Paulo, Hawaii, Kentucky's horse farms, French Morocco, Bolivia, the Missouri Valley and four pages of reproductions from Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum.

TIME's U.S. circulation last year stepped up to 1,700,000, and two issues -- April 14 and the Nov. 10 election issue -- reached an all-time peak of 1,750,000 copies. TIME's book. They Went to College, provided the most complete statistics ever published on the U.S. college graduate, and was acclaimed by educators and business leaders. And the American Institute of Management named TIME Inc. one of the nation's ten best managed companies.

Communications were sped up and some hard production problems were licked in 1952. New direct radio-teletype circuits, called Telex, were installed between New York City and London, New York and Paris, and London and Paris. TIME's pre-convention issue, for which the final writing and editing was finished on Monday night, went on sale in Chicago on Tuesday morning, in time for delegates to pick up copies which described what they had done the evening before.

Shortage of office space became an increasingly vexing problem. The Los Angeles business staff moved into a new building only a few hours before plaster in their vacated offices was shaken loose by a mild earthquake. And (as I wrote you three weeks ago) TIME's London staff moved into their new building before the year was over. TIME opened its 14th and 15th overseas bureaus in Madrid and Singapore.

TIME's correspondents often found themselves in exciting or bizarre situations. Alexander Campbell, who covered a large section of the African continent from his headquarters in Johannesburg, sent in the most unusual expense-account items after a trip into the African bush: "one trip to see witch" and "white goat for witch." And Rebecca Franklin received the most unexpected accolade, when Georgia's House of Representatives passed a vote of congratulations on her promotion to contributing editor of TIME.

It was a busy year for TIME and a lively year for the news. And, from all present indications, f.y.i. should have at least as much to report during 1953.

Cordially yours,

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