Dear Time Reader: One of the great continuing stories of our age is the discovery and development of nuclear power. It is one of the most challenging subjects that reporters and editors have ever had to face in their responsibility to present the facts--facts that in this case affect each and every one of us.

Week after week, from the announcement of the first atomic bomb, TIME has given its readers the continuing story, including six full-length cover stories on the subject and the men involved. As security permitted, we reported the progressive picture--from the Manhattan District period through the awesome news that the U.S. had developed and tested a hydrogen bomb, that Russia had done the same and the U.S. no longer held a monopoly. At every stage TIME editors kept TIME'S readers well informed on this confusing atomic-hydrogen age.

Two TIME men who played a major part in this area of reporting are Washington Bureau Chief James Shepley and Correspondent Clay Blair Jr. Month after month they pursued the story of nuclear and thermonuclear energy. Research for TIME stories led through the long halls of the Pentagon, the Atomic Energy Commission, the byways of the National Security Council, the White House and Congress. It was a continuing report on the men, the science, the strategy and the politics involved. Some stories were short, some full-length cover stories, on men such as AEC Chairmen Lilienthal, Dean and Strauss, on Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and a cover story on the H-bomb itself (TIME, April 12).

Shepley and Blair a few months ago took on a spare-time project: editing and condensing into book form the reams of research they had compiled in their work on these previous TIME stories. When the manuscript was finished, the book publisher followed the usual procedure of offering serial rights to magazines. David Lawrence, editor of U.S. News & World Report, promptly bought the pre-publication serial rights for the readers of his magazine, and ran a condensed version of the book last week--a solid tribute to the accuracy and vitality of TIME'S reporting.

This week the Shepley-Blair book (The Hydrogen Bomb; 244 pp.; David McKay Co., Inc.; New York; $3) was published--one more entry in the long list of books authored by TIME writers who gathered their material while reporting the news for you.

Cordially yours,

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