Dear TIME-Reader:

RIO Correspondent Piero Saporiti flew over the Andes for a first, fresh-eyed view of Peru, its economy and policies (see Progress to Prosperity in HEMISPHERE). While in Lima, Saporiti tried a dish called ceviche, which is popular in many Latin American countries. When he asked for the recipe, the cook said, "All you do is take a corvina [a black-finned fish] and leave it in lemon juice for three hours." Saporiti asked: "What next?

" Said the cook: "Next, senor, you eat it."

"And so," our correspondent reports, "I learned that for the first time in my life I had eaten a raw fish--and what's more, I liked it."

HE'S one of the few actors I've known who is literate enough to write," said a pressagent last week backstage at New York's 46th Street Theater. He was talking about TIME'S Roger S. Hewlett, who wrote this week's cover story on GWEN VERDON, star of Damn Yankees.

Out of the Hasty Pudding Club and Harvard in '33, Hewlett went into the Depression-years theater. When he had a job it was usually with GEORGE ABBOTT, Damn Yankees' director. Actor Hewlett played bits and served as Abbott's assistant stage director in Boy Meets Girl, toured coast-to-coast with the Brother Rat road show, understudying Tom Ewell, current Broadway star. In Abbott's Best Foot Forward, Hewlett portrayed a newsman.

In 1940, he quit the theater, did free-lance writing until 1944, when he joined TIME'S staff. Since, he has written 19 covers, six on show business. "I love the theater," said Editor Hewlett, "but I'm glad to be on the outside looking in. I also like to make a living."

OUR direct-mail approach to subscribers, old and new, has always had excellent results. Sometimes they are even amazing. The return, stamped envelopes have brought back keys, rent money, slices of cheese and once, an upper plate of false teeth so dull they could not bite their way out of a paper bag.

Recently, our Subscription Service Department in Chicago received an appeal from Subscriber Russell Stetson of Sharon, Mass. He wrote: "Could you help me repossess a watch which is probably now in possession of a part of your organization? I will then be able to look my son in the eye."

Stetson had placed the watch, belonging to his son, Robert, 14, in a TIME business-reply envelope to take it to a jeweler. Accidentally, the envelope, without return address, got mailed with some letters Stetson was carrying in his pocket. Sure enough, the watch was in Subscription's "Waiting for Missing Owners Dept." Last week Subscriber Stetson was again on speaking terms with Robert: the watch was finally at the jeweler's.

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