WITH this issue, TIME again raises its circulation guarantee--to 2,350,000. Actual circulation is somewhat higher, and this guarantee is for the U.S. edition alone; the four foreign editions of TIME (Canada, Latin America, Atlantic and Pacific) recently passed a milestone when their combined circulation exceeded 500,000.

This is a new high in TIME circulation, culminating an especially strong period of growth in the last half-dozen years. TIME circulation, representing the top group of intelligent readers in America, has paralleled the growth of U.S. college graduates and the rise of the managing executive in U.S. business life.

From its beginning, TIME has attempted to tell the news of the world--of all the worlds of politics and religion, of sport and culture--for the man of affairs. In this peak issue, here is a sampling of TIME'S report of the world last week:

sbSteel and stocks were on the wing, but nothing flew faster than a compact U.S.-built auto named the Lark, which was changing winter into spring for both Studebaker-Packard and the community that houses it. See BUSINESS, All's Right in South Bend.

sbIn the darkness you can hear a swizzle stick drop. Drums. Lights. There stands a slender young Negro, singing the songs of lovers, of slaves, chain-gang workers, saints, sinners and children. He is Harry Belafonte, the best balladeer today and the man on this week's cover. See SHOW BUSINESS.

sbU.S. labor leaders gathered in balmy Puerto Rico for a top-level convention, but one of them kept casting nervous glances back home toward the rank and file in cold, cold Detroit. See NATIONAL AFFAIRS, Duress in the Sun.

sbEngland was in a swivet o'er a nymphet. See BOOKS, Lolita in Tunbridqe Wells.

sbVanguard II carried aloft man's first electronic eye designed to see earth's weather from the outside. For a detailed look at its innards, see SCIENCE.

sbSquash, anyone? Most ladies decline, but for those who play, the U.S.'s best are twin sisters from Boston. What's more, their mother before them was top U.S. champion. For an account of the Howe dynasty, see SPORT.

sbFor the oldest and newest of synagogues, see ART.

sbIn the nearly unanimous opinion of military men, contractors and newsmen who are trying to tell the story of U.S. defense, the man who is supposed to get that story told is the major obstacle to its telling. See PRESS, The Pentagon's Closed Door.

sbFor evidence that the $7 billion-a-year U.S. farm problem has got to be too much even for the farm experts, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS, Stumped Experts.

On the tray before Britain's Harold Macmillan at the Kremlin last week were two bottles of mineral water. One, said Khrushchev, is "good for kidney trouble," the other "a refreshing drink." Macmillan. who would not have minded some vodka, was in Moscow for much more than a drink. See FOREIGN NEWS, The Scout.

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