FORTNIGHT ago, while telephoning in a report from Algiers, TIME'S Paris Bureau Chief Frank White interrupted himself to announce that gunfire had broken out near by and that he was off to investigate. For White, who foresightedly flew into Algiers as soon as he heard of the sacking of Paratrooper Jacques Massu, the next few days were full of minor irritations, major risks.

To get his story, White shuttled back and forth between the French army and the insurgent barricades, on one occasion was held for half an hour by a band of trigger-happy insurgents who feared that publicity would expose them to ultimate government reprisal. Once he had his story, he faced the communications barriers thrown up by French military censorship, not the least of which was that getting to the censor meant climbing 492 steps.

Thanks to Reporter White's enterprise, the coverage TIME got of the fateful events in Algiers was uncommonly early and informed. Chief of the bureau since 1954, Wisconsin-born Frank White, veteran of wartime service as an officer in Indo-China, speaks fluent French, has drawn on his wideranging acquaintance with eminent Frenchmen to provide TIME with raw material on such cover subjects as right-wing Demagogue Pierre Poujade (TIME, March 19, 1956) and Charles de Gaulle (TIME, Jan. 5, 1959 and May 26, 1958). An old North African hand, he was able to judge last week's Algerian story against the background of his coverage of the last days of French rule in Morocco and of the British-French invasion of Suez.

Together with Correspondent Edward Behr--who arrived in Algiers on the eve of the insurrection after a month-long motor expedition across the Sahara--White supplied this week's Foreign News section with its muscular narrative of Algiers at the barricades and its vivid portraits of the ex-law student, tough cafe owner and religious fanatic who have defied the power of Charles de Gaulle. Taken together with the intimate account of the heart searchings of De Gaulle's government supplied by Paris Correspondents Curtis Prendergast and Godfrey Blunden, the result is a comprehensive assessment of a week in which only the stubbornness and vision of one man stood between France and disaster.

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