TIME'S Publisher Bernhard Auer was in India last week. It was something of an old home week, for Auer as an Army counterintelligence officer lived for two years during World War II in Delhi's Cecil Hotel, which he was saddened to learn has now been turned into a boys' school. Back on familiar ground, he looked up old friends, poked nostalgically about in Delhi's teeming streets and alleys, took his wife to Agra to see that uxorious monument, the Taj Mahal. Publisher Auer is on a round-the-world trip, and so far, he reports, he has found his way paved in TIME covers.

In Honolulu he called on Governor William Quinn, a former TIME cover subject, was briefed on attempts to make the islands' economy more self-sufficient and was surprised to learn that Hawaii is one American state that is thinking of a land-reform program.

Arriving in Japan, Auer called on two recent cover subjects, Ambassador Edwin Reischauer and Industrialist Konosuke Matsushita. Now experiencing what other cover subject have gone through, Matsushita joked that "for the next month I'll set aside five minutes a day to sign TIME covers." Auer visited Matsushita's new TV factory in Osaka, gave him the original coyer painting. Matsushita, bowing appreciatively, wondered whether the portrait made him look younger or older than he really is. Auer decided the moment called for Occidental inscrutability.

Japan's prosperity and its emphasis on quality production pleased Auer, but he was troubled by Japan's lack of political concern about the rest of the world, even about such Asian crises as Laos and Viet Nam. In Formosa, Auer found most government officials still talking of the return to the mainland, but businessmen less so. Touring rural areas to study Formosa's land reform.

Auer thought "a good job had been done raising living standards, although they may be false standards to the extent that they rely heavily on massive U.S. aid.'' He also called on those familiar TIME cover faces, Generalissimo and Madame Chiang. He found the generalissimo fit, energetic and gracious, and eager to hear about the fluctuations of U.N. sentiment on Red China.

Everywhere he went--seeing the tourist sights or the less glamorous slums of Hong Kong; seeing the self-sufficient and happy country of Thailand, where he was startled by big-screen TV sets on the porches of modest canalside Bangkok houses; calling on editors, businessmen and civil servants in India--Auer was impressed by how well our correspondents know their areas, "how quickly they can get you in to see someone--and their knowledge of all the good restaurants in Asia." And he took proprietary pleasure in finding TIME on the newsstands everywhere in Asia, even at tiny and badly lit newsstands on the back streets of Hong Kong. Says Auer happily: "A TIME cover glitters very nicely in the glow of a kerosene lamp."

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