Friday, Oct. 10, 1969

LIKE too many other small American communities, rural Surgoinsville, Tenn., has no doctor. When the town's only physician died in 1966, there was no one to take his place; his modern clinic has been closed ever since, and the 5,000 people who live in and around the little northeastern Tennessee community were forced to drive 28 miles to visit the nearest doctor in a neighboring town. Several months ago, the Rev. Robert E. Button, 28, one of a group of citizens who had been searching for a new doctor, saw an advertisement in TIME placed by a junior college that was seeking funds.

Wondering how a school so small could have afforded to pay for the full-page appeal, Button called Robert C. Barr, TIME'S associate ad director in New York, to inquire about the ad. Barr explained that the junior college appeal had been run without charge as part of a special program that TIME began for colleges three years ago. But Barr made Button a sporting proposition: if the town of Surgoinsville could supply the illustration and wording, TIME would run an ad free.

Main Street produced an ad worthy of Madison Avenue. The ad, which ran in several of TIME'S regional editions, showed a child peering through a door window bearing a "clinic closed" sign. Readers were asked to "help Surgoinsville find a doctor"--and, as it turns out, they did just that. The "Surgoinsville Interested Citizens' Committee" (SICK) received scores of responses. Sixteen physicians were among those who wrote, inquiring about setting up practice in Surgoinsville. By last week, the town had narrowed the candidates down to four, and it hopes to have its new doctor soon. "We had no idea that we could unleash such a landslide of publicity and reaction," Mr. Button says. The ad, he feels, also made the "plight of other small doctorless communities a matter of wide public knowledge."

Associate Editor David Tinnin, who wrote this week's cover story on Socialist Willy Brandt, has been following the evolution of postwar Germany since 1949, when he entered the University of Heidelberg. There he studied history and philosophy for four years; along the way, he also won two All-German collegiate track championships (in the 100 and 200 meter dashes)--and a German wife. When Kurt Kiesinger came to power in 1966, Tinnin wrote the cover story on the Chancellor that noted the waning days of the country's postwar era. In this week's story, which was edited by Senior Editor Ronald Kriss, Tinnin examines the opening of a new era for West Germany.

The Cover: Woodcut by Norman Gorbaty. This is the first TIME cover by Gorbaty, 37, who is an associate professor of graphic design at Manhattan's Cooper Union.

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