THE movie opens in 1923 and immediately reflects the sepia-tinted, ignorance-is-bliss tenor of that carefree era. There are the flappers doing their frenetic Charleston, the dastardly villains and wistful heroines of the silent screen. Soon a couple of European political upstarts make their appearance: A. Hitler and B. Mussolini. Moving through the Great Depression and World War II, the film traces the ever more sophisticated use of all communications forms--radio, candid camera, wireless photos, TV --to capture the substance and essence of the times.

Smce TIME Began is the title of a 23-minute documentary being shown at Radio City Music Hall during the Christmas season. Charting the highlights of five decades, it describes how TIME as well as other innovative magazines reported on the communications explosion while also contributing to it. Today little happens in the world that the public cannot hear immediately, see within hours, and begin to comprehend within days. When TIME began, in March 1923, this was not so. The film was prepared by our Promotion staff for educational and business audiences. We are delighted that it has proved to be of broader interest than we originally anticipated.

Reporting for this week's cover story on the My Lai massacre was an even more difficult and painful assignment than usual for our Saigon bureau. "A mantle of almost complete secrecy descended on American officialdom in Viet Nam, both military and civilian," cabled Bureau Chief Marsh Clark. Nevertheless, Clark and his staff provided intensive coverage of the events in their area. Correspondent Burt Pines pursued the psychological aspects with doctors and chaplains at U.S. Army headquarters in Long Binh, while Stringer Harold Ellithorpe, a Viet Nam veteran, contributed the comments of Red Cross officials plus his own observations on brutality in the war. Correspondent Bob Anson, bucking stormy monsoon weather, flew to My Lai in central Viet Nam, viewed the rubble of the hamlet, and talked to survivors of the massacre. Clark, meanwhile, in addition to interviewing military officers, spent much time poring over captured documents detailing the elaborate terrorism apparatus maintained by the enemy.

Their files, plus the insights of many other TIME staffers with Viet Nam experience, produced the material for our cover and subsidiary articles. In Nation, Senior Editor Jason McManus assigned the main account of the tragedy to Ed Magnuson, while Peter Stoler and Keith Johnson wrote related stories. Senior Editor Robert Shnayerson and Law Writer Howard Muson dealt with the legal dilemmas involved in bringing the men to trial, and Senior Editor John Elson wrote the Essay on the profound questions of good and evil raised by the tragedy. In addition, Press Writer Ted Bolwell discussed who first broke the story and how.

The Cover: Color-key transfer by Fred Burrell, whose technique of diffusing the photograph through various layers of colored plastic is intended to suggest the mist of horror surrounding the massacre and any who participated in it.

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