By Dennis Wheeler.

BY definition, a study of the urban guerrilla as a worldwide phenomenon is bound to strain the capabilities of the most resourceful journalist. Nineteen TIME bureaus from Los Angeles to Beirut contributed to this week's cover story on the subject. Practically all the correspondents found it a frustrating assignment; primary sources tended to be underground or in jail, or in quick transit from one to the other.

Two weeks ago, while covering the Cross-Laporte case, Montreal Correspondent Vincent Carlin discovered that his best sources were disappearing behind bars. Last week he interviewed Pierre Bourgault, a nonviolent Quebec separatist who had been picked up, interrogated and released twice in one day. Our correspondents in Latin America have been covering the recurring story of kidnaping and terrorism for many months. Searching out Uruguay's Tupamaros is particularly trying, says Montevideo Stringer Eugenio Hintz. "You know all the time that they are around you, and you might be speaking with one without knowing it. You get the confirmation only when someone you know--perhaps well--is arrested."

Mexico City Correspondent Bernard Diederich spoke with the wife of Guerrilla Maximiliano Gomez, who told him of a recent visit to Cuba to see her husband. Then she introduced him to a five-year-old -boy, the son of another guerrilla who had been shot by police. "The casual way she spoke of death," notes Diederich, "reflects just how fanatically committed to their cause these people are."

One odd consequence of the terrorism, reports Rio de Janeiro Correspondent Kay Huff, is that ordinary bank robbers nowadays insist that they are not urban guerrillas, even as they are scooping up the bags of bills and coins. The reason is simple: unlike common criminals, terrorists face the wrath of Brazil's steel-fisted military. Much of TIME'S reporting of guerrilla activity in the Arab world is the work of Beirut Correspondent Gavin Scott, who last week interviewed Skyjacker Leila Khaled in a Palestinian refugee camp. "She proved as fast in conversation as she apparently is on the draw," says Scott. "Which is not to say I would particularly enjoy conversing with her at 34,000 feet."

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The story was written in New York by Timothy James, with contributions on the U.S. scene from Ed Magnuson, and edited by Ronald Kriss. The accompanying box on Carlos Marighella's guerrilla manual was written by Katie Kelly. Sara Medina, Marion Knox and Genevieve Wilson provided research.

The Cover: Graphic design by Dennis Wheeler.

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