WHEN Washington Correspondent Hays Gorey began calling on Jack Anderson to interview him for this week's cover story in the Press section, there was no need to get acquainted. They first met 25 years ago when both were young newsmen for the Salt Lake City Tribune. Their contact then was slight, but, says Gorey, "when I came to Washington for TIME in 1965, the first telephone call I got was from Jack Anderson. He had heard--he hears everything --that I had arrived, and he wanted to take me to lunch."

They met frequently after that when Anderson made hour-long monthly visits to the Gorey household. He came not to talk politics or scandal, but religion. Anderson is a lay teacher for the Mormon Church, responsible for keeping in touch with a number of Mormons in the neighborhood, and Mrs. Gorey is one of them. Last

week the circumstances were radically different. Supersnoop Anderson, suddenly a controversial celebrity, required close scrutiny by Correspondent Gorey.

Having known his subject for so long, Gorey was well-equipped to report on Anderson's psychology as well as his journalism; what motivates the complicated columnist is an important element of our coverage of him. Beyond that, says Laurence Barrett, who edited the story, "we set out to critique his performance and analyze his techniques. When you're writing about someone in your own business, there is always the danger of being unconsciously partial to his side of the argument.

In the case of Anderson, there is no problem. He has become a public figure, a contestant in the arena who almost demands to be judged on his views and record."

The evidence came from many sources. While Gorey interviewed Anderson at home, in his office and in the Chinese restaurant of which the columnist is part owner, TIME correspondents in Washington and elsewhere sought evaluations of him from fans, foes and other muckrakers. With these reports in hand and four years of Anderson's columns at his side, Associate Editor George Church wrote the story. "I have read enough scandal," said Church, "to doubt the probity of every passer-by I see." Reporter-Researcher Georgia Harbison checked the article for accuracy and compiled a sidebar on Anderson's record of coups and fluffs.

Appropriately, our coverage of an expose artist this week is complemented by an exclusive news story of our own that appears in the Nation section. Chicago Correspondent Ted Hall obtained a lengthy--and salty--interview in Denver with Dita Beard, the woman who, because of Jack Anderson, may be the most famous lobbyist in the U.S.

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