MOST manufacturers of "name" consumer goods adore publicity for the obvious reason; Polaroid and its president, Edwin Land, have always preferred strict privacy. So it was with a sense of duty rather than hope that Correspondent Philip Taubman began coaxing cooperation from Polaroid last January. It was not until April that Taubman began to make headway. Then he found that the company "was like a virgin who can't decide how far to go on her first serious date."

Scientists and engineers went far enough. They showed Taubman plans and laboratories never before seen by a journalist. He was even dressed in white plastic for a visit to a sterile room where color negative film is coated. Yet the company is so protective of its secrets that Taubman's escort, a Polaroid vice president, was barred from part of one building because he lacked the proper badge.

Land himself remained elusive for weeks, finally giving Taubman less than a day's notice for an interview. The father of instant photography allowed 21 hrs. of conversation--brief by the standard of most interviews with TIME cover subjects, but longer than he had ever spent with a reporter before. Associate Editor William Doerner, who wrote the cover story, had seen Land in his role as business executive addressing stockholders. "Through this interview," says Doerner, "you see a different Land, a lover of photography as art rather than commerce. I take cameras pretty seriously as a hobby, and now I'm better able to understand why."

Last week TIME'S advertising/marketing representatives from round the world met in New York City for the first international sales conference in seven years. The edition of TIME you WILLIAM DOERNER are now reading is one of six--for the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the Atlantic area, Asia and the South Pacific. This year more than 2,000 companies will buy advertising space in the international editions alone, choosing from among more than 100 regional advertising sub-editions in order to reach specific segments of a truly multinational audience; of TIME'S more than 5,000,000 readers outside the U.S., only 10% are Americans.

To help advertisers get full benefit from TIME'S flexibility, our representatives from Melbourne to Montreal to Milan must be as knowledgeable about international marketing, economics and politics as they are about the magazine. So in this week's meetings they exchanged information and ideas not only with TIME'S correspondents, editors and senior executives, but also with a roster of industrial and financial experts and Government officials. One day was spent in Washington, where the group lunched with Treasury Deputy Secretary Charls E. Walker. All of which, I am sure, will help our representatives serve our clients round the world--and ultimately our readers.

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