Often as not, those who cover world news have to scramble for a train or a plane when a big story breaks. But last week when the smoldering dispute between the Shah of Iran and his conservative Muslim foes erupted into a major international crisis, TIME happened to have the right men at the right place at just the right time.

Anticipating the worst, Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott and Cairo Correspondent Dean Brelis had arrived in Tehran two weeks ago. The Iranian capital was already astir; nearly all of the Cabinet ministers that Talbott had been scheduled to see were gone, fired by the Shah. But Talbott found no shortage of political leaders to interview in neighboring Pakistan; they were alarmed by the plight of the beleaguered Shah and the possibility of Soviet intervention. Brelis, meanwhile, went off to the Iranian city of Qum, seat of the restless Shi'ite sect, for talks with rebelling Muslim leaders.

When the violence in Iran's major cities worsened, Talbott and Brelis rushed back to the capital. By Friday, as dusk fell and a martial-law curfew threatened to cut off communications from their base at the Tehran Hilton, they gathered up their voluminous notes, typewriters and a store of candy bars for quick energy, and then headed for the nearby home of TIME'S Parviz Raein, where a telex was available. While Raein's wife, Sarieh, brought sustaining rounds of coffee and yogurt, the three men worked through the night, filing a barrage of reports to New York.

Next morning, after badly needed shaves and a quick change of clothing, the three men capped their journalistic marathon by heading for Saadabad Palace and an audience with the Shah. Though arrangements for the session had been made a week earlier, before the clashes in Iran's streets, the monarch kept his appointment with the three TIME representatives. For 90 minutes, over cups of tea, he answered their questions calmly, yet with obvious melancholy.

In New York, the files from Tehran were assembled by associate editors Marguerite Johnson, who wrote the cover story, and William Smith, who helped prepare the accompanying stories. The effort, as Talbott noted, showed "how TIME uses the close collaboration of its correspondents and editors to bring a major late-breaking news event into quick and sharp focus."

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