By John A. Meyers

The guns were relatively silent in Beirut last January when TIME published "Children of War," a memorable cover story by Senior Writer Roger Rosenblatt about children who grow up not in playgrounds but on the battlefields of the world. When Israel invaded Lebanon six weeks ago, Rosenblatt returned to Beirut to try to find the children he had interviewed. What he discovered during his search appears in the form of a seven-day journal, part of this week's cover story.

"At a distance, the world seemed so chaotic, I could not imagine what had happened to the children," says Rosenblatt. "But once I saw that they were fairly safe and I would not be able to get to all of them [they were scattered in Syria, Jordan and southern Lebanon], I decided to try to write an impression of the life that had been thrust on them." At one point, Rosenblatt suddenly found himself conducting an unplanned interview with P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat and operating as a war correspondent, which had not been his intent. "The real correspondents are in the front lines of journalism," he says admiringly. "They have to be able to demonstrate understanding and to maintain perspective, all while having their own lives threatened."

TIME Middle East Bureau Chief William Stewart has been in the forefront of Lebanon's firing lines for more than two years. Those lines have now touched his life with uncomfortable intimacy. While reporting to magazine headquarters in New York City from the Commodore Hotel in West Beirut, Stewart got word that his apartment house had been shelled. He rushed home, and amid the piles of plaster and shredded furniture found his prized statue of a 17th century Buddha presiding undamaged over the wreckage. Only one hour before, Stewart had been in the apartment writing his story.

Meanwhile, in another Middle East capital preoccupied with war, Time Inc. Senior Editor Murray Gart and TIME Correspondent Dean Brelis talked for two hours with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It was the first interview he had granted to U.S. journalists in a year. Following the interview, he personally led Gart and Brelis on an extraordinary tour of Baghdad. He took the wheel of his bulletproof Mercedes and, with an eleven-car security convoy in tow, pulled off on a whirlwind adventure. All together, Brelis and Gart spent nearly five hours with Saddam Hussein. Sums up Gart: "It was rather nice and not unflattering for the Iraqi President to be our driver and tour guide."

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