The business of photographing in a war zone carries inevitable risks, and in Lebanon, just about the riskiest war zone in the world, no one takes unnecessary chances or travels any place where the risks ominously outweigh the opportunities. But says TIME Photographer Bill Pierce, "Some days you are wrong. One day last week we were wrong." Pierce, Associated Press Photographer Bill Foley and their Lebanese driver had been headed to get pictures in the Bekaa Valley when Syrian soldiers at a checkpoint about 50 miles northeast of Beirut ordered them out of their car and threatened to kill them as spies.

One officer hit Pierce in the shoulder while a soldier pressed a Kalashnikov assault rifle into his back. Another officer struck Foley in the face several times and leveled a 9-mm pistol at his head. The soldiers severely beat the driver, who suffered a broken finger and thumb as well as multiple bruises. Pierce was bound with wire and taken to a Syrian military headquarters in Tripoli.

Says Pierce: "We were lucky not to be killed before we reached Tripoli. But once there, we were unbound, served coffee and juice and interrogated almost conversationally. After a few phone calls to verify our credentials, we were released, with profuse apologies from the officer in charge." Except for the driver's wounds, the chief regret for Pierce, who won the 1982 Overseas Press Club award for photoreporting from abroad, and Foley, Pulitzer prizewinner for 1982 for his photos of the Beirut massacre (one of which appeared on TIME's Sept. 27 cover in most editions): no pictures that day.

There are no Los Angeles natives, it is said, only immigrants. For the contributors to this week's cover story, the cliche was nearly true: Bureau Chief Benjamin Gate has been there only two years, while Correspondent Steven Holmes transferred from Chicago last year, Alessandra Stanley arrived six months before that, and Joseph Kane came five years ago. Picture Researcher Martha Haymaker has seniority with 15 years' residence. But an exception marks every rule: Reporter Laura Meyers, who turned up statistics more current than the U.S. Census Bureau's, is a lifelong Angeleno. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.