A Letter from the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

Each year since 1927, TIME has selected the person, people or thing that, for better or worse, has most significantly influenced the course of world events in the preceding twelve months. In choosing the 59th Man of the Year, the editors considered such headline makers as Mikhail Gorbachev, the vigorous new Soviet leader; Nelson Mandela, the jailed black South African who symbolizes the struggle against apartheid; Bob Geldof, musical fund raiser for African famine relief; and once again, the terrorist. The editors eventually decided to look beyond the day-to-day news and examine a phenomenon with an enormous potential impact on history: China's sweeping economic reforms, which have challenged Marxist orthodoxies and liberated the productive energies of a billion people. For introducing these far-reaching changes, China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, was made TIME's Man of the Year for 1985.

TIME has written frequently about Deng since he came to power, citing his bold approach in naming him Man of the Year for 1978. Since then, several cover stories have described the spread and effect of his reforms.

A factor in this year's selection was the five-day visit to China last October by the TIME Newstour of civic, academic and business leaders and Time Inc. editors. After viewing some of China's free-market experiments and spending more than an hour with Deng, the tour participants agreed that the country's transformation far surpassed their expectations. Says Senior Editor Henry Muller: "In addition to the physical dimension--the construction and the traffic--we were struck by the openness and pragmatism of the officials we met. They subjected us to none of the ideological rhetoric you get from even the most enlightened officials in the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe."

Under Muller's overall supervision, 33 editors, writers, correspondents and reporter-researchers undertook to describe and analyze the "second revolution" under way in China. The main story was written by Senior Writer George Church, who notes, "Though Deng is the very opposite of an ideologue, we did more pondering of ideology and philosophy than usual in such a story." Church drew on files by Peking Bureau Chief Richard Hornik and Reporter Jaime FlorCruz and Hong Kong Correspondent Bing Wong. Another important contributor was Washington Correspondent and former Peking Bureau Chief David Aikman, who interviewed specialists on China and Marxism in the U.S.

Hornik and FlorCruz provided reporting for Associate Editor Jim Kelly's story on the impact of Deng's reforms on three regions in China, and they also ferreted out biographical details for Associate Editor William Doerner's profile of the Chinese leader. For Associate Editor George Russell's story on reforms in other Marxist economies, Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Kenneth Banta supplied reporting and analysis from Hungary and Yugoslavia. Heading the Man of the Year reporter-researchers was Helen Sen Doyle, who has studied Russian at universities in Leningrad and Moscow.

TIME Photographer Neil Leifer spent 17 days in China and came back with many of the pictures that appear in the main cover story. Special Projects Art Director Tom Bentkowski, who, along with Deputy Art Director Irene Ramp, designed the cover package, commissioned the traditional Chinese characters that represent the one-word titles accompanying the pictures.

For the cover, the editors turned to Artist Robert Rauschenberg. He had previously contributed a self-portrait for a 1976 TIME cover story about him. Rauschenberg, who had been visiting China to supervise a show of his work in Peking and Tibet, met with Art Director Rudy Hoglund in Japan. Says Hoglund: "We thought he would be able to suggest something new and revolutionary for a Deng cover." The artist used his firsthand observation and some of his own photographs to create a collage of images, including a scissors cutting a ribbon to show that something new is opening in China. Says Rauschenberg, who also visited the country in 1982: "Today there is a new spirit, a new curiosity, that was missing three years ago. It is a great beginning."

Richard B. Thomas