A Letter From the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

Though crises and breakneck news are part of a journalist's regular routine, each big story brings a unique quickening, a foretaste of the hard work and challenges ahead. As the biggest Washington story in years broke last week, much of TIME's Washington bureau staff gathered in Bureau Chief Strobe Talbott's office to watch Ronald Reagan announce that funds from Iranian arms sales had been diverted to the contra rebels in Nicaragua. Even as the President spoke, Talbott was on the line to Nation Editor Walter Isaacson, who was watching the disclosures with writers and editors in New York City. Among the most intense watchers: Senior Writer George Church, whose job was to weave the week's events and their meaning into the cover story, his 74th in 17 years.

Part of the task of extracting information from a worried and increasingly besieged Administration fell to White House Correspondents Barrett Seaman and David Beckwith. Seaman found that conducting interviews in the supercharged atmosphere pervading Washington required special vigilance. Says he: "You have to listen carefully to how sources phrase statements, look for body language and be sensitive to signals." TIME's correspondents also spent time on the phone conducting two exclusive interviews, one with President Reagan at the White House by Washington Contributing Editor Hugh Sidey and the other with Vice President George Bush at his Kennebunkport, Me., vacation home by Talbott and Seaman.

From his New York office, John Stacks, deputy chief of correspondents, coordinated TIME's coverage with an eye sharpened by experience as the magazine's Washington news editor during the Watergate crisis. A White House correspondent in 1982, Stacks grew familiar with Reagan's management style. Says he: "Reagan seems to have been in less control of his White House than Nixon was, so it is possible to believe Reagan's denials of involvement. Another difference is that this Administration seems to be moving to investigate itself."

In Santa Barbara, while Reagan spent the Thanksgiving holiday at his California ranch, Correspondent Beckwith interviewed Administration sources. "Their tone was grim," Beckwith reports, "and the overall mood was sad and depressing. Reagan's strength has been as a communicator, yet this time he seems unable to come up with the words that would satisfy people."