From the Publisher

To most of us in the U.S., secret police and high-speed car chases are just the stuff of movies. But not to TIME's Eastern Europe bureau chief Kenneth Banta. They're sometimes a real part of the job of covering a bloc of nations not always known for their hospitality to the press. During one trip to Prague to attend a dissident conference, Banta and his translator were met at their hotel by a pair of dark sedans filled with secret police eager to dissuade the reporters from venturing out. Undaunted, Banta's translator gunned his small Czech-made Skoda down the city's cobblestone streets, one of the cars roaring behind. He finally shook off the pursuers with a neat "FBI turn" -- a screeching U across three lanes of traffic on an overpass.

Banta regularly reports on the rigors of life behind the Iron Curtain, and much of his appreciation for such tribulations comes from his personal experience. Trains with no heat. Telephones often on the blink. Sources too scared of eavesdroppers to talk except in person -- and in private. Even getting into some countries can be a trial. After presenting his perfectly legal visa to the passport officer on entering Rumania, Banta was taken to the departure lounge for the next flight out. But the kindly officer did give Banta enough Rumanian lei to call the U.S. embassy to protest.

An Amherst College graduate, Banta was studying international relations on a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford when he began working for TIME in 1979 as a stringer. After postings in Chicago as a correspondent and in New York City as a writer, he took a leave of absence in 1984 to work as issues adviser for Gary Hart's first unsuccessful presidential campaign. When he rejoined TIME a year later, Banta headed for Vienna, which is home base for his five-day-a- week forays into Eastern Europe.

Soon to trade his beat for London, Banta is sure to keep following the dizzying developments in Eastern Europe. "The pace of change has been extraordinary," says Banta. "Three years ago, Hungarians would laugh bitterly at the notion of free elections. Today they're about to have them." But such extraordinary change has not occurred everywhere. As the kindly Rumanian passport official put it, "I hope we see you again -- if you can come back."