From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Our colleagues in the newspaper business can be forgiven for occasionally thinking there is something leisurely about putting together a magazine that comes out only once a week. That is rarely true, and it certainly wasn't last week. On Saturday we were ready to go to press in the U.S. and Canada with a cover story on the frightening tide of violence among American youths when we heard news of the massacre in Beijing. Shortly before midnight, with the death toll rising into the hundreds, Executive Editor Ronald Kriss made the decision to change the cover. Then, as if things were not complicated enough, he heard that Ayatullah Khomeini had died in Iran. That story too is in this issue, even though it occurred only hours before the presses were set to roll.

The first alert came from Correspondent David Aikman, a former Beijing bureau chief who had returned there from his present base in Washington to help with our coverage. "The army has made a semi-serious effort to break into Tiananmen Square," he reported. "The police launched a tear-gas attack, and a number of people were injured. Unpleasant incidents are taking place. We saw six people carried off. Huge numbers of bicyclists and pedestrians are in the streets. There is a feeling that a serious move may be tried."

Soon thereafter, Beijing Bureau Chief Sandra Burton, who was with the crowds in Tiananmen Square when the shooting began, reached Assistant Managing Editor Karsten Prager. A strategy for coverage was formulated, with Aikman, Burton and Correspondent Jaime A. FlorCruz alternating between typing out details of the carnage and heading back out to the streets to gather more information. In New York City, Contributor Jesse Birnbaum and Staff Writer Howard G. Chua-Eoan sat down at their computer terminals and began updating the story that Associate Editor Jill Smolowe had finished Friday evening. Picture Editor Michele Stephenson sorted through color photos coming in by satellite, and Deputy Art Director Arthur Hochstein prepared the new cover. Sunday morning, as the sun was rising over Manhattan, we were done.

The story on America's violent youth remains in the magazine. The only element we lost was the arresting collage that Frances Jetter, an accomplished New York artist, was still finishing up at 2 o'clock Saturday morning. That's why, in a break with our tradition, we thought we'd show you the cover that almost made it.