The red checks on this week's masthead (See Col. 1) are 31 reasons why we feel especially well equipped to tell you what is going on in the Far East these days, and what to expect in the weeks to come. For each of these checks indicates a TIME staff member who has either been a working journalist in the Far East or who has lived there long enough to know it well.

Much of this on-the-spot knowledge has been gained as a result of TIME'S long-standing policy of sending editors and writers out to the newsfronts they write about.

For example, Max Ways, Senior Editor for War in Asia and Foreign News, last year toured Japan, China, Siam, Indonesia. And Foreign News' Sam Welles, an incurable globetrotter, covered 35,000 miles on a recent ten and a half months' Far East refresher trip, interviewing sultans, premiers, generals, schoolgirls, farmers and factory hands . . .

Frederick Gruin (who wrote last week's Malik cover story) was for two years head of TIME'S Nanking bureau, traveled widely in Red-dominated territory reporting the Communist march across China . . .

War in Asia Writer Dwight Martin is now standing by for possible reassignment to the Far East. As a TIME correspondent in Shanghai, Formosa and Hong Kong in 1948-49, he absorbed much of the background for the current crisis . . .

Researcher Yi Ying Sung, daughter of a Chinese jurist, has recently returned from a year's leave of absence in her homeland. Her understanding of Oriental culture and customs has been as valuable to us as her wide knowledge of places and personalities in the news . . .

Bob Sherrod, now military correspondent in TIME'S Washington bureau, went ashore with U.S. troops at Attu, Tarawa and many another Pacific beachhead during World War II. After the war, as senior correspondent in the Far East, he traveled thousands of miles on a roving assignment for TIME, following the news in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. He has almost completed an extracurricular activity--the official Marine aviation history of World War II.

Latest to leave New York for the field is Correspondent Jim Bell, whose first report from Korea you saw in last week's issue.

And that is only seven of the 31 editorial staffers who are currently contributing to TIME their personal and professional knowledge of the Far East. Included among them is Editor-in-Chief Henry Luce, who has made many trips to the Orient (he was born in Shantung Province) and has always been deeply interested in Asiatic affairs.

Cordially,

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