Dear TIME-Reader:

TWO good friends on TIME are NATIONAL AFFAIRS Editor Max Ways and London Bureau Chief Andre Laguerre. A strong bond between them is their fond devotion to the ancient, if somewhat occult, science of handicapping. Ways regards Laguerre as the sage of Paris' Longchamp and London's Ascot, while Laguerre considers Ways nonpareil when it comes to picking them at New York's Belmont and Miami's Hialeah. Last week the old friends were getting ready to trade these special fields of endeavor: Laguerre is coming to the U.S. as assistant managing editor of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, and Ways will replace him as London Bureau Chief and senior European correspondent for TIME and LIFE. Max Ways, 50, got his start as a handicapper and journalist in Baltimore, a good race-track and newspaper town. The son of the late city editor Max Ways, who gave H. L. Mencken his first job on the old Herald, young Max cubbed on the rival Sun. By the time World War II started, he was writing editorials for the Philadelphia Record. He served through much of the war with the U.S. Foreign Economic Administration, appraising enemy economies for the chiefs of staff. He came to TIME in 1945.,quickly moved up to senior editor of the INTERNATIONAL and FOREIGN NEWS sections. For the last five years he has been NATIONAL AFFAIRS editor. More than once he left his editor's chair to write, e.g., "Struggle for Survival" (TIME, March 29, 1948), "The Story of an Experiment," in our 25th anniversary issue (TIME, March 8, 1948), and the David Riesman cover (TIME, Sept. 27, 1954) Andre Laguerre, 41, born in England the son of a French father and an English mother, became a baseball buff as a boy in San Francisco, where his father was a French consular official. His devotion to horse racing came later, and so did a broad interest in sports generally. Last winter he covered the Olympic games at Cortina on special assignment for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.

Ways's successor in NATIONAL AFFAIRS is Senior Editor Louis Banks, 39, who has more interest in the sport of Presidents than the sport of kings. Sometime Golfer Banks was a reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner before he went off to war in the Pacific as a Navy pilot. He joined TIME's Los Angeles Bureau in 1945. Later, he was our diplomatic correspondent in Washington, came to New York in 1949 as a NATIONAL AFFAIRS writer.

Cordially yours,

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