AFTER being interviewed by TIME'S Ruth Mehrtens Galvin, the late author John P. Marquand likened her probing technique to psychoanalysis. The comparison was twice apt. Galvin strives to get behind her subject's fac,ade, and she has long been interested in the behavioral sciences. These qualities made her an obvious choice for a principal role in establishing our Behavior section three years ago. As our national Behavior correspondent, she has contributed to most of the major stories the section has run. Virginia Adams was also a charter member of the department, first as its researcher, then as its writer. This week's article on protean Psychiatrist Robert Coles is the fifth Behavior cover story on which Galvin and Adams have worked together.

Coles' work has fascinated Galvin for some time. When she began the Behavior beat, she crisscrossed the country consulting psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists on stories as varied as the special problems of the aged and the newest theories on sex. "The name that kept coming up again and again," she recalls, "was that of Robert Coles. It was the byline on magazine articles everywhere, and experts in a variety of fields were interested in his writings." Galvin got to know Coles as well as his ideas and, with Adams, decided that he was an excellent cover subject. "Coles," says Adams, "does what we also try to do--to tell what people are really all about and how they come to be the way they are."

Coles' productivity as a writer (13 books, including four this past year, and over 350 magazine articles) provided weeks of reading for Galvin, Adams and Reporter-Researcher Nancy Newman. Interviews with Coles' colleagues and acquaintances filled out the picture of the man and his scholarship.

"Before I met Bob Coles," Galvin admits, "my first assumption was that anyone who was that easy to understand must be doing superficial work. I quickly realized it was just the opposite: he could make things clear because he knew the subject inside and out."

In the Dec. 20 issue, TIME mentioned 36 college football stars as the most likely prospects to be chosen first by the professional teams. Last week the players--and our Sport Section--faced their day of reckoning in the annual football draft. They scored well: 20 of the first 26 players selected by the pros had been cited in our story, and all but three of the original 36 went to pro teams by the third round of the 17-round draft.

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