The Pentagon is not always the labyrinth of secrets that outsiders imagine. For this week's cover story on defense, Correspondents Bruce Nelan and Jerry Hannifin penetrated the maze and found, according to Hannifin, that the military is "one of the most accessible beats in Washington." "It's no bunker filled with manic Strangeloves planning the next war," says Nelan. "It's really like any other big company, except that its business is national security. People stop to chat in the halls, and the doors of the brass are open."

Nelan attributes the Pentagon's new candor to Defense Secretary Harold Brown and his Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Thomas B. Ross. Brown announced when he took over that he was

running an open administration and that all legitimate questions would be answered. Says Nelan: "It's not that the uniformed officers suddenly think reporters are wonderful or even responsible--they don't. But they have reached the conclusion that being secretive is only going to compound their image problems."

In the course of six weeks of reporting, Nelan interviewed not only Brown but the Deputy Secretary of Defense, two Assistant Secretaries of Defense, the Air Force Chief of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, five other generals and two admirals.

Hannifin was granted access to the North American Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he monitored NORAD'S worldwide and deep-space observation systems. Another major stop for him was "Pentagon-South," the Army Materiel Command in Arlington, Va., where Army engineers develop and test new hardware.

The first part of the cover story, analyzing the U.S. arsenal, was written by Burton Pines. Frank Merrick, who also did our cover story on then Defense Secretary James Schlesinger in February 1974, wrote the profile of Brown, while Writer Robert Goldstein brought the old dogfaces, Willie and Joe, into the nuclear age.

Launched as a fledgling wartime venture in 1941, TIME'S overseas editions have played a major role in making their parent magazine one of the world's largest international publishing operations. Last week, as part of a continuing commitment to the world marketplace of commerce and ideas, TIME hosted 54 executives of major European advertising firms on a visit to our New York headquarters. The week included a series of seminars and informal chats with editors, writers and executives. Eric Sidler, a partner in the Charles Barker agency of Frankfurt, summed up the value of these gatherings in a discussion of international advertising styles: "The British have great humor and creativity, the Germans do terrific research, Swiss and Italian design is without peer. What U.S. advertising does best is bring everything together."

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