By NORMAN PEARLSTINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

THERE WAS FIDEL CASTRO, WEARing for the first time in Havana a blue suit instead of his trademark fatigues, on his feet for five hours praising both socialism and multinational corporations in a bravura if not altogether convincing performance. And Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Prime Minister of Russia, taking questions in Moscow's White House on topics ranging from the extent of government corruption to his relationship with Boris Yeltsin. And Do Muoi, Vietnam's Communist Party chief, asking for more foreign investment and affirming that it would be just fine if the path to pure communism first made the Vietnamese rich. Last week these leaders and others around the world agreed to an unusual experience: a prolonged, unscripted press conference that is part of a unique institution in American journalism, the TIME Newstour.

For nine days, a specially outfitted L-1011 jet flew 45 top executives from a cross section of American companies, colleges and foundations to places in the news, where they met and questioned the men and women who are making it. Seven TIME journalists went along, joined by a few TIME executives and resident correspondents in each city, but it was our guests from other walks of life--acting as honorary journalists--who asked most of the questions and afterward debated most fiercely the honesty and meaning of the answers.

"A journey through the new world reordering" is what TIME executive editor Joe Ferrer called the itinerary for the first of our 11 Newstours to circle the globe. We chose destinations that would let us explore the dynamics of countries facing tough transitions, primarily from socialism to freer markets and from autocracy to greater democracy. After a briefing in Washington by CIA Director John Deutch and five other senior officials, the Newstour went to Cuba, Russia, India, Vietnam and Hong Kong before heading home. During a period when isolationism is rising in the U.S., we wanted this Newstour to emphasize Time's commitment to international news and the connections between the U.S. and the complex forces outside its borders that will shape the 21st century.

Havana was a riveting place to start. Castro is struggling to stay afloat without billions of dollars in Soviet subsidies each year, and without renouncing the core of Marxist economics and the state security police force that holds 1,200 to 2,000 political prisoners. Telling our group Mikhail Gorbachev's broad effort to open the Soviet Union "destroyed the socialist camp," Castro indicated that he prefers to liberalize the economy while suppressing political reform. "What we need in our country," he said, "is not an exchange of ideas but an exchange of goods, of technologies."

Castro praised multinational companies for their accomplishments, but he refused to specify when he would accelerate his own halting economic reforms, such as the farmers' market we saw the next day. "We have taken a host of measures," he said. "We are going to take as many more as are needed. But always in an orderly fashion." Jim Gaines, Time's managing editor, found it striking that "many in our group came away from Havana thinking the U.S. embargo against Cuba is a cold war anachronism but that Castro's reluctance about reform made him an even bigger one."

Still, Castro is so eager for Americans to loosen the embargo that he personally managed the details of our encounter with him--including a stand-up buffet after his press conference so he could stroll around and work his charisma on each of his guests. At the reception he drank martinis, ate oysters, praised the Pope's sincerity and talked motorcycles. But old habits die hard: the next day, one of the dissidents scheduled to have lunch with us received an anonymous death threat under her door. She joined us anyway.

Our next stop, in Moscow, would have shocked most members of TIME's first Newstour, in 1963, in which Khrushchev was interviewed. We visited a budding stock exchange and splashy Western stores. We met opposition parliamentarians as well as Chernomyrdin. Standing beneath the crest of the Czars--a huge gold double-headed eagle--he criticized Washington's plans for expanding NATO, affirmed he "was on the same team as President Yeltsin," despite speculation that they might both run for President next year, and asked the West to be patient in helping Russia modernize. "You can never go to sleep in one system and wake up in another," he said.

At a reception where he was scheduled to stay 30 minutes, Chernomyrdin talked with us informally for two hours. Some Newstour members with experience in Russia asked him tough questions about unpredictable taxes, constant demands for bribes and protection payoffs, and the lack of a commercial code. He promised reforms would continue and asked our members "to keep expanding. Be aggressive!"

Next came Bangalore, where world-class software engineers are leading a boom that has made it Asia's fastest-growing city and India's answer to the Silicon Valley. Business leaders told us this success depended on deregulation, investment in human capital and internationalization--like the daily video conferences between some Bangalore firms and their corporate brethren in the U.S. Our visit to a slum vividly demonstrated how unevenly the benefits of growth are distributed, but India's dynamic Commerce Minister, P. Chidambaram, emphasized that his generation of Indian leaders, unlike the country's founders, believe only economic growth spurred by further liberalization can eradicate poverty. He was sure that goal could be substantially reached by 2010. By then, if current trends continue, India's annual per capita gross national product will rise from its present $290 to $1,000.

The sheer energy of Hanoi startled veterans of our 1985 Newstour, who remembered little but drab poverty. This time we saw a Vietnam bursting with commerce, construction, luxury hotels and growth in every sector. "We owe our prosperity to the new policies of the government," said a villager in Dinh Bang, 12 miles from Hanoi, and for once the party line is true. Ten years ago, the heirs of Ho Chi Minh concluded that their country was stagnating and decided to build an internal market while inviting foreign investment. The country still has a one-party state and a sluggish bureaucracy, but overall the economy is booming, tapping the vitality of a population in which 60% are 25 or younger. The friendly, open attitude toward Americans was also striking, despite about 3 million Vietnamese killed during the war. "We wish to close the past and look to the future," said Do Muoi.

The future looks less certain in Hong Kong, our final stop. Residents and companies are hedging their bets for fear that Beijing's truculence toward democratic reform means the colony's economic and political freedoms will erode once it reverts to China in 1997. Everywhere on our tour, to a greater extent than most participants had expected, experiments with the free market are unleashing a surge of human energy. Hong Kong of all our stops has the most experience with free markets, the greatest per capita income, the least poverty. Yet the cloud over its essential freedoms is putting its future into question. I hope you keep tabs with us, in the pages of TIME, on the absorbing drama of these transformations.