Time's 40th Anniversary Party: A WORLD TRANSFORMED

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Ankara, Teheran, Karachi, New Delhi, Belgrade—these were the way-stops of Secretary of State Dean Rusk in the ten days prior to TIME'S anniversary dinner. He was the only man in a white dinner jacket—because that's what he had along for appearances in India; he stepped to the dais without a word on paper and spoke eloquently of the explosion of states, ideas and problems in the 40 years since the birth of TIME. Excerpts:

MY admission ticket was a cover story written just before I became Secretary of State, and in those good old days, TIME said some very nice things about me. We are members, I suppose, of a special order of cover-story victims, and all of us share the experience of having been fully exposed. But we have our Knights Commanders, the Men of the Year; we have our Grand Knight Commander, the Man of the Half-Century —the incomparable Winston Churchill—so this is a proud order. It is a great privilege for me to bring congratulations to Harry Luce and to his associates on this 4Oth occasion of the birth of TIME. An idea has become a vital and throbbing institution, with a special relationship to its readers. TIME has always informed them. It has on occasion inspired them. It has frequently amused them. It has sometimes irritated and angered them. But it has never bored them. It set out 40 years ago to talk about what the news means—not in some disembodied spirit, not claiming to have some special revelation, but stepping forth frankly and boldly to tell its readers what the publishers and the editors of this great publication themselves believed. Hiding behind no one else, taking their own responsibility, living with the results. It has become a rather important international institution. I suppose TIME holds the record for having been banned from more countries than any other publication of general circulation. I would suppose that in these past 40 years, that is something of a medal of merit. Of course, the thin skin of the U.S. Government, toughened by the First Amendment, has never allowed that question to arise in this country. But on more than one occasion, we in the Department of State have been asked by diplomats from this or that country, was TIME speaking for the Government of the U.S., and we regularly say no, brother, it was only speaking to you just as it speaks to us.

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