A Letter From The Publisher: Apr. 21, 1967

What good will a common market be if transportation and communication facilities in this hemisphere are inadequate? Do you have an answer, Mr. TIME Magazine Correspondent?

THE questioner was Fernando Belaúnde Terry, Peru's vigorous and imaginative president, and the person he was putting on during a lull in the Punta del Este summit conference last week was Jerry Hannifin, Latin America specialist in our Washington bureau. Hannifin, along with White House Correspondent Hugh Sidey and a team of other TIME reporters and photographers, was covering the inter-American gathering at Uruguay's seaside playground, a gathering described by President Frei of Chile as "the most important in hemisphere history."

Latin America looms large in this issue. In addition to the Punta del Este story, written by David B. Tinnin, there is a cover story on Brazil's President Costa e Silva (with eight pages of color photographs), written by Philip Osborne and edited by Edward Jamieson. All told, 27 TIME reporters, photographers, writers, researchers and editors worked on these stories.

In charge of our extensive coverage at Punta del Este was Montana-born William Forbis, an old Latin America hand who was our man in Central America two decades ago. He then was called to New York, where he wrote Latin American news and, after becoming a senior editor, was in charge of various sections of the magazine. Three months ago, he moved to Rio de Janeiro as chief of bureau and senior South American correspondent. We asked Bill about his new duties, and he cabled:

"Professionally, it's been tough. New country, new language, new customs, all the logistic difficulties that go with Latin American life. The saving grace is the people, particularly the Brazilians—open, kind, lively and human. For the newsman with a problem, they go out of their way to provide a solution.

"We've worked pretty hard here at Punta, with sleep averaging out at around five hours a night. But there seemed to come a time about 11 p.m. when summiteers found time to dine, and so did we. Last night 1 looked around our table in a restaurant on the Avenida Gorlero and admired our small crew—it was nice company to be in.

"It's hard to make a sum-up. Work is work anywhere. 1 have saudades [yearnings] for New York that have to be cured by thinking hard about how the trains don't run very well there—and how the New York Central tracked me down in Rio with a bill for a January commutation ticket that I never got or used. If I ever get back, though, I will have saudades of equal strength for here."