A Letter From the Publisher: May 18, 1987

Among publications around the world, TIME has a newsgathering operation that has long been known for the breadth and quality of its coverage. The magazine's news service is made up of ten domestic and 20 foreign bureaus, & staffed by 87 correspondents and more than 200 part-time reporters. Those journalists conduct interviews, evaluate official reports, spot trends and press experts for the inside knowledge that a TIME story requires. Frequently the correspondents write these stories; at other times they file reports for the editorial staff in New York City. Overseeing this redoubtable force is John Stacks, who last week became TIME's chief of correspondents and an assistant managing editor.

Stacks, 45, graduated from Yale in 1964 with a degree in political science. He reported for the Washington Star before joining TIME's Washington bureau in 1967. After a tour as Boston bureau chief, where he covered the 1972 New England primaries, he returned in 1973 to Washington as the bureau's news editor, directing coverage of the Watergate scandal, cultivating confidential sources and handling a series of notable exclusive stories. He then began to study a more forthcoming subject, the campaigning politician. He was national political correspondent through the 1980 elections, served as White House correspondent in 1982 and then moved to New York City in 1983 as TIME's East regional bureau chief. In 1985 he became a deputy chief of correspondents. "Journalists are individualists, and the thoughtful journalism that TIME depends on can't be ordered up as if it were a sales goal or a factory quota," says Stacks. "My job is to foster their curiosity, independence and imagination."

One of Stacks' many duties is to evaluate the news events of each week for the other editors. He acknowledges the debt he owes in this area to his father Harry, a Pennsylvania newspaper editor who is now retired. "He cares deeply about the craft of journalism," says Stacks, "and his concern that it be done well is something I share."

Henry Muller, former chief of correspondents who last week became TIME's managing editor, praises Stacks' journalistic acumen. "He understands American politics as well as any journalist I know," says Muller. "His views are incisive, reasoned and clearly stated. He is one of the people on whom I will rely most when deciding what goes into TIME each week."