The majority of editors, great & small, share the faculty of seeing stories where few others can see them, sometimes in apparently inconsequential people and events. By the same token; most editors are amazed when anyone suggests that they themselves might make good stories.

DeWitt Wallace, founder and editor of the Reader's Digest, is such an editor. When TIME Writer Bill Miller first approached him on the subject of a cover story, Wallace was reluctant, said he believed editors should be kept in the background. "Ellery Sedgwick edited the Atlantic for 30 years without putting his name on the masthead," he said. Answered Miller: "I suppose that's why the Digest reprinted TIME'S cover on Arthur Hays Sulzberger and the New York Times." Wallace chuckled, asked Miller unbelievingly, "Do you really think that the Digest will make a good story?" But he promised to think it over..

Several meetings and letter-exchanges later, Wallace gave the project his blessing and let TIME have access to a wealth of confidential information about the Digest. We were able to publish approximate figures on their gross earnings and net profit. Digest offices overseas described their operations in detail. In interviews which lasted for hours, Wallace and his wife, Lila Bell, searched their memories for incidents and anecdotes of the Digest's early years. Digest Business Manager Albert L. Cole, during a visit to our office, saw a copy of the original sample issue of the Digest, which Wallace had given us. He had never seen it before. Wallace himself constantly volunteered information, making up check lists of items we might like to know.

As Wallace began hearing from his own offices about interviews TIME correspondents were conducting all over the world, he expressed mild wonderment, confiding to Researcher Ruth Brine: "I'm getting calls from all over--Montreal, Seattle, Pittsburgh. I think it's going to be a useful lesson for all of us."

A resident of Chappaqua, Miller started on the assignment by phoning Neighbor Wallace. It was then he learned that the editor customarily answers his own phone, a fact which was duly recorded in the story. Although he had never before met Wallace, Miller has been brushing against Digest people since his cub-reporter days on the Cleveland Press, when he met their researchers burrowing among the Cleveland Public Library's stacks. When Miller joined me in the Office of War Information in 1943, he first worked for Adrian Berwick, now an editor of the Digest overseas editions. Later Miller kept meeting other Digest people in Egypt, Italy, Marseille and Istanbul, among them two roving editors. Moving to Chappaqua after the war, Miller found the Digest there, too. When he became acquainted with his next-door neighbor, Miller discovered his wife worked for the Digest. He got his real surprise when he asked to see a sample of the way the Digest trims a story, was shown a cut-down version of TIME'S cover story on Benjamin Fairless (Nov. 12), which he had written.

Researcher Brine found some things besides information at the Digest. When she admired the pies and cakes in the Digest kitchen, she was promptly given one. She brought it home to her four-year-old daughter Brigit, who tasted it, then asked coldly: "Why doesn't TIME have cakes like this?"

All the research on the story totaled 85,000 words. In spite of Wallace's early doubts about whether the Digest would make a story, the reports were packed with informative and interesting material. Miller's first draft was about twice as long as most cover stories. Trying to trim this down, Senior Editor Joe Purtell perspired over the story, sleeves rolled up and collar awry, finally remarked: "Every time I try to cut one thing, I think of six others that ought to go in."

The bulk of the story defied cutting. As it finally appeared last week, it turned out to be one of the longest stories we have ever printed.

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