This week's cover story on Russia's Premier Malenkov, and Stalin's appearance on TIME'S cover last week--for the tenth and presumably last time--illustrate some of the difficulties in covering the news from Russia these days. The facts of Stalin's death and Malenkov's succession were the most substantial pieces of news that have breached the Iron Curtain since World War II. But the full background of these facts had to be supplied by filling in a number of blank spaces.

Obviously, the way to fill in the blanks is different from the methods of getting news outside the Communist world, i.e., sending a reporter to the scene. Stories from correspondents in Moscow, where censorship is a grown-up art, are only a starting point in the search for the real news.

Last fall the International Press Institute published a report on getting the news out of Russia (TIME, Oct. 13). One method recommended was the use of a "Russian desk" to read, analyze and sift news reports from Moscow, and to add to them an extra dimension of understanding. Quoting a British expert on the Soviet Union, the I.P.I, report said: "The sort of news one gets out of Moscow . . . by itself gives no picture at all . . . To one [who is] accustomed to reading between the lines and who already has a good firsthand picture of Russia, the official news may be made to go quite a long way. To anyone else it means nothing."

TIME has had a Russian desk since 1946. Its senior member, Mark Vishniak, was born in Moscow, where he became a respected journalist and lawyer. He was a law professor at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute and secretary-general of the constitutional assembly in 1918. The following year, with the Bolsheviks in power, Vishniak fled to France, and eventually to the U.S. To help dig out the story of what is really happening in Russia today, Vishniak relies on his close contacts with Russian exiles, a filing-cabinet memory of his own days in Russia, and constant reading of Russian periodicals.

TIME is also able to count on the first-hand experiences of its writers and correspondents to fill in gaps in the Russian story. Of the five writers who put together last week's section, DEATH IN THE KREMLIN, one was a war correspondent on the Russian front during World War II. Another, as head of the United Press bureau at the U.N., covered the doings of Vishinsky, Molotov, Malik, Gromyko & Co., and their satellite supporters. In addition, TIME'S bureau chiefs in all the world capitals regularly report on the parts of the story that filter into their sectors from behind the Iron Curtain.

All of this is no substitute, of course, for the kind of coverage which is a matter of routine in most countries--the right of correspondents to travel freely, talk to anyone they meet, interview government officials, and file their stories without censorship. But it is often surprising how much can be put together--with a handful of clues, a lot of hard work, and a detailed background of experience--about the events the world's most powerful police state is trying to hide.

Cordially yours,

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