DearTIME-Reader:

AMONG the most absorbing stories of our time is the one which tells how the U.S. people are changing the face of their country--for work, for play, for better living. The story weaves its way through each week's news in TIME: editors and correspondents are always on the alert for its many manifestations. But there is one man who bears a special responsibility for the story: Contributing Editor Alvin M. Josephy Jr., whose job it is to tell it through color photographs.

Some of the stories Editor Josephy's explorations have turned up:

The Inland Empire of the Northwest (Nov. 1, 1954), a look at the rich land behind the Rockies and the Cascades, its people, cities, towns, dams and irrigation projects.

Tree Farming (Jan. 17), a graphic report on timber conservation that won cheers from forest rangers and lumber tycoons alike.

The Boom That Travelers Built (March 14), a gallery of palatial new motels.

Farm Machinery (July 4), the growth of the mechanized farm.

Recently, our photographers followed Josephy's script and his well-blazed trail through the Southwest and brought back the transparencies for Art Director Michael J. Phillips to lay out for this week's color spread on the American Desert.

Before he came to TIME in 1951. Harvard-educated ('36) Al Josephy was a New York Herald Tribune correspondent in Mexico. As a combat reporter with the 3rd Marine Division, he wrote two books about the corps, The Long and the Short and the Tall, and Uncommon Valor. Out of the service in 1945, he went to Hollywood and wrote movie scripts. Later, he edited three weekly newspapers in California.

Now his beat is often far from journalism's trodden paths. He has traveled some 225,000 miles by plane, train, car, marsh-buggy, horseback and afoot about the U.S. His stories have taken him farther into the backwoods and wilderness than even regional reporters get. His contacts along the way include everyone who can add to his knowledge : city, state and Chamber of Commerce officials, Bureau of Reclamation or Forestry Service agents, rangers, grangers and state legislators --the men who know their areas best. From them he has acquired a knowledge of grassroots U.S. such as few reporters have.

Says Josephy: "In the past four years, the U.S. has gone through the fastest transition possibly in its history --certainly in our lifetime. The growing population is spreading out. The empty spaces are filling up."

Cordially yours,

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.