Dear TIME-Reader:

With national politics beginning to heat up, TIME correspondents last week were hitting the campaign trail. Chicago Correspondent Edwin Darby was in Ohio, finishing his report for this week's cover story on Governor Frank Lausche. At the same time, San Francisco Correspondent Charles Mohr ended a strenuous ten days of zigzagging about northern California, covering Candidates Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver. Exhausted but exhilarated, Charlie Mohr reported: "I'd rather be covering politics in California than in any other state. Where is there such an embarrassment of riches in presidential possibilities? Besides, California politicians are not only good news, they are extremely likable. After I reported the Knight cover story (TIME, May 30), I left a print of the governor's smiling face on the back seat of my car. My little girl, Gretchen, was so enchanted that she spent most of our family rides kissing the picture affectionately." Goodie Knight's wry comment: a baby kissing him was real news.

In Ohio, Governor Lausche was so impressed by Ed Darby's incessant questioning that he winced whenever our correspondent took out his notebook. One evening, addressing the Dayton chapter of the B'nai B'rith, the governor spoke of the state's system of using penitentiary inmates, awaiting parole, as trusties about the governor's mansion. He noted that a trusty had chauffeured him from the Capitol to Dayton. Later, in a restaurant, the wife of one of the B'nai B'rith officers leaned over to the governor and, with a sidelong glance at TIME'S Darby and the governor's law secretary, David Chatfield, whispered: "Which one is the trusty?" The governor laughed, and whenever Darby took out his notebook after that, he pointed at the correspondent and ordered: "Put that away or I'll lock you up again!"

OHIO'S governor was not the only person surprised at the thoroughness of TIME'S questioning. In Paris, Correspondent George de Carvalho managed to slip into a closed Palais Bourbon conference room to hear Pierre Poujade and his 53 Deputies discuss their strategy for the Assembly (see "Poujadists Under Fire" in FOREIGN NEWS). Correspondent de Carvalho thought he was passing unnoticed until he spotted a Poujadist staring suspiciously at his lapels: except for Poujade himself, De Carvalho was the only one present not wearing a Poujadist emblem. But he sat tight, and afterwards invited a Poujadist Deputy to dinner. The Deputy showed up with a longtime friend, who listened wide-eyed to De Carvalho's questions and with even greater interest to the Deputy's answers. When the interview ended--at 2 a.m.--the friend remarked: "I learned more about him tonight than I ever knew before."

Cordially yours,

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