Three major stories in this week's TIME deal with one aspect or another of the overriding issue of the day--how the U.S. should deal with international Communism.

FOR the ESSAY, which is a refresher course on Communism for old as well as young, the editors undertook to determine the present state of the movement, its strengths and weaknesses, its fractured divisions and mischievous diversions, in every area of the world. Searching queries went out to 21 key points on the Communist compass. The question we wanted to answer was: Do Communist subversion, infiltration, and desire for control of legitimate nationalist movements remain realities? The essentially affirmative answer is set forth in detail in the ESSAY.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON made the week's big news, and he also made it clear that he had no doubts as to the Communist goals in Southeast Asia. The cover story in THE NATION takes him through the most eventful week of his presidency--one of the more remarkable weeks in the history of that office. But the story is much more than the week's narrative. It offers a considered assessment of the President's role as Commander in Chief of a nation at de facto war, as a get-things-done domestic leader, and as the boss of his Administration. Beyond this, it presents a sensitive reading on how the people of the country feel about President Johnson and his leadership. For this part of the story, TIME reporters across the country interviewed men and women in all pursuits--businessmen, laborers, farmers, professional men, housewives--not merely polling them, but testing mood and sentiment as well.

THE third story shows Communism very much in action.

Since February, when the President ordered air strikes north of the 17th parallel, TIME'S five regular correspondents in the area have filed some 446,000 words to New York. When Viet Nam became a bigger war last week, the editors decided to make a new general assessment of the U.S. military position and strategy. All week, over our new highspeed circuit from Saigon, the cables chattered in for the writers, editors, researchers and mapmakers at work on the story of U.S. servicemen digging in in enclaves whose odd names may soon be familiar to all Americans. Status & Strategy in THE WORLD is a scorecard of the war to date.

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