THE task of covering the new war in Asia has, for U.S. publications, an uncommon advantage: it is possible to cover both sides. Yet that advantage carries with it a particular problem--melding the reports into a clear story that gives the whole picture. It is for just such a situation that TIME'S way of handling the news is particularly suited.

On the Indian side, New Delhi Bureau Chief Marvin Zim moved through the tense capital to keep in close touch with the government's moves at the top. Correspondent James Shepherd, for whom the conflict brought rather sharp memories of 1947 when he covered the opening shots in the Kashmir dispute, was the first reporter to reach the city of Amritsar after the major Indian thrust started there. At midweek, Tokyo Bureau Chief Jerrold Schecter covered the opening of Hello, Dolly! and then flew to India to join the war team.

To cover the Pakistan side, Correspondent Louis Kraar, who recently completed a two-year assignment in the area and only last week opened a new TIME bureau in Bangkok, flew into Rawalpindi and on to the front. Rome Correspondent William Rademaekers, who had been covering the comparatively quiet political crisis in Greece, flew out of Athens for Karachi and went right to work when he found United Nations Secretary-General U Thant on the same plane.

As the files from the five corre spondents--plus reports from the United Nations, Washington and London bureaus--poured into New York, Writer Robert McLaughlin worked out that special problem of making a whole story of all the parts. For Artist Boris Chaliapin, the solution was more direct. He saw the new war represented in the ancient terms of two clashing 17th century Indian scimitars --a rather elegant reminder that the conflict is as old as it is new.

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