SOME of our cover stories grow out of the fast pace of the news and must be researched, reported, written and edited in a few intensive days--or even hours. This week's story on Thailand, a land of constantly increasing importance in the pattern of world events, fits another category. Work toward it began months ago.

Not long after Correspondent Louis Kraar opened our new bureau in Bangkok last fall, he intensified the preparations for a cover story on the King and Queen.* Among the sources he wanted to reach were, of course, top government officials, including Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn (whose garden ultimately was the scene of one interview). More complicated was getting an interview with King Bhumibol, who rarely holds conferences with foreign newsmen and even more rarely gives permission for direct quotation. That interview required not only the King's consent but also formal approval by the Thai Cabinet.

When the approval finally came, Kraar flew north 500 miles from Bangkok to the royal mountain villa. He was accompanied by a man who doesn't get to do much reporting--Time Inc. President James Linen, who was traveling in Thailand at the time. The monarch talked candidly for an hour on subjects that ranged from Communist subversion to modern painting. The talks went so well that the TIME men were asked to stay on for luncheon and more conversation.

Last month Kraar was joined in Bangkok by Senior Editor Edward Hughes, who was then on his second swing in three years through Southeast Asia. For ten days Hughes and Kraar talked with Thai officials, business leaders, editors, bankers and diplomats in the capital. They also made two long trips into the interior, one to Chiang Mai, where Thailand borders on Burma, a second to Udorn near the Laos frontier, where one of the U.S. airbases is located. In both areas the government, with U.S. cooperation, is carrying out extensive rural rehabilitation and development programs.

Back in his Bangkok office overlooking the busy Chao Phraya River, Reporter Kraar set to work putting on paper what they had seen and heard. While he was half way round the earth from New York, he was able to cover the last-minute points that Writer Jason McManus wanted for the story by means of the telex, which maintains instant communication between the Time & Life Build ing and the far-off banks of the Chao Phraya.

* This is the youthful King's second appearance on the cover of TIME--the first was on April 3, 1950. While Queen Sirikit has not been on the cover before, she was an exquisite color page in our story about reigning beauties on June 8, 1962.

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