DEHIND lay the rolling cornfields -^ of Austria's Burgenland province. Ahead was the Hungarian border, where watchtowers still stand and electrified wire keeps passportless citizens from leaving. Waved past the border gate, the bus braked to a stop in front of the customs house that marks the Hungarian town of Hegeyshalom. Out stepped 45 inquisitive Americans--businessmen, civic leaders, journalists--about to start on an eleven-day journey through five Eastern European capitals.

When the bus resumed its trip from Vienna to Budapest, TIME'S third overseas news tour was officially under way. In 1963 another group of U.S. business and civic leaders had traveled through Western Europe and Russia. Last year a contingent went to six Southeast Asian countries. TIME'S aim in setting up these trips is to provide leading American businessmen with a direct experience of a major foreign area. To the trade-hungry Communists of Eastern Europe, the latest tour looked like a possible answer to their economic woes, but the U.S. group was far from a trade mission. Those who accepted our invitation paid their own way as concerned citizens, eager to learn about life and politics and economics in countries that are undergoing considerable change and ferment. They did not go as tourists but as acting journalists in direct dialogue with political and economic leaders in each country.

TIME'S own contingent included Editorial Chairman Henry R. Luce, Board Chairman Andrew Heiskell, President James Linen, Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan, Managing Editor Otto Fuerbringer, Senior Editor (of Business) Champ Clark, and the publisher. Most of the invited travelers were principal officers of major business organizations. Together they employ more than 1,200,000 people, and their companies had 1965 sales totaling $33 billion. The group included:

John Leland Atwood, Chairman, North American Aviation Inc.

Eugene N. Beesley, President, Eli Lilly &Co.

James H. Binger, Chairman, Honeywell Inc.

William Blackie, Chairman, Caterpillar Tractor Co.

Edgar M. Bronfman, President, Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc.

Joseph F. Cullman III, President, Philip Morris Inc.

Russell DeYoung, Chairman, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

A. P. Fontaine, Chairman, Bendix Corp.

Henry Ford II, Chairman, Ford Motor Co.

G. Keith Funston, President, New York Stock Exchange

Gordon Grand Jr., President, Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp.

John D. Harper, President, Aluminum Co. of America

Alexander Heard, Chancellor, Vanderbilt University

Robert S. Ingersoll, Chairman, Borg-Warner Corp.

John L. Loeb, Senior Partner, Carl M. Loeb, Rhoades & Co.

George A. Murphy, Chairman, Irving Trust Co.

Robert S. Oelman, Chairman, National Cash Register Co.

Frank Pace Jr., President, International Executive Service Corps

S. Warner Pach, President, Gillette Safety Razor Co.

Henry R. Roberts, President, Connecticut General Life Insurance Co.

Willard F. Rockwell Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Rockwell-Standard Corp. and Rockwell Manufacturing Co.

C. William Verity Jr., President, Armco Steel Corp.

Leslie H. Warner, President, General Telephone & Electronics Corp.

Rawleigh Warner Jr., President, Mobil Oil Corp.

Kendrick R. Wilson Jr., Chairman, Avco Corp.

Whitney M. Young Jr., Executive Director, National Urban League.

The tour first paused in Paris for lunch with French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville, who had visited the Eastern-bloc nations earlier this year, and a briefing session with U.S. Ambassador to France Charles ("Chip") Bohlen, U.S. Ambassador to Germany George McGhee, and the Permanent U.S. Representative to NATO, Ambassador Harlan Cleveland. The group then boarded the TIME-chartered Pan Am 727 for the flight to Vienna and the bus ride to Budapest, the only overland part of the trip.

Their first official encounter with a Communist leader came in Hungary in a one-hour interview with Deputy Premier Antal Apro. It was a dialogue that would be repeated again and again on the journey. Apro explained the Communist command economy, citing examples of liberalization and improvement, and mildly criticized the U.S. for its trade policies. Then he asked for questions. By their queries, the businessmen showed the careful homework they had done on the background material sent to them before departing.

After a round of receptions, parties and dinners, the tour jetted to Bucharest, where a curious crowd gathered to see the first 727 that had ever landed at Baneasa Airport. In mysterious Rumanian fashion, the government would not reveal its plans for the visit until after the plane had touched down. The Rumanians were not unfriendly--they provided a police escort from the airport, and later rolled out a yellow VIP carpet for the reception with First Deputy Premier Alexandru Birladeanu.

In Prague the travelers had lunch with Professor Ota Sik, architect of the new Czech economic reforms (see THE WORLD). Sik was an articulate spokesman for the new ideas in Communist economics. He criticized at length the orthodox thinking that had shackled the Czech economy and held down the standard of living. For three hours, the group listened and questioned Sik as he expounded his theories and developed his plans for the future of his country. Before the lecture, Sik examined the transistorized simultaneous-translating unit TIME had provided and exclaimed: "Your American technology is marvelous."

The group met Polish Premier Jozef Cyrankiewicz in the White Hall of Warsaw's beautiful Wilanow Palace. Yugoslavia's President Tito received them at a 10 a.m. reception at the new Federal Executive Council Building in downtown Belgrade. His fluent English surprised the visitors. "It is a sign of good relations that you came to Yugoslavia," Tito remarked, "even though from time to time we have problems that affect our economic relations."

The conversations did not end with government officials and U.S. ambassadors. At every stop, the group invited 60 or more outstanding citizens to dinner. They met ballerinas in Warsaw, poets in Budapest, movie stars in Prague, and university professors and journalists everywhere. And the tour left time for the travelers to explore on their own. In Warsaw, two or three visited a Polish university center for a three-hour talk with some of the students. In Budapest, on the tenth anniversary of the Hungarian revolution, some of the tour members heard Liszt's moving Coronation Mass sung at historic Matthias Church, where the Hungarian kings were once crowned. There was time for a boat trip up the Danube, a visit to a Polish supermarket, an inspection of new apartment houses in Belgrade, and a visit to a Rumanian machine-tool factory. At the Golden Goose Restaurant in Prague, an elderly man approached Henry Ford. He had lived in Cleveland for several years, he said, and remarked: "I never thought I'd meet Henry Ford here."

As the tour ended its last European stop in Belgrade, the travelers met to discuss for two hours what they had seen, what they thought, and how their views had changed. There was no consensus, but all agreed that their deep immersion in a critical area of the world would not be forgotten.

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