"DO you know what TIME has done to me?" the blind Greek lawyer asked. "It has changed my whole life."

What TIME had done to Evanghelos Georgakakis was to tell his story, "The Losing Winner," in our March 3 issue. It was the story of the deep inner powers of a man, a onetime Cretan shepherd lad, blind, with an artificial right hand and only one finger with any sense of touch on the left. Yet, at 33, using Braille and tape recorders, he had topped all 361 candidates in the Athens bar examinations. Despite this, as the story told, he was unable to find a job. No one, it seemed, wanted a blind and crippled lawyer.

Happily all that changed after our story appeared in Greece. Newspapers commented on it, and the afternoon daily Messimvreni took Greeks to task for not helping "this young man of darkness" in his "battle against his destiny." Soon Georgakakis had his choice of several good positions. U.S.-educated Professor Adam Pepelasis, deputy governor of the Agrarian Bank of Greece, told TIME Reporter Mario Modiano: "I read your story and I felt a feeling of shame. It showed how a blind man can look inside his soul and discover the meaning of life--truth."

Pepelasis saw the lawyer and offered him a demanding job in legal research. His assignment: to review the entire body of Greek legislation and unearth obsolete laws that are frustrating modern agricultural development. His salary: 7,000 drachmas ($233) a month. There were other offers, but this was the best. A day or two before TIME appeared Georgakakis actually had his first chance, thanks to Queen Mother Frederika, who had induced the Federation of Greek Industries to give him a job at 3,000 drachmas a month.

"Greek newspapers have repeatedly written about me," said Georgakakis. "But as soon as TIME ran the story, everyone started showing an active interest. I hope I will come up to the expectations TIME has created for me."

TIME has been tampered with by censors and other officials in many countries, but never to our knowledge has anyone stamped a rub-out X on the cover.* Last week we learned that in Taiwan authorities had ordered the Formosa Magazine Press, TIME's distributor, to stamp a three-inch blue cross upon the puffy features of Mao Tse-tung on the Jan. 13 cover. The distributor hand-stamped the thousand or more copies (exclusive of those for the U.S. military) that circulate in Taiwan. Earlier, the Taiwanese have occasionally stamped our pictures of Red Chinese figures with the word Kungfei, or Communist bandit. Deliveries of the X-ed issue were several days late, but the Nationalists had their figurative revenge and the last word in Taiwan on Chairman Mao as far as TIME was concerned. We feel they also provided an intriguing comment on the Chinese mentality and its preoccupation with form, subjects discussed in this week's ESSAY.

* We ourselves X-ed Hitler on the Victory in Europe cover, May 7, 1945 and completed the one-two with an X-ed rising sun on the Aug. 20, 1945 cover to mark the surrender of Japan.

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