ARMED with a journalism degree from the University of Washington and a graduate certificate from a Harvard-Radcliffe business administration program, Lucy Werner approached the publishing industry in 1964. She found herself facing a long climb in two ways. Her first temporary job was typing in our business office. "I was so easily flustered," recalls Mrs. Werner, "that I accidentally locked myself in the fire stairway. I walked down 34 flights to the ground floor, where I saw a sign over the exit: ALARM WILL SOUND WHEN DOOR IS OPENED. So I took the only rational course of action. I walked all the way back up."

Her second ascent took longer. Seventeen months ago she became TIME's business manager, the first woman to hold that post. Her assignment? "It seems very simple," says Mrs. Werner. "If it has anything to do with numbers, I'm involved. But the challenge of the job is in its complications. Journalism is not an orderly private enterprise. It is a blessedly unpredictable undertaking with great responsibility to the public. Arranging the resources to ensure the coverage that the editors want is where a lot of the fun comes in."

Wars and other major calamities are not the only tests of the business office's adaptability. One of its tasks is the processing of expense accounts. Lucy remembers the writer on safari "who billed us for luggage eaten by a crocodile." The chit was honored, perhaps in recognition of the writer's creativity.

Last week Mrs. Werner returned--luggage uneaten--from her own month-long safari in Asia. Eager for a firsthand look at field operations, she had toured Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Reporting for this week's cover story on Dick Cavett, Correspondent Carey Winfrey found himself in an unusual position for a journalist. "Cavett was so pleasant," says Winfrey, "that it actually got to the point where I felt guilty for eating up what little spare time he had." En route to Montauk, Long Island, for a weekend at Cavett's country home, Winfrey discovered that Cavett takes advantage of every moment. Driving his station wagon northward along Route 27, the performer managed to catch his own show by taking sidelong glances at the portable TV balanced precariously on Winfrey's knee. But once in Montauk, the two behaved like seaside vacationers. Cavett took Winfrey on a Jeep tour of the area's swamps and dunes, then to view a local exhibit of Indian arrowheads.

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