A CHARTERED Pan American jet aircraft landed without incident at the Lebanon [N.H.] Regional Airport yesterday morning," reported The Dartmouth. "Local gossip had it that had the plane crashed upon landing, the European economy would have collapsed." Hyperbole, of course, but there was some truth as well in the student newspaper's observation. On board the plane were 27 of Western Europe's top businessmen (see box), representing industrial enterprises with annual sales of more than $35 billion and financial institutions with assets of around $20 billion. They were the participants in TIME'S latest News Tour, entitled "Report on America."

The News Tour, we feel, has become a unique TIME institution. The first one, in 1963, set the pattern. We invite a group of business leaders --who always pay their own way--in effect to turn themselves into reporters under the auspices of our correspondents and editors. The idea is to enable economic decision makers to become familiar with the issues and the personalities that make current history. The first News Tour, to Western Europe and Russia, resulted in a long and memorable interview with Nikita Khrushchev. On three subsequent tours to Asia and Eastern Europe, participants met Marshal Tito, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Indonesian President Suharto, Pakistan's then-President Ayub Khan, Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.

This time the difference was that, instead of taking American businessmen abroad, we invited European businessmen to the U.S. because, as I explained in welcoming the group: "The U.S. is topic A on all your minds in this day and age. We have had some five years of social revolution going on. This year, for the first time in decades, the U.S. has encountered an economic crisis, one that resounds with impact all over the

world." In the same vein, Managing Editor Henry Grunwald observed at the start of the tour: "You are arriving in America at a moment of pause when we are waiting for the outcome of several large enterprises and experiments."

The timing of the trip could hardly have been better since it coincided with the President's announcement of Phase II of his economic program. Given the current international trade and monetary crisis, our visitors engaged in lively debate with U.S. officials. While our primary purpose was to acquaint our guests with U.S. problems and policies, we like to think that the important Americans they met also found it useful to hear the questions and concerns of the Europeans.

The packed six-day program, arranged by Chief of Correspondents Murray Gart, Senior Correspondent John Steele, Public Affairs Director Robert Ankerson and many of their colleagues, started in New York.

Mayor John Lindsay spoke over lunch at Gracie Mansion about the myriad problems facing the American city. Time Inc. Board Chairman Andrew Heiskell presided over a symposium on the changing nature of corporate responsibility, with Henry Ford II as the principal speaker. Following a session on Black America featuring Vernon E. Jordan Jr., newly appointed executive director of the Urban League, the travelers were guests of honor at a dinner attended by such notables as Evangelist Billy Graham, Playwright Lillian Hellman, Actress Gloria Swanson, Psychologist B.F. Skinner, Broadway Producer Harold Prince, Columbia University President William McGill, Metropolitan Museum Director Thomas Hoving and chief executives of a number of American companies. The speaker of the evening was Secretary of State William P. Rogers, who answered questions about neo-isolationism in the U.S. and President Nixon's planned visit to Peking.

Accompanied by a Time Inc. contingent that included Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan and Editorial Director Louis Banks, the visitors went next to the serene Dartmouth College campus, which was emblazoned with New Hampshire's brilliant fall foliage. The visitors had two marathon sessions--on the economy with members of TIME'S Board of Economists and on the environment with business and government leaders.

The next chapter of Report on America took place in Washington with Time Inc. President James Shepley, who had been a Washington correspondent for eleven years, as a particularly skilled guide. The tour members began by quizzing a trio of possible presidential contenders--Senators Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson and Edward Kennedy--on world trade, international cooperation, and global defense. Later, they met with Senate Leaders Mike Mansfield and Hugh Scott, then moved off to the Executive Office Building for a brisk, candid exchange with Presidential Advisers Henry Kissinger and Peter Peterson. As the briefings and interviews continued, Sir Eric Drake said wearily: "If this is how Americans always work, you should have no economic problems." Nevertheless, none of the visitors to Washington was willing to drop out.

The climax of the trip came only a few hours before the President's speech. Lunching with John Connally, TIME's cover subject this week, they questioned him about the things that most concern them as European businessmen--the import surcharge, the magnitude of the trade and monetary concessions the U.S. wants from other nations, and the possibility of a change in the price of gold. Additional meetings with Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills added to the variety of personalities and subject matter. At a dinner with NASA officials, the group met Wernher von Braun.

By the time the tour ended, the participants had proven themselves adept at asking the right questions. Said the News Service's Gart: "They have all the makings of first-class correspondents." Joachim Zahn of West Germany remarked: "All of us here are used to giving orders. This week we listened."

MEMBERS OF THE TOUR

GIOVANNI AGNELLI, chairman, Fiat, Italy

UMBERTO AGNELLI, managing director, Fiat, Italy

GIUSEPPE BERTOLA, executive vice president, Brown, Boveri, Switzerland

COUNT RENE PAUL BOEL, honorary president, Solvay, Belgium

ALAIN CHEVALIER, managing director, Moeet-Hennessy, France

F. WILHELM CHRISTIANS, executive board member, Deutsche Bank, West Germany

FERNAND JOSEF COLLIN, board chairman, Kredietbank, Belgium

PAUL DAX, executive vice president, Siemens, West Germany

SIR ERIC DRAKE, chairman and managing director, The British Petroleum Co., England

BARON EDOUARD-JEAN EMPAIN, chairman, Electrorail, Belgium

GEORGES GALICHON, board chairman, Air France, France

SIR REAY GEDDES, chairman, Dunlop Holdings, England

PEHR GYLLENHAMMAR, managing director, Volvo, Sweden

ALFRED H. HEINEKEN, board chairman, Heineken Breweries, The Netherlands

KONRAD HENKEL, president, Henkel & Cie, West Germany

FOLKE LINDSKOG, chairman, SKF, Sweden

SIR ARTHUR G. NORMAN, chairman, The De La Rue Company, England

FREDERICK J. PHILIPS, chairman, Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken, The Netherlands

COUNT THEO ROSSI Dl MONTELERA, chairman, Martini & Rossi, Italy

EVELYN DE ROTHSCHILD, director, N.M. Rothschild & Sons, England

NINO ROVELLI, chairman and managing director, Societa Italiana Resine, Italy

ALFRED SCHAEFER, board chairman, Union Bank of Switzerland, Switzerland

GERRIT VAN DER WAL, president, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, The Netherlands

EBERHARD VON KUENHEIM, executive board chairman, BMW, West Germany

GERRIT A. WAGNER, president, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, The Netherlands

PIERRE WALTZ, general director, Societe Suisse pour L'lndustrie Horlogere, Switzerland

JOACHIM ZAHN, executive board chairman, Daimler-Benz, West Germany

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.