MUCH to the consternation of their pressagents, many younger performers have made reticence about their personal lives a cardinal credo. One devout follower of the Garbo tenet is Flip Wilson, the subject of this week's cover story. When he first approached the comedian, Roland Flamini, our West Coast show business correspondent, "wondered if I'd even be able to snatch some conversation in the men's room." But Wilson slowly opened up to Flamini, particularly after the two were mobbed by a bunch of elderly women fans outside NBC's studios in Burbank. "Sharing an experience like that," says Flamini, "has got to develop a bond between two people."

The result was a rare three-hour interview in Wilson's home, a ride in his Rolls-Royce and entree into his dressing room. Nonetheless, Wilson was largely silent about his personal life and background. To fill in the gaps, Correspondent James Willwerth visited Jersey City, where Wilson grew up. Willwerth had two leads: a brief obituary on Wilson's mother and the fact that Wilson had attended Public School 14. Both led to blank walls. More legwork produced the name of Cornelius Parker, an undertaker who had grown up in Wilson's neighborhood and has many contacts in the black community. Parker took Willwerth on an area tour, during which they found a number of Wilson's old acquaintances. After interviewing one of them, Willwerth asked what he did for a living. The man held up a note pad with a lot of numbers on it.

Covering Soviet military affairs also presents reportorial challenges; the Kremlin does not advertise its intentions. Four years ago, however, TIME ran a cover story entitled "Russia's Navy: A New Challenge at Sea." That article, written by David Tinnin, told of the rapid progress that the Soviet navy was making in strengthening its position. This week Tinnin returns to the subject with a major World section story that reports just how far the Russians have advanced and the strategic implications of their seapower expansion.

Recently, while on a four-month reporting tour in Eastern Europe, Tinnin witnessed an incident that underscored the dramatic shift in naval power. He and other newsmen were covering the arrival of Leonid Brezhnev for talks in Belgrade when Soviet warships steamed menacingly into the Adriatic port of Rijeka, where the Russians would like to establish a base. Neither the journalists nor the Tito government could miss the point of the dual visitation.

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