"How do you do it?" a TIME subscriber recently wondered in a letter to the editors. He was referring to the fact that barely four days had elapsed between the time Lynette Fromme pointed a loaded gun at President Ford, and the arrival at his house of the issue of TIME containing a detailed, seven-page cover story on the incident, with exclusive pictures and excerpts from her diary. For this week's coverage of Patty Hearst's capture, our staff had a few more hours at its disposal; but as with all late-starting cover stories, things moved fast. Within minutes of the announcement that Hearst had been found, Senior Editor Marshall Loeb began formulating the basic elements of the story. "What we wanted to do," says Loeb, "was tell this complicated story in a coherent way. That meant explaining how Patty Hearst was captured and what she did while in hiding, and exploring the state of her mind and the likely outcome of events." Picture Editor John Durniak and Art Director David Merrill quickly assigned photographers and artists respectively to provide possible illustrations.

In the meantime, correspondents sought out the sources whose information helps add an extra dimension to a bare news story. In San Francisco, Bureau Chief Joseph Boyce attended the press conference where FBI Agent Charles Bates announced the capture of Patty Hearst, later talked with members and friends of the Hearst family and also coordinated bureau coverage. Correspondent John Austin visited the scenes where the arrests were made and also filed a running chronology of events. Stringer Paul Ciotti maintained an almost constant vigil on the street near the scene of the arrests. Los Angeles Bureau Chief Jess Cook grabbed a plane to San Francisco as soon as he heard the news. "You deserve a little luck in this business," he says. "Who should be on the same plane but Catherine Hearst?" As soon as the seat-belt sign went off, Cook conducted a leisurely interview with Patty's mother. In New York, Associate Editor James Atwater and Senior Writer Ed Magnuson shared the major writing duties, and nearly all the Nation section's writers and researchers worked all night and into the closing day to complete the project. "Even with big, last-minute stories, the machinery often runs smoothly," Magnuson notes. Then he adds: "But it rarely seems that way on the inside of the machine."

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