For more than four decades he has been one of the foremost journalists in the world. In China during World War II and the Communist upheaval of the 1940s, he survived an early baptism of fire as a combat correspondent. In the U.S. he covered six presidential elections and fashioned his impressions into the extraordinary The Making of the President series. But two years ago, at 61, Theodore H. White had nagging doubts about his work. He felt he should have grappled with the deeper meanings of all he had seen and reported, the groundswells of history that changed the world during his lifetime. The result is a radical departure from his previous efforts. This week we take special pleasure in presenting excerpts from Teddy White's new book, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure. In it, the furious energy and unquenchable curiosity that made White a journalist remain undiminished. He knew many of the great figures of our time, often intimately, and he writes about them with passion.

White began working for TIME in 1939 at the age of 24 when a man named John Hersey, a promising writer for the magazine, signed him up as a China stringer. The new reporter soon discovered that he had an unexpected fan. Henry R. Luce, TIME cofounder, had been born in China and took a special interest in the young journalist's stories. Eventually, in 1945, the two men broke over the issue of China. Luce continued to believe that Chiang Kai-shek was a great man and the right leader for his country, while White became increasingly critical of the Nationalist regime and convinced that the Communists were bound to win. White did not reNEWS establish his relationship with Luce until 1957. Says White: "No man of my life ever gave me more trouble than Harry Luce did. No correspondent ever gave him more trouble than I did. But after that stormy time, we ended as close and intimate friends."

Last week White was back in the Time-Life Building in New York City, working with Senior Editor Ron Kriss who did the excerpting. Said White: "For me this is like a homecoming, kind of sweet, kind of nostalgic. It's nice being back in Harry Luce's house." And it is nice to have him.

For White's readers who may be wondering, the old legman who writes about politics with the sensitivity of a novelist will soon hit the campaign trail once more, this time to begin gathering notes for The Making of the President, 1980.

Jack Meyers

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