Certainly the most durable TIME column has been the masthead. Each week it carries the names of the editorial and publishing people most responsible for producing the magazine. With this issue a familiar name is missing. Andrew Heiskell, Time Inc. chairman and chief executive officer, retired Oct. 1.

Heiskell has been listed as chairman for the past 20 years, and his name appeared directly under that of the editor in chief. As chief executive officer, a post he assumed in 1969, he was charged not only with supervising the company's seven magazines but also with running Time Inc.'s extensive interests in book publishing, forest products, TV, film and other enterprises. During his tenure as C.E.O., company revenues rose from $618.5 million in 1969 to $2.5 billion last year. Those figures reflect intrepid moves on Heiskell's part in acquisitions outside publishing as well as the expansion of the magazine division (MONEY in 1972, PEOPLE in 1974, DISCOVER in 1980). He presided over the demise of LIFE in 1972 and proudly participated in its rebirth in 1978. With all that, he found time to devote his formidable talents and energy to civic concerns, most notably as founder and co-chairman of the National Urban Coalition, fellow of the Harvard Corporation and vice chairman of the New York Public Library. Heiskell began his career here as a journalist. In 1937 he was named LIFE'S first medicine and science editor, after a stint on the old New York Herald Tribune. He also attended the Harvard Business School, but left after a year, deciding he "never wanted to have anything to do with business again." Despite that pledge, he was lured to the publisher's office of LIFE in 1939 as assistant general manager. Heiskell was working in LIFE'S Paris office when France fell to the Germans, a particularly poignant experience for him. In his youth he had been educated in French schools, graduated from the University of Paris and had taught science at L'Ecole du Montcel near Paris. He later recalled, "Seeing a nation crumble before your eyes is extraordinary, especially when you were brought up in it and rather loved it."

In many ways he has been a towering figure in the publishing business. No one could claim to know it better, to have contributed more to it, or, at 6 ft. 5 1/2 in., to have dominated it so literally. We view Andrew Heiskell's leaving with mixed emotions: delighted to know he will now be able to devote more of himself to public service and educational pursuits, but sad to see him go.

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