From the Publisher

In this first major war of the computer age, journalists are as dependent on their software as on their wits, and the possibility that a modem will eat their copy lurks as menacingly as a bomb threat. Fortunately, TIME has Hope. As technology manager for the magazine's news service, Hope Almash is the link between correspondents in the field and editors in New York City. Says Almash: "Our correspondents are expected to report and write great stories, then have the wizardry to send them in. These are quite different skills. Some of our people, especially the younger ones, are computer friendly. Others need the occasional hand holding."

As the allied offensive erupted, TIME's chief of correspondents, John F. Stacks, was back home from Baghdad, and 10 correspondents and nine photographers from the magazine were fully deployed in nine locations across the region. All the correspondents have relied on Almash to assist them with communications problems in filing. When correspondent Scott MacLeod, who had been in Baghdad with Stacks, tried sending a file over the special phone line he had set up at his base in Amman, Jordan, he got music on a local radio station instead of an encouraging dial tone. A call to Almash, and a reconnoiter of his hotel's communications center, solved the problem. Special correspondent Michael Kramer, TIME's insider on the Kuwaiti government-in- exile, headed toward the gulf through London, with Almash tracking him as closely as a defensive back covers a wide receiver.

Communications dwindle to a minor concern in wartime for correspondents who find themselves sharing fear and hardship with the citizens of the countries they cover. When air-raid sirens howled Thursday night, Jerusalem bureau chief Jon Hull and his wife Judy donned gas masks, moved to a sealed room, then quickly placed their 15-month-old son Dylan in a small plastic tent designed to protect infants from chemical poisons. As Dylan howled in protest, Jon got on the phone to find out more about the Scud missiles that were falling on Israel and to advise us in New York City. It was a reminder for us all that war is composed of human experiences, and they are not often pleasant.