In a Manhattan restaurant last fortnight, a hat-check man hung up a battered Western felt, then followed its owner to a table. "Pardon me, sir," said he, "Aren't you Mr. McNaughton of television?"

The hat-checker's question--and the stack of fan letters that came later --brought TIME Correspondent Frank McNaughton some surprising news. To millions of televiewers in 26 U.S. cities he had become something of a star. To TIME editors he was a man doing before cameras just what he had been doing with a typewriter for 24 years: a bang-up reporting job.

The editors gave McNaughton a tough assignment when TIME decided to sponsor as a public service the American Broadcasting Co.'s telecast of the Kefauver hearings in New York. His job: to give watchers background on the hearings each time the committee recessed or adjourned.

Sometimes, aided by TIME Correspondents from other cities, he tied the testimony to other evidence on country-wide crime organizations. He outlined the legal steps needed to nail down perjury, contempt and deportation charges. He also sketched from memory the sordid story of Teapot Dome and other great congressional investigations from the past.

McNaughton's neat bow ties, shell-rimmed glasses and pertinent quotes from Shakespeare, Jefferson and the Bible became expected parts of the commentary. His factual analysis in a Missouri baritone contrasted sharply with the tension of the testimony.

Now 44, McNaughton pitched into crime reporting soon after he left the University of Missouri School of Journalism. In Oklahoma's wide-open '30s, when 23 Public Enemies roamed at large through the state (among them "Machine Gun" and Kathryn Kelly), he covered three "Pretty Boy" Floyd bank robberies and several shooting scraps between police and gunmen.

After covering the roundup of Al Capone's mobsters in New Orleans, he started concentrating on political reporting. He went to Washington in 1936, where five years of solid congressional coverage for the United Press brought him an offer from TIME.

McNaughton's rigorous schedule still sets a fearful example for young reporters. While others ride Washington's social whirl, he finds few things urgent enough to prevent him from settling down in his library between 9 and 1 o'clock each night. His favorite reading: Oliver Wendell Holmes' decisions and the Congressional Record.

A lightweight boxer in college, he keeps down to a wiry 133 Ibs. (5 ft. 7 1/2 in. tall) so as to give his 18-year-old son a scrappy bout two or three times a week.

In his heavy daytime schedule he has made it a habit to seek out promising newcomers to Congress. Senator Kefauver, speaking to the television audience just before an afternoon hearing last week, told how he and McNaughton had met back in 1939 when he was a Freshman Congressman from Tennessee.

The Senator then went on to tell what he hoped would be some results of the committee's work. He suggested a permanent "National Crime Commission" to report regularly to Congress. More to the point, he figured, was overcoming "public indifference" to law violations. In this connection he thanked TIME for being the committee's "strong right hand." "That I might ever be on the cover of TIME is an ambition I never really thought would come true," he said. He plans to hang our cover portrait on his office wall "right by that coonskin cap that I have."

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