It may come as something of a surprise to the critics of South Africa's government that it permitted the cover story on Prime Minister Daniel Francois Malan (TIME, May 5) to be widely distributed and reprinted in South Africa. Long excerpts were quoted in the pro-Malan Afrikaans press.

Since then, TIME'S South African correspondent, Alexander Campbell, has arrived in New York for his first visit to the U.S. and his first trip out of Africa in 15 years. Campbell reports that, even as he prepared for the six-week trip, rumors began to circulate that he was fleeing the country because of the story on Malan.

A slight, spry and witty Scotsman, Campbell enjoys his assignment, even when his insistence on factual stories makes him unpopular with government supporters. "They criticize you after things appear." he says,"but they don't interfere with reporting. They attack, you --in the press, even in Parliament. But you can call the State Information Office the next day and they'll treat you with scrupulous courtesy."

Although certain issues of TIME have been seized by customs officials and passed on to the Minister of the Interior for scrutiny, the magazine has never been banned in South Africa, and copies are always released eventually for distribution. Says Campbell: "TIME evokes widespread interest because its articles are quoted so much. It may be under some such heading as 'Hostile, Lying Foreign Press' or 'More Poison in TIME,' but the articles are quoted in great detail."

Campbell, 39, was born and educated in Edinburgh and graduated from the University of Edinburgh in the depression year of 1934. His first job--writing adventure stories for teenagers' magazines--lasted ten months, after which he was offered the post of editorial writer for the Edinburgh Scotsman. Two years later, when he was planning to get married, he looked about for additional sources of income. He entered a contest, the object of which was to find a successor to one Annie S. Swan, who was about to retire at the peak of a successful career writing "romances for factory girls." Campbell submitted two stories, one under a pen name, the other under his fiancee's name. The stories won first and second prizes, and his fiancee was offered a contract, as first prizewinner, to become Annie Swan's successor.

Meanwhile, a journalist friend who had gone to South Africa had written Campbell to tell him of a job opening on a newspaper there. When Campbell inquired about passage, he was told the paper would pay expenses of the trip for a couple, "if married." So they got married, collected the prize money for the story contest, and went to South Africa in June 1937.

Campbell worked on a paper in the wool port town of East London until 1944. A book he wrote on South African war problems (Smuts and Swastika) brought him to the attention of South Africa's leading newspaper, the Johannesburg Star, which hired him as an editorial writer. In April 1950 he began working as a part-time correspondent for TIME, and in April 1951 he became a staff correspondent.

Some of the stories he has worked on for TIME : the African rain queen (May 7, 1951), City in Terror (Sept. 3), the tale of the lad in Cape Town who stole an airplane (Sept. 10), the visit by Princess Elizabeth to Kenya (Feb. 11), and the story of Uganda's crocodiles (Jan. 21).

Says Campbell: "Africa's the place for animal stories."

Campbell spent two solid weeks completing his research for the Malan cover, although he was already thoroughly familiar with the subject. He interviewed newsmen, personal friends of Malan, schoolteachers, detectives, valets and chauffeurs. And he found many civil servants and politicians willing to talk to him--if only for background purposes.

When the cover appeared, one Afrikaans newspaper wrote about it under the headline, "TIME'S Monster." and another described the TIME story as "most reprehensible." But a Johannesburg city councilor commented: "TIME has put Malan where he belongs on the pages of South African history. The story is dead right."

At first, men in the parliamentary press gallery carried their copies around under their coats. But they came out in the open when the correspondents saw copies being handed around among members of the opposition party in Parliament.

Cordially yours,

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