IN this age of electronic marvels, everyone is familiar with the way television, the daily newspapers, and newsmagazines such as TIME can quickly round up the impact of an important news event on capitals round the world. This week's special cover on Khrushchev (his tenth appearance on TIME'S cover since 1953), and our related stories on nuclear testing, are distillations of thousands of words filed from Washington, London, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Belgrade, Delhi and elsewhere.

But this same ingathering process from many sourcesso familiar in the handling of crisis events--has also been a longstanding procedure for supplying depth, cross checking and contrast to out-of-the-ordinary stories in every department in TIME. There are two stories in this week's issue that illustrate the way we go about it, and the riches that result--often unexpectedly--from widening a story's frame of reference.

As a new school season begins, Senior Editor William Forbis and Education Editor Robert Shnayerson were reminded of all the stories last spring about the difficulties of foreign students studying in the U.S. An eager new batch of foreign students were arriving; how did those who had returned home now feel? Queries went out to correspondents in seven foreign capitals (three in Asia, three in Latin America, and one in the Middle East). Interviews turned up a variety of recalled experiences--both hardships and pleasures--that add up to an interesting story called Welcome, Stranger. Many students had complaints to make, but surprisingly, few were found who described themselves as embittered by their U.S. experience.

A lively story in BUSINESS this week began with someone's noticing a report that Procter & Gamble was using "games simulating actual business conditions to test new employees." Business Editor Robert Christopher decided to find out just how popular the "game" idea was, and again, queries went out in all directions. It turns out that in four years, business games have won much acceptance, though there was widespread reluctance to concede how seriously such competitions as Role Playing and In-box are taken. Corporation executives often dismissed them as just one training tool among many, but the people "invited" to play the games are not so sure. Contributing Editor Marshall Loeb, who wrote this week's story, came out of the experience convinced that "one of the beauties of the journalism business is that they don't test you."

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