It used to be said that in its early decades, TIME was staffed by poets or, at any rate, by writers who cared more about words than about news. Today we still venerate the word, and we still harbor some poets in our midst, but for a long time now they have been complemented by trained newsmen. One of the first of that breed to join the magazine was Eben Roy Alexander, who came to TIME in 1939 as a veteran reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As managing editor from 1949 to 1960, he in a sense led TIME into its age of fully professional journalism. When "Alex" died last week, at 79, both old associates and younger staff members who know him only as a legend paid tribute to an extraordinary journalist and an extraordinary man.

He brought a startling variety of talents and interests to the magazine. He loved opera (Tosca was his favorite); he read Latin and Greek, occasionally poring over Aristotle in his office; he was a student of theology and philosophy; he was a military expert, having served Stateside in the Marines during World War I. He was also a skilled pilot who had flown with Charles Lindbergh in the Missouri National Guard. During World War II, Alex used to relax on weekends by test-piloting Grumman fighters.

But above all he was a newsman. He edited TIME'S World Battlefronts department during most of World War II. The engagements, which he painstakingly followed on his maps, were almost personal experiences to him; many of the generals were acquaintances, and others came alive through his detailed knowledge and passionate concern.

Given his background, it was natural that when named managing editor of TIME by Co-Founder Henry Luce, he regarded his job much like a military command. He was a great commander: tough, decisive, but always fair and humane. The managing editor of TIME is responsible for everything that appears in the magazine, for how the magazine shapes its picture of the world each week, and Alex relished that responsibility. His editing pencil raced across the copy, deleting, adding, transposing, scribbling questions in the margin. When the phone interrupted him, he would always answer it himself, avoiding the wasted word hello and simply stating: "Alexander."

He believed in discipline, and discipline began with himself. He knew his mind. He made quick decisions and stuck to them. Confronted with a problem, a plea, an argument--he always allowed room for argument--he would tilt back in his swivel chair, eyes on the ceiling, hands clasped behind his head.

Then a hand would shoot forward, sometimes in a mediating gesture, sometimes as if physically weighing a point. Then the issue was settled, the order given, the voice kindly, the words earthy.

A devout Roman Catholic, Roy Alexander went to Mass every day of his life. As he watched history flow by, he had a strong, unsurprised sense of the evil in human nature--and an even stronger conviction that it is inextricably bound up with good.

"Roy, on the most colossal scale known to any of us, is a good guy," said Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan when Alex retired in 1966. Roy Alexander took all rites of passage as inevitable in life and shunned sentimentality. But on that occasion he allowed himself to say that his colleagues at TIME had meant a great deal to him, and he added: "I think I realize now that I have meant something to all of you."

He did--and to TIME'S readers, although they never knew the man.

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