A Letter From The Publisher, Jun. 13, 1977

"In America, every one finds facilities unknown elsewhere for making or increasing his fortune. The spirit of gain is always on the stretch." So wrote Alexis de Tocqueville more than a century ago. Today, Americans are making fortunes as fast and ingeniously as ever. In this week's cover story on the Hot New Rich, we examine how a dozen new millionaires assembled all of these megabucks—and what they are doing with them.

Although we included a few celebrities like Steve Cauthen and Peter Frampton, we asked correspondents in six TIME bureaus to seek out...

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