THIRTEEN months before the 1964 U.S. presidential election, there is a bubbling ferment in political circles around the U.S. Who can win? Who's for--and against--whom? Which way is the trend moving? What will the issues be? While they are thinking and talking privately about these questions, political leaders--true to form at this stage of the game--are saying little in public about what they really think. To get at what is in the political minds, TIME set out three weeks ago on a reporting process that is uniquely suited to our kind of journalism.

Reporters in every one of the 50 states talked to, all in all, hundreds of political figures: prospective candidates, possible kingmakers, Senators, Governors, Congressmen, state chairmen and all others right down to the precinct level. Predictably, few of the politicians wanted to put themselves on the record at this time. In most cases, when the conversation was placed on what is known in the trade as a "not-for-attribution" basis, they talked frankly and fully about what they know and think and expect. After thus tapping the flow of political thought, the dozens of correspondents working on the assignment filed their reports to TIME editorial headquarters in New York. There, Writer Ed Magnuson and Senior Editor Champ Clark analyzed and studied the evidence in detail and in sum. From it emerged some clear and fascinating patterns, outlined in the state-by-state survey in THE NATION this week, to provide an early-in-season guide to next year's political campaign.

THREE years ago, when Correspondent Marshall Berges was packing up to leave his assignment as head of the Detroit Bureau to take charge in Los Angeles, he dropped around to see Robert S. McNamara, then president of the Ford Motor Co. Berges felt that McNamara, as a former Californian, might well provide some pretty good guidance. One of the questions he asked was, "Who are the brightest men in California?" McNamara's reply was instantaneous: "Way up at the top of your list you'd better put Tex Thornton." Berges was not in California long before he shared that view and began to think of Thornton as an eventual TIME cover subject. His nearly three years of watching the dramatic progress of Tex Thornton and Litton Industries, plus long interviews with the industrialist on horseback trips through the mountains outside Los Angeles, provided the bulk of the material for Writer Everett Martin and Senior Editor Edward L. Jamieson in putting together this week's cover story on one of the most remarkable executives in the world.

TIME expresses its deep interest in art mainly in our art stories and color pages, but for years readers have shown interest as well in the use of fine art in advertising. Among the great examples are the ads of Container Corporation of America, using original works of art commissioned by the company to express great ideas. Now Container has mounted a retrospective show of these works, including paintings, sketches and sculpture, by some 60 artists such as Fernand Leger, Willem de Kooning, Ben Shahn, Morris Graves, Mark Tobey and Henry Moore. Last weekend the show opened for a month-long run in the reception center on the main floor of the TIME & LIFE Building in Rockefeller Center. All TIME readers are especially invited to stop in and see this striking exhibition of the use of fine art in business.

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