THIS week's cover story deals with an ancient civilization, a mountainous area over 4,000 miles long, a struggling country and a remarkable Latin American politician who hasn't been involved in any coups lately. The story of Peru's President Belaunde (whom Artist Safran portrays against a backdrop of the Peruvian coat of arms) is one of leadership in a positive revolution.

TIME'S editors and correspondents have been logging Belaunde's progress for years. On recent trips to Peru, Senior Editor George Daniels and Writer Philip Osborne had long talks with the Peruvian President. When the editors then decided that Belaunde should be on the cover, the massive job of reporting and research fell to people who brought a high degree of expertise to the task: Bureau Chiefs Roger Stone (Rio), Gavin Scott (Buenos Aires), Mo Garcia (Caracas); Stringers Tomas Loayza (Lima) and Jorge Jurado (Quito); Washington Correspondent Jerry Hannifin; New York Researchers Berta Gold, Erika Kraemer and Priscilla Badger. Obviously expert in his craft, if not necessarily in the area, was the man who took the color photographs, J. Alex Langley, who covered the vast and rugged area by truck, Jeep, horse, helicopter, DC-3, and one sortie in a Grumman Goose piloted by a Franciscan priest.

For all who worked on the project, a particular point of satisfaction lay in telling the story of effort and progress in a part of the world that too often makes headlines only when there is sensational trouble.

THIRTY years ago last month, Time Inc. presented in 417 movie houses across the U.S. the first of a series of film shorts that would revolutionize the art and technique of documentary film-making the world over. It was, of course, the MARCH OF TIME. Over the next 16 years, M.O.T. produced 160 films dealing with 290 subjects, accumulated a unique library of 11 million feet of film, and received 48 awards, including two Oscars.

By the end of World War II, M.O.T. was being shown regularly in nearly 10,000 theaters in the U.S., 5,000 abroad. Its passing from the cinema scene in 1951 was widely lamented in the world's press. New York Times Critic Bosley Crowther found it "a shade ironic that, in these critical times, the film most watchful of the onward march of history should itself be compelled to march off." The popular series, he said (correctly), "bows to screen economics and TV."

This fall, MARCH OF TIME will march on again with a half-hour weekly show on television. Time Inc.'s partner in the production of a modern MARCH OF TIME series is the prestigious documentary filmmaker, David L. Wolper, president of Wolper Productions Inc., whose credits include such memorable films as The Making of the President 1960 (20 international awards, four Emmies), D-Day and Hollywood: The Golden Years. Alan Landsburg, producer of Wolper's Peabody Award-winning Biography and Men in Crisis series, will be executive producer.

The new venture will have a substantial store of resources to draw from: Wolper's own 200-man team plus the TIME-LIFE News Service, reference library and picture collection, and the M.O.T. and Wolper film libraries (the latter includes the complete Paramount Newsreel footage). Important as these libraries will be in supplying history on film, Wolper says that most of the shooting will be fresh--about 90% new, 10% clips.

"The original MARCH OF TIME was a great departure from the everyday newsreel and made moviegoers look forward to the next release," says Producer Wolper. "So will the new MARCH OF TIME establish a new standard for the television documentary and capture the imagination of a new audience. It will be a living record of the great events and personalities of our time."

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