WHILE the world waited anxiously for some promise of peace in Viet Nam, Associate Editor Ronald Kriss, who wrote this week's cover story, felt that he was entitled to some extra measure of impatience. The special publishing deadlines of a pre-election issue meant that all stories had to be written and edited at an accelerated pace; the probability of a bombing halt only compounded the need for speed. But Kriss, along with Senior Editor Michael Demarest and Researcher Mary Kelley, were as prepared as possible for the unpredictable. For months, they have been studying every nuance of the negotiations in Paris.

When the talks started last spring, it was Kriss who wrote TIME'S cover on Negotiators Harriman, Vance, Xuan Thuy and the North Vietnamese representative in Pans, Mai Van Bo (May 10, 1968). In that story, the big question was: What really brought the North Vietnamese to the conference table? This time, Kriss had to piece together all the moves and countermoves, all the rumors, all the military and diplomatic reports that suggested a bombing pause was imminent. As he worked, he was helped by TIME correspondents who filed their own analyses from most major capitals of the world.

Cover: Collage by Dennis Wheeler.

For a few days early in 1964, Graphics Designer Dennis Wheeler kept himself busy tearing up old TIME covers. From the bits and pieces of back issues, he pasted up a collage --a poster designed to advertise TIME'S traveling art show of original cover portraits. But TIME'S editors were not quite satisfied with the result of his assault on other artists' visions of various personalities. "My God," said one critic, "he ripped Senator Javits right in half."

Wheeler's poster was not used. Even so, the basic plan stuck with him. Collage seemed to him to be an ideal way to convey a complex idea. Moreover, it was a technique with which he could work quickly. So when he was asked to try a cover on the bombing halt, Wheeler was ready the next day with five different versions. The following day, he finished three more. The collage that was finally chosen shows President Johnson framed by a raggedly outlined bomb. The red octagonal shape that makes up the background is the familiar roadside stop sign. .

Although this is his first appearance as a TIME cover artist, Wheeler, 33, considers himself an alumnus of Time Inc. Not long after he graduated from Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, he went to work for LIFE. While there, he designed the series of advertisements that showed the LIFE logotype cutout of a long catalogue of items: IBM cards, theater tickets, miniature flags. Those Wheeler cutouts are now in the collections of Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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