VIET NAM does not go away," wrote Saigon Bureau Chief Stanley Cloud. "Like it or not, the story here seems to have found the secret to perpetual life." With firefights still raging outside Saigon, Cloud was understandably guarded in his reaction to reports of an imminent ceasefire. But last week, with Henry Kissinger proclaiming "Peace is at hand," a team of 23 TIME writers and reporter-researchers under Senior Editors Jason McManus and Otto Friedrich put the final touches to a 20-page special section on the long war and the shape of coming peace. The section was begun three weeks ago after we learned that significant progress was being made at the secret Paris talks. "It is an attempt," says McManus, "to analyze and describe what America's longest war has meant to our country and to Indochina, and to assess where we go from here."

While Timothy James reviewed the week's historic events and analyzed the cease-fire agreement in the section's lead article, Lance Morrow examined the war's effect on the U.S.--its institutions, its morale, its domestic politics. Morrow also edited the Election Supplement that describes this year's contests for the Senate, House and governors' mansions.

William Smith appraised the war's effect on U.S. foreign policy and America's future role in the world. It is a role that will surely be affected by the staggering financial cost of the conflict. With that in mind, William Doerner of our Business section calculated the war's drain on the U.S. Treasury through the years and explained why the oft-mentioned "peace dividend" is not likely to materialize. Bob McCabe wrote a portrait of the leaders who have directed the North Vietnamese. Deborah Pierce, Alice George and Antoinette Melillo of our picture department compiled a photo gallery of war personalities who were once familiar to all but have since disappeared from view. More representative of the war than its leading characters, perhaps, are its legions of victims. Former Medicine Editor Gilbert Cant visited a veterans' hospital to record the thoughts of G.I.s who survived--with permanent scars. Senior Editor Marshall Loeb peered into the uncertain future and made some predictions about South Viet Nam's next government and the country's chances for reconstruction.

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