When he came to the Books section of TIME in 1974, Staff Writer Paul Gray carried with him a number of credentials as a reviewer. Among other things, he held a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Virginia (subject of his thesis: James Joyce), and had taught as an assistant professor at Princeton for seven years. Even so, he found preparing for this week's cover story on Novelist Gore Vidal to be a rigorous exercise, since his preparations required reading or rereading a 23-volume shelf including 15 novels, various essay collections and other works by his subject. Says Gray: "I came to admire Vidal for his accomplishments in an old but honorable role, the well-rounded man of letters." He adds: "Vidal does not seem to be taken seriously by most academic critics, but they could learn something about graceful, effective prose from studying his work." From Rome, Correspondent Erik Amfitheatrof traveled with Vidal to his hillside villa in Ravello. "After a tour of the house and a drink of Vidal's home-bottled wine, we went out to dinner and talked until midnight," says Amfitheatrof. "By then the file was all but writing itself." Meanwhile New York Correspondent Roland Flamini talked to friends, foes, editors and other authorities on the author in the U.S. The story was edited by Stefan Kanfer and researched by Nancy Newman.

Like the Vidal cover story, the five-page article in the World section about the Soviet Union drew on considerable expertise. The piece offers a view of what Russian life is really like, behind the pageantry and rhetoric of the pivotal 25th Communist Party Congress that opens in Moscow this week. It was written by Patricia Blake, a longtime student of the Russian scene who came to TIME as a consultant on Soviet affairs in 1968. She was assisted by Reporter-Researcher Sara Medina, who earned a degree in Russian at Vassar College and has worked on many stories involving East bloc countries.

Our Washington, London and Bonn bureaus contributed files on the Soviet economy and politics. The principal reporting for the story came from Moscow Bureau Chief Marsh Clark, whose extensive note taking on Soviet life today began last September, when he joined the American and Russian astronauts who had participated in the Apollo-Soyuz space rendezvous on their seven-city post-mission tour of the Soviet Union.

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