Ever since that fateful day in Dallas in 1963, journalists covering the President have been especially alert to the possibility that someone might try to take his life. That knowledge has brought a tinge of apprehension to even the most routine presidential assignments. TIME'S Dirck Halstead had just such a prosaic task last week: taking pictures of President Reagan at the Washington Hilton. Suddenly gunshots rang out. Halstead, who photographed one of the assassination attempts on Gerald Ford in 1975, was able to take some of the dramatic pictures that accompany this week's cover stories. Says Halstead: "It has become necessary to bring to this assignment the constant awareness that violence might occur at any moment."

Other TIME staffers were on the scene moments later. Correspondent Douglas Brew, who was getting audience reaction to Reagan's speech at the Hilton, raced outside and interviewed eyewitnesses. Correspondent Johanna McGeary, who was at lunch a block away, joined him there. White House Correspondent Laurence Barrett, who wrote TIME'S cover story on the shooting of Robert Kennedy in 1968, was about to leave on vacation when he heard about the Hilton incident. He rushed to the White House and then to the hospital, and on Friday got an exclusive interview with Nancy Reagan. New York Bureau Chief Peter Stoler, formerly TIME'S medicine writer, flew to the capital to cover the medical aspects of the story.

In Texas, Correspondent Robert Wurmstedt traveled to Dallas and Lubbock to interview friends of John Hinckley, the shooting suspect. Denver Bureau Chief Richard Woodbury was two miles from his home when he heard on his car radio that Hinckley had lived in Evergreen, Colo. Says Woodbury: "I headed straight for the mountains." Just beginning a vacation in Greeley, Colo., Senior Writer Edward Magnuson was quickly airborne back to New York, where he wrote the narrative of the assassination attempt.

Says Magnuson: "It has happened enough times now so that though there is always a shock, you know you've been through it before. What you feel more than anything is sadness and disgust."

Concluded Washington Bureau Chief Robert Ajemian: "When the facts had all been fitted together, it seemed that Reagan's rugged and breezy presence had heavily affected the story. His spirit was larger than the awful event itself."

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