This week's cover story on the oldest member of the U.S. Congress, Florida Democratic Representative Claude Pepper, 82, was reported by Washington Correspondent Hays Gorey, a veteran political reporter who nonetheless admits to some initial misgivings about the assignment. "When I started interviewing Pepper," says Gorey, "I had in mind the stereotype of the aged: I feared that Pepper would repeat himself, that he would have forgotten things. I thought that I would have to look up dates for everything he talked about. How wrong I was. Pepper can reel off dates, names and long-ago events with startling accuracy. As one of the men who planned the third-term candidacy of Franklin Roosevelt, Pepper not only remembered the date and hotel where the meeting occurred, but he also remembered the food that was served: finger sandwiches." Over a period of five weeks, Gorey followed the endlessly energetic Congressman through a schedule of House business meetings, sessions with Miami constituents and speeches all over the country. It was an agenda that would have exhausted a teenager, and Gorey found Pepper's strength and stamina astonishing. "In one of the speeches I covered," Gorey recalls, "Pepper said that old people want to be treated like people. A corollary belief apparently is that he wants to act like people. One day, en route to a Miami luncheon where he was to be honored, we walked through the garage of his condominium and into his large Lincoln automobile. Surveying the cramped space and the huge guzzler, I thought: He'll never be able to maneuver it out of here. He did, though. But the engine was sputtering, and as we hit a main thoroughfare, it quit on him altogether. I told him that if he would guide the car to the curb, I would push from the rear. But he hopped out, held one hand on the steering wheel and pushed with all his might. This is a man with a pacemaker; at his age, what was he thinking of? Explained Pepper: 'I thought you needed help.' "

Pepper has appeared on TIME'S cover once before, during his 1938 race in Florida for the Senate, a seat he held until 1951. As he finished his interviews for this week's cover story, the Florida Congressman put his experience as a national figure in perspective. Recalls Gorey: "He looked at me impishly and said, 'I hope you'll be around to report my third TIME cover story--45 years from now.' " This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.