Fast closings and short deadlines are routine at TIME; they are part of the rhythms of newsmagazine journalism. But rarely have TIME'S editors deliberately delayed the printing process a full day or imposed such formidable demands for speed and efficiency on editors, writers and correspondents as they did for this week's issue. When it became apparent that the foreign policy debate between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale in Kansas City on Sunday night was likely to be the climax of the 1984 presidential campaign, it was decided to hold the presses for 24 hours. The result: a complete and timely story analyzing the dramatic confrontation, and the probable fallout.

The decision to postpone the magazine's close affected hundreds of people in and outside TIME'S headquarters in Manhattan. Arrangements were made by the Picture Department to fly in film of the debate by chartered jet from Kansas City to New York City. Work shifts in ten U.S. printing plants and eight others around the world were rearranged to accommodate the later schedules. The firms that deliver copies of TIME to post offices and newsstands were notified so that trucking schedules could be altered.

Meanwhile, seven correspondents were dispatched to Kansas City. Laurence Barrett and John Yang from Washington, Jack White from New York and Christopher Ogden from Chicago reported and assessed the debate, question by question. Douglas Brew and Sam Allis, both from Washington, judged the individual performances of Reagan and Mondale. Washington Bureau Chief Robert Ajemian, in consultation with his TIME colleagues, contributed an overview of the event. In Washington, Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott reviewed how each candidate handled the details of foreign policy under the pressures of the face-to-face meeting. In addition, TIME had a panel of foreign policy and political science experts standing by to offer their own reactions immediately after the debate.

Within an hour after the final statements in Kansas City, the correspondents' reports were in the hands of the Nation section, headed by Senior Editors Stephen Smith and Walter Isaacson. After that, five writers and five reporter-researchers had just 4 1/2 hours to turn out the entire cover package. Says Smith of the complicated logistics: "Like the candidates in their preparations for the debate, we were trying to cover every possible option and be ready for every possible contingency. And like them, we were rather hoping the debate would not offer too many unanticipated shocks."