From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Quick. For one Belgian endive and a single point of light, read the following quotation and name that campaign:

"It was a very tight little ship. You couldn't get to the candidate himself, so you had to take too much second- or even thirdhand. The candidate had some very good people around, but they were always hiding him from you."

George Bush? Michael Dukakis? Sorry. Good guesses both, but the correct answer is Richard Nixon. The recollection comes courtesy of Burt Meyers, who covered Nixon's 1960 presidential quest for TIME. And if, as this week's cover story demonstrates, most comparisons between the 1960 and 1988 campaigns are more fanciful than actual, Meyers allows that some things have not changed.

Now retired and living in Williamsburg, Va., Meyers still remembers the us- and-them mentality of the Nixon campaign. "The press pool would be put in the rear of the plane and kept away from things," Meyers recalls. Morale became so bad that the Nixon people added another public relations man to the staff to entertain reporters. "One of his talents was making funny little animals out of balloons," Meyers laughs. "But once you've seen one little animal, you've satisfied a lifetime need."

There was no time for inflated dachshunds on John Kennedy's campaign. "It was a breakneck, wild ride through the nights," recalls Hugh Sidey, who reported on that campaign, and every one since, for TIME. "Kennedy paid attention to us and knew what we were writing. Even when he chewed us out, we loved it."

At one point Meyers and Sidey switched assignments for several weeks. Meyers, accustomed to the longer meal breaks on the Nixon campaign, lost 2 1/2 lbs. Sidey recalls that a Kennedy staffer joked that "the Senator has said that 17 million Americans go to bed hungry at night, and he expects you to do your part."