From their vantage point in the press balcony of Philadelphia's Convention Hall last week (see cut*), TIME's editors had a clear view of the Republican Convention as a spectacle. Most of the real convention news, however, was made a mile and a half away in the hotels, where the Warren forces poured orange juice, the Taft people had iced tea and choral singing, the Stassenites produced a jazz band and cheese, and Deweyites held a fashion show.

TIME had assigned a reporter to every candidate and important delegation to keep the "smoke-filled room" vigil, and to find and cover every caucus, press conference and "secret meeting." They worked 18-20 hours a day under the hot Philadelphia sun and the hotter 45,000-watt lights of Convention Hall, and about the only thing they missed was sleep. Senior Editor Duncan Norton-Taylor even managed to get around to Dewey's fashion show where, he reports, "the models wore garters with pink elephants on them . . . Furthermore," he added, "who should turn up in the Maryland delegation but a man I owe $78 for lumber."

As far as I am concerned, the test of how thoroughly TIME's convention staff did its job rests in its forecast of the balloting. Before the convention Domestic Bureau Chief David Hulburd's U.S. correspondents and stringers, including Washington Bureau Chief Jim Shepley's staff, had filed detailed information on each state's delegation, estimating its possible first and second ballot choices, describing the background of key delegates, etc. At the Convention this work was continued painstakingly to the point where, the day before the balloting, National Affairs Editor Otto Fuerbringer made some calculations and announced that Dewey ought to get 434 votes on the first ballot. Dewey did. Adding up his information for the second ballot, Fuerbringer came out with 509 Dewey votes. He was six short of the correct total and is inclined to send stern letters to the delegates who crossed him up.

Down on the convention floor National Affairs Writer Bob Baker inadvertently picked up some unexpected information at the close of the second ballot. When the Dewey total was announced, the delegates swarmed into the aisles, carrying Baker along with them until he swirled into a private caucus being held on the floor by heads-together Governors Kim Sigler, of Michigan, Jim Duff, of Pennsylvania, and Senator Raymond Baldwin, of Connecticut, who were trying to decide what to do about Dewey on the third ballot. Pinned against Sigler's broad back, Baker couldn't help overhearing the forthcoming strategy.

For most of TIME's staff, the convention produced only one entirely new aspect: television. LIFE and the National Broadcasting Company having joined forces to report the convention via television, TIME's reporters made a number of appearances before the cameras to interview candidates and politicians, and to report on fast-breaking maneuvers. Frank McNaughton, TIME's Congressional correspondent, who knows about as many politicians intimately as a newsman can, made so many appearances before the television cameras that he contracted what he called "video sunburn" -- from the pancake makeup they smeared on his face each time.

Throughout the convention's first four days TIME's staff continued to write copy and file it to the TIME & LIFE building in Manhattan, before details were forgotten or facts grew dim. On Friday Editor Fuerbringer brought his writing staff back to New York and began the job of putting what happened at the convention down on paper. Their work begins on the first page of this issue's National Affairs section.

Cordially,

* In the foreground are Managing Editor T. S. Matthews (facing the stage) and Senior Editor Otto Fuerbringer.

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