Most of you will undoubtedly be following with interest the national political conventions during July--hearing and seeing them on radio and television and reading about them in TIME and in your newspapers.

Because the great body of material at hand about conventions, properly organized, could help in understanding the Chicago meetings. TIME decided to publish a convention booklet and to make it available to the public.

Political conventions are always exciting, and this year's are certainly no exception. With the President no longer a contender, this is the first time since 1928 that the nation will be witnessing two "open" conventions. Neither one will be the kind of rubber-stamp gathering at which the delegates merely meet to approve Administration policies and nominate the man already in office.

National party conventions, of course, come only once in four years --not so far apart that we forget their purposes and atmosphere, but far enough apart so that we forget many of their details and procedures. Behind most of these procedures there is usually a long tradition, which often helps explain the method in the apparent madness of the convention.

TIME'S booklet has a section on the history, highlights and highjinks of past conventions, as well as the customs and regulations that will guide the party gatherings this year. It also has box scores with which you can follow the voting, a presidential map of the U.S., an explanation of how Presidents are elected, a gallery of key political figures and a special section for your own personal record of the conventions.

In pulling together the material on political conventions and elections, the team that worked on the booklet found a mass of out-of-the-way information about our political parties and their operation, past & present. As you may know, the Constitution says nothing about parties and conventions and there has been no great body of federal law to regulate them. As a result, the parties grew like Topsy, developing their own rules as they went along.

Although states now regulate political parties closely, the national conventions are still, in a manner of speaking, on their own. No convention is bound by the rules of the last one, and surprises can be expected at any time.

TIME has tried to compress into the booklet as many such facts as are needed to make the conventions meaningful to the average voter and citizen. In addition to being a convention guide, the booklet is also designed as a personal record book, which you may wish to keep as a souvenir of one of the most important events of this decade.

Normal distribution of the booklet will be through the radio and television facilities of the Columbia Broadcasting System and its local affiliates. But if you would like a copy for yourself, and perhaps another for a friend, you can have one by sending a card with your name & address and the name & address of one friend (the supply is limited) to TIME Convention, Box 1096, Chicago 90, Illinois.

After you have read it, or used it during the conventions, I would be interested in hearing whether you found it helpful, or in any other comments you might like to send.

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