A Letter From The Publisher, Jun. 25, 1979

For the TIME correspondents who went to Vienna for this week's cover story on the SALT II summit, the trip was the culmination of months, and in some cases years, of preparation. Moscow Bureau Chief Bruce Nelan, who followed the Soviet side of the talks, started covering SALT in 1977 as TIME'S defense specialist in Washington. White House Correspondent Chris Ogden who covered the U.S. delegation, was reporting from Moscow when Richard Nixon arrived to sign SALT lin 1972. For Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott, the Vienna summit was quite literally a final chapter, both in his extensive coverage...