In the heat of the Watergate summer of 1974, TIME published a special 38-page cover story on "Leadership in America." The report examined what had become distressing gaps in the ranks and the credibility of America's leaders, and profiled 200 enterprising young men and women who showed the talent and vision to help fill that vacuum. Five years later, with the country facing another kind of crisis of confidence, TIME presents a second major study of leadership in America. The report includes a diagnosis of the current malaise and a crop of 50 "faces for the future." Assistant Managing Editor Ronald Kriss, who supervised the entire project, and Senior Writer Lance Morrow, who wrote the main story, were well versed in the subject, for both performed similar functions on the earlier report. Morrow found the quest for new sources of American leadership had changed since 1974. Says he: "There was a certain urgency to it then, in the midst of Watergate: Agnew had resigned, and Nixon was about to follow him. We were looking for a leader we could trust. Now, though the President's approval rating has fallen to near record depths, the question is not one of trust and the urgency is different. We are searching, as a nation, for leaders who are capable "To find this year's portfolio of 50 new faces, TIME editors and correspondents across the country began by nominating nearly 200 candidates. Senior Editor James Atwater and Reporter-Researcher Victoria Sales led a team of writers and researchers that spent six weeks sorting the nominees by region and vocation, reviewing their credentials, selecting the outstanding few, eliminating dozens, reinstating some and arguing over many. "It was an excruciating process," says Staff Writer Ellie McGrath, who together with David Tinnin wrote the sketches of those selected. Staff Writer Walter Isaacson found it similarly challenging to track the successes and failures of TIME's original group of 200, especially when the fate of several--such as deposed HEW Chief Joseph Califano--kept shifting as he wrote. In addition, TIME commissioned four prominent artists--Sue Coe, Brad Holland, Eugene Mihaesco and David Suter--to depict their own perspectives on the leadership crisis. The results are as diverse in style and substance as leadership itself. As Suter puts it, "If there is a crisis, it's because Americans don't know what they want."

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