Associate Editor Frank Merrick first met Edward Moore Kennedy in 1962, when Kennedy, then 30, made his initial bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate and Merrick was reporting for the Holyoke, Mass., Transcript-Telegram. In the next 17 years Merrick often wrote about the Massachusetts Senator, tracing his career as one of history's most famous noncandidates. Now in this week's cover story, Merrick has Kennedy off and running at last as a formidable presidential candidate.

Despite all the press coverage that Kennedy attracts, the Senator remains an enigmatic subject. Says Merrick: "Everyone may know about his troubled marriage and his sailing at Cape Cod, but little is known about what he really thinks. He has lived in the public eye so long that he has become a master at shielding his privacy."

Washington Correspondent Neil MacNeil, who assessed Kennedy's Senate activities for the cover story, agrees: "Unlike his brother Bobby, who had close friends and enemies among reporters, Teddy is pleasant to all, but distant. He seems to follow Jack Kennedy's maxim that 'in politics, you don't have friends--only allies.' " Adds Boston Bureau Chief Hays Gorey, whose reporting for the story reflects years of tracking the entire Kennedy clan: "Ted will let you follow him around so you can try to figure out where he comes from, but he is well aware of where you come from, always."

To penetrate Kennedy's private reserve, Washington Bureau Chief Robert Ajemian met with him in two settings where the Senator is most at ease: his small hideaway office in the Capitol, once occupied by Brother. Jack, and the library at his McLean, Va., home. Ajemian also drew upon insights into Kennedy developed over 16 years of covering him, first for LIFE and later for TIME.

Says Ajemian, "I've sensed how to decipher Kennedy's spare offerings on questions about his own psychology. The incomplete sentences and body language, the voice up or trailing, the eye restless or alive." Concludes Ajemian: "John was more open than his brothers. Bobby took things more personally. Ted is more cautious."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.