After closing this week's cover story on the G.O.P.'s election strategy, 17 editors, writers and reporter-researchers from TIME's Nation section left New York City for Dallas on the second of their quadrennial pilgrimages to the political conventions. Particularly in a carefully orchestrated gathering like the one planned by the Republicans, viewing the events on TV cannot match the chance for firsthand observation. TIME's staff members will have numerous opportunities for face-to-face encounters and candid conversations with key participants. In addition to the reception given by Time Inc. Edi for in Chief Henry Grunwald and the editors of TIME at the new Dallas Museum of Art on the convention's opening evening, a series of on-the-record breakfasts, lunches and coffee meetings was scheduled.

Says Nation Senior Editor Stephen Smith: "To see top Republicans close up, away from the pressures of the convention hall, talking not only about the convention but also about political issues and problems stretching into the future, is one of the most productive features of our convention visits. Similar conversations with Democrats in San Franciso last month produced not only a special article on the party's prospects, but also material for many of our other stories."

Houston Bureau Chief David Jackson began preparing for the convention even before taking on his assignment to Texas last fall. "In fact, I've spent as much time in Dallas as in Houston | this year," he says. "The empty folder on which I scribbled 'Dallas' a year ago has grown to six fat ones, and I have visited the city several dozen times." Jackson will put his knowledge to work this week covering the various parties and protests aimed, in quite different ways, at attracting the Republicans' attention.

White House Correspondent Laurence Barrett has covered Ronald Reagan since the 1980 campaign; last year Doubleday published Barrett's Gambling with History, an account of the President's first two years in office. Dallas, says Barrett, will be "something of a nostalgia trip. The first national convention I covered was in 1 964, when the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater in San Francisco; it was raucous in spirit and bitter in tone. Comparing '64 and '84, when a conservative President is headed for a serene coronation in Dallas, is quite a commentary on the country's political evolution."

The anticipated tranquillity is somewhat reflected in TIME's cover photograph this week. The two relaxed Republicans posed for their portrait by Dirck Halstead at the Reagan ranch near

Santa Barbara, Calif. On Thursday night the glowing pair will be , posing again, this time on the podium in Dallas as thousands of cameras capture the political moment of the week.