A Letter From The Publisher: Mar. 14, 1983

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Queen Elizabeth II of Britain and Pope John Paul II are figures on the world stage of such luster that they turn almost any trip into a journalistic superevent. Since her journey to South Africa in 1946, her first visit abroad, Elizabeth has logged about 800,000 miles to far-flung dominions and friendly former colonies, more than the combined journeys of all of England's previous monarchs since the Norman conquest. In only four years, John Paul has flown 150,000 miles, more than the previous record holder, Paul VI, traveled in his entire 15-year pontificate. Both Elizabeth and John Paul were traveling new roads last week, and chronicling their caravans proved especially challenging for TIME'S reportorial teams. Los Angeles Correspondent Alessandra Stanley was drenched by torrential California rains while she followed the Queen. At one point she sought shelter under a Secret Service man's umbrella. Says Stanley: "Wherever he is, I thank him." But she did not find the foul weather her biggest frustration. "Reporters," she says, "are accustomed to covering politicians, show-business personalities, even celebrity convicts, who talk to the media. But the Queen doesn't give interviews, and her public appearances on this trip were so fleeting. I sometimes thought I could learn as much by examining her profile on a British postage stamp." For White House Correspondent Laurence Barrett, reporting the Queen's visit to President Reagan's Rancho del Cielo involved a harrowing trip by van along narrow mountain roads, fording storm-swollen streams, then marking time in rain, wind and fog. "At times like these," he muses, "one is tempted to long for the days when royalty, both hereditary and elected, were allowed more privacy. It's a subversive thought, but perhaps inescapable when your notebook is as sodden as your socks."

Rome Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn has accompanied the Pope on 16 of his voyages abroad and found the current one the hardest to cover, because of the very tight security surrounding the Pope in Central America. But Wynn thinks that because of the strains in Central American church-state relations, this papal trip may ultimately rank among John Paul's most important. "At one time," he says, "I assumed that if the Pope traveled too often, his trips would lose their news impact. Somehow, the trips are never routine." This is why John Paul makes his sixth appearance on TIME'S cover.