Q. What have the following names in common? Douglas MacArthur, Pierre Mendes-France, Gina Lollobrigida. Frances Perkins, Henry Ford, Billy Graham, Casey Stengel, Jean Monnet, Walter Reuther and Marian Anderson.

A. They all, by a combination of circumstances, energy and talent, are noteworthy and newsworthy names, and their faces have been on the cover of TIME. They also are among the nearly 300 TIME cover subjects who have accepted our invitation to dinner Monday, May 6, in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, to celebrate TIME'S 40th anniversary.

PROBABLY never before in our times has one room become a pantheon for so diverse and distinguished a group. They will be joined by the editors of TIME and other guests, and the toastmaster will be TIME'S Editor in Chief Henry R. Luce. We anticipate quite an evening--a coming together of some whose beauty, glamour and force of personality have made them stand out; some whose skills are athletic and others political; some effacing ones whose achievements are intellectual and solitary; some whose quiet laboratory work brought them recognition; and others with the temperament to seize and dazzle crowds.

Not everybody who has been on TIME'S cover was invited, for though it has been our journalistic duty to take notice historically of some rogues and tyrants, it is our social pleasure, host's privilege, and regrettable necessity to limit the number of our guests. We regret that some we would like to have dinner with could not come. We have not been too arbitrary in our selection, or sought only people we agree with or who agree with us. Generally we have searched for excellence, and for those whose impact in their field has been (to use an old-fashioned word that we hope is still in style) constructive. Besides those already listed, here are others who have accepted our invitation:

Among public figures: Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, Averell Harriman, Everett Dirksen, Douglas Dillon, Arthur Goldberg, Luis Munoz Marin, Lucius Clay, Thomas E. Dewey, Henry Cabot Lodge, Norman Thomas, John J. McCloy.

Among military leaders: Generals Maxwell Taylor, Lauris Norstad, James Van Fleet, Omar Bradley, Mark Clark, Lyman Lemnitzer, Carl Spaatz. James H. Doolittle, Admirals Arthur W. Radford, George W. Anderson, Arleigh Burke.

Among entertainers and the arts: Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Rex Harrison, Helen Hayes, Ginger Rogers, Jack Paar, Leontyne Price, Bert Lahr, John Gunther, Edward Hopper, Minoru Yamasaki.

Sports: Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, Vince Lombardi, Jackie Robinson.

Education: James Conant, Robert Hutchins, Mary I. Bunting, Mortimer Adler, Clark Kerr, Nathan Pusey.

Business: Frederick G. Donner, Crawford Greenewalt, Conrad Hilton, William McChesney Martin, Alfred P. Sloan, Juan Trippe, Thomas J. Watson. Eddie Rickenbacker, Richard Mellon, Gwilym A. Price, G. Keith Funston, Ralph Cordiner, Lynn A. Townsend, Elizabeth Arden.

Press: Walter Lippmann, Roy Howard, James Reston, DeWitt and Lila Bell Wallace, Samuel I. Newhouse, John Cowles, Al Capp, Hedda Hopper, George Gallup.

Religion: Bishop Dibelius. Francis Cardinal Spellman, Paul Tillich, Eugene Carson Blake, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, John Courtney Murray.

Science and Medicine: Jonas Salk. Isidor I. Rabi, D. Brainerd Holmes, John Enders.

And many more whose names have made news. We hope to honor them, and in turn to be honored by the pleasure of their company.

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