WHEN Italian Portraitist Pietro Annigoni met Germany's new Chancellor, Dr. Erhard said: "I have seen some of your paintings of the British royal family. And I remember the one you did of President Kennedy. Tell me, how many sittings did they give you?"

"Well, I had 33 with the Queen Mother and just over 20 with Princess Margaret. I was with President Kennedy for nine hours."

"Ach mein Gott," said Erhard in mock terror. "I hope with me you will work faster. What will you paint of me?"

"The head and shoulders."

"Good," laughed Erhard. "The rest of me is not so paintable."

Annigoni had four one-hour sittings with Erhard for this week's cover, painting for ten minutes at a stretch, then letting Erhard rest for five. Erhard asked if he might read and smoke during the sittings, and was told please, no. But he grunted a jovial approval of the final portrait.

IN the beginning, TIME set out to bring the busy reader a condensation of the week's news. We still keep the busy reader in mind, but long ago learned that condensing was not enough if we were to bring him the answers to the questions that headlines and news bulletins left untouched. In this week's issue are several examples of the way our editors dig deeper into the news to illuminate and enrich what otherwise would be merely topical items:

sbReligion tells of a German play that is stirring up controversy in four European cities, arguing that the late Pope Pius XII refused to condemn openly the Nazi murder of Jews. It seemed to us not enough merely to note the accusation and the acrimony, and we set out to look into how and why the Pope behaved as he did.

sbThe Nation tells the story of a Congressman from Chicago, a machine politician who watched a TV program that he didn't like, and returned to the House to upset the Kennedy Administration's best-laid plans to get through a moderate civil rights bill. And TIME'S new Law section records the variety of ancient legal devices that Southern cities are using to thwart civil rights militants.

sbThe Hemisphere picks up the trail of the latest head of state to visit Washington, Bolivia's President Victor Paz Estenssoro, but bases the main part of the story on a look at the poverty-stricken country that has persuaded the U.S. to allocate it more aid per capita than any other Latin American nation.

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