IN the 45 years since Charles Lindbergh appeared on TIME's cover as the first Man of the Year, the annual search for his successors has been eagerly joined by our readers. Among the hundreds of letters that arrived this month in behalf of the man or woman who most changed the year's news, whether for good or ill, were votes for Washington Redskins Coach George Allen, Feminist Gloria Steinem and former Beatle John Lennon.

While astronauts, scientists and religious leaders have all succeeded Lindbergh through the years, those with the most impact on news have usually been the world's -- and America's -- political leaders. Franklin Roosevelt was selected three times; Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson twice. During the past twelve months, few people have so dominated the air waves and newsprint as have Richard Nixon, last year's choice, and Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger.

"With his landslide election victory, his trips to Moscow and Peking and his efforts, however unsuccessful so far, to end the war, the President pre-eminently qualified for a second term as Man of the Year," says Nation Editor Jason McManus. "Kissinger, the President's plenipotentiary and alter ego in foreign affairs, played a quintessential role in Nixon's achievements, even in the election, where the voters' perception of the Administration's record and its competence to govern rested in no small part on the teamwork of the two men." With this issue, President Nixon becomes the first public figure ever to appear on TIME's Man of the Year cover twice in a row -- even though he is here in tandem.

We like to keep our Man of the Year selection secret, so Reporter-Researcher Anne Constable moved to an out-of-the-way, unmarked office where she pored over Kissinger's books and foreign-policy statements. White House Correspondent Jerrold Schecter, who accompanied Nixon and Kissinger to Moscow and Peking earlier in the year and who has lately been following his subjects from Paris to Key Biscayne, Fla., provided his firsthand observations of the special working relationship that exists between the two men. Associate Editor Lance Morrow wrote the cover, his second Man of the Year effort (he also wrote "The Middle Americans" in 1969) and his seventh cover story this year.

While Morrow hammered away at his typewriter, Artist Marisol hammered away at the cover sculpture. Working from photographs, she spent ten days in her Manhattan loft chiseling the Nixon-Kissinger visages into her mind, then onto a carefully selected 135-lb. piece of pink marble (photographed in turn by Robert Crandall for TIME's cover). Those who have advocated a cover of a different shape, whether of a football coach or a militant feminist, must rest content until next year.

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