The severe strains besetting the 34-year-old Atlantic Alliance have long been a concern of TIME'S editors, both in print and out. Last week they acted on that concern by convening 45 representatives from seven NATO countries, including politicians government officials, academics and think-tank analysts, for a three-day Atlantic Conference '83 in Hamburg, West Germany. Explains Editor-in-Chief Henry Grunwald, who led TIME'S delegation of 26 editors, writers and correspondents: "We all know that the survival and strength of the Atlantic Alliance, military, political, economic, are of the utmost importance to world peace. We wanted to find some way to focus on these issues, draw new insights and offer some possible solutions."

The job of organizing the ambitious undertaking, held at Hamburg's appropriately named Atlantic Hotel, fell to Deputy Chief of Correspondents B. William Mader. Working closely with the staffs of the Bonn, Paris, London, Rome and Washington bureaus, Mader oversaw every detail, from arranging participants' travel to working out meeting agendas and deciding on lunch and dinner menus.

In addition to four formal speeches, including a provocative opening address by former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the conference revolved around three discussion groups--on defense, politics and economics--where the experts engaged in stimulating, sometimes heated, debate. At a final plenary meeting, members of the groups shared conclusions. The sessions were supplemented by freewheeling conversation over coffee, cocktails and meals. "It's just remarkable the people who are here," observed Enrico Jacchia, director of the Italian Center of Strategic Studies. "If we'd had some more meetings like this in the past, we would never have had a dispute over sanctions," said U.S. Trade Ambassador William Brock, referring to last year's dispute over the Soviet gas pipeline to Western Europe. Noted France's former Ambassador to NATO Franc,ois de Rose: "The discussions were very frank, almost too frank at times."

This week's story analyzing those discussions was written by International Senior Writer Frederick Painton. Says he: "For three days the strains and arguments, and also the mutual recognition of the need for the alliance, stopped being abstractions. They were acted out before our eyes." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.