From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

As Washington heralded a changing of the guard at the White House last week, ^ so did TIME. Our inauguration, however, was a far more modest affair: we installed Michael Duffy and Dan Goodgame as our new White House correspondents, then sent them across town to front-row seats at the swearing- in of the country's 41st President. The White House beat is not always so glamorous. Or so easy. It requires unusual quantities of persistence, curiosity and humor, qualities that both correspondents demonstrated before they reached the Oval Office watch.

A native of Columbus, Duffy, 30, graduated from Oberlin College in 1980, then went to work as a military-affairs reporter in Washington. Five years later, he signed on with TIME, reporting first on the Pentagon, then moving to Capitol Hill before joining the campaign trail last year to cover George Bush, Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson. His time in Washington has given Duffy an appreciation for one of the first principles of reporting governmental affairs: hurry up and wait. Duffy has spent entire days -- followed by long nights -- waiting outside closed doors to learn the latest twist about tax- reform negotiations or the Iran-contra investigations.

"Since a big part of covering the White House involves waiting -- waiting in outer offices to talk with officials, waiting on runways for motorcades, waiting for Bush to catch a fish -- I'm well trained for this position," says Duffy.

Goodgame, 34, confesses to being not so patient a waiter as Duffy, but he's learning. A native of Pascagoula, Miss., Goodgame studied at the University of Mississippi and at Oxford. After stints at the Tampa Tribune and Miami Herald, he joined TIME's Los Angeles bureau in 1984, where he covered everything from immigration to movie stars. "My editors, in their wisdom, saw some natural progression from profiling Bill Cosby to covering the President," he says.

Goodgame is too modest: he, like Duffy, spent the past year on the campaign trail. While Goodgame misses California, he relishes his new assignment. "Michael and I agree that the only thing worse than covering the White House would be not ever getting to cover it," he says. So far, the wait seems worth it.