The mother of all anniversary issues.

THE 50th anniversary of NATIONAL REVIEW is a very big deal, and you're holding in your hands a big-deal issue. It runs to 120 pages, includes multiple sections, and boasts a cast of thousands. Actually, about 70--that's (roughly) the number who have contributed. Do you want a little overview?

The issue begins, essentially, with The Week, our editorial section, still called "The Week" even though we became a biweekly in 1958, three years after we started publication. Your Notes & Asides is very special: WFB publishes the remarks he made at our anniversary gala in October. (We had another gala about five weeks later, in celebration of WFB's 80th birthday. Stay tuned for material on that in our next issue--a non-anniversary one, but still distinguished, we hope you'll agree.)

Then we have ten ideas for "increasing liberty in America"--some of our clearest thinkers give those. The ideas range from school choice--a no-brainer, you would think--to a national ID card, a bit more controversial among conservatives. Then we have a feature hailing 15 unsung, or unheralded, conservatives of the last 50 years. We could have hailed innumerable more. Our publisher and CEO, Ed Capano, said that his favorite unsung conservatives were the readers and donors who have kept NR afloat for this half-century.

Then we give you ten essays--ten essays, on various (fairly weighty) subjects, by ten eminences. That is followed by a section called "What NR Has Meant to Me," in which 20 individuals relate ... well, you know.

Then it's time for "Fun 'n' Games," a piece by Priscilla Buckley, managing editor of NR for almost 30 years, drawn from her hot new book about the magazine (Living It Up with National Review). Priscilla is followed by five of her longtime NR colleagues, who give their recollections of hanging around the place.

And then we hit you with some causes--six of the causes we have espoused, all of them successful, although the jury is still somewhat out on missile defense. (Other causes--not so successful--we're still working on.) Then an assortment of NR covers, from the first one to almost the present. On a handful of occasions, we've published an issue without the blue border. The sky hasn't fallen, but it has shaken a little.

At this point, we look in on the White House tribute given to WFB and his magazine, on the same early-October day as the 50th-anniversary gala. The remarks of five speakers are published, ending with those of the president. "I'm here to escort William F. Buckley Jr. to lunch," he began.

Do you know we've held ten anniversary galas? Yes, one every five years, since our fifth-anniversary bash in 1960. (JFK had just been elected.) Check out the photo gallery we've assembled.

Then we have a return--just this once--of the Trans-O-Gram, the acrostic puzzle we published during the middle 30 or so years of our existence. See if you can solve it (and the answers are given in this self-same issue).

Following that, a special Help! page--a comic page--featuring some special cartoons, and a special W. H. von Dreele verse. We then have a normal feature (which is to say, a non-anniversary feature), but ever welcome: The Long View, written by our Rob Long (get it?).

Finally--or almost finally--an extraordinary books section: ten important books of the last 50 years, appreciated by ten important and discerning writers. Charles Murray's Losing Ground (on welfare) is one of those books; and Murray himself provides the appreciation of another author, Thomas Sowell (who has a brief piece about NR on page 97).

Last, you get your biweekly three WFB columns, and your back-page column, Happy Warrior, by Mark Steyn. And you have finished your issue, a granddaddy of an issue, one we took great care and pleasure in assembling, and one we gift to you with gratitude and joy.

--THE EDITORS