In February 2003, Colin Powell, then U.S. secretary of state, delivered a speech at the United Nations making the case for the invasion of Iraq. During Powell’s talk, a tapestry depicting Pablo Picasso’s Guernica was covered so that the audience would not see it. U.N. officials claim they covered the image to provide a neutral backdrop for television camera crews. Two national magazines that address political and cultural issues, the New Yorker and Harper’s, responded to that event with their covers, shown on the following pages.