THE PRESIDENCY: Descent from the Summit

IT is generally expected of great historic events these days that they should have some immediate, dramatic consequences. No one could deny that Richard Nixon's Peking summit was such a historic moment, or that the public's expectations were intensified by its being the first event of such magnitude ever to be staged for television. Even so, there is a widespread feeling that what followed the President's dramatic voyage was somewhat anticlimactic, a bit of a letdown—except, perhaps, for returning journalists and officials, who found themselves instant celebrities in demand for interviews...