ACCOMPANYING the President to China for TIME were Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey and White House Correspondent Jerrold Schecter. Herewith, excerpted from their notebooks, their day-by-day impressions and perceptions of Nixon's China odyssey:
First Day
Arrival in Peking. Trip from airport to city. Meeting with Mao. First banquet in the Great Hall of the People:
It is a lonely arrival. One probably will never know if Richard Nixon expected such a soundless, emotionless affair. After the storm of publicity in the U.S., all the smells and sounds of power that have gone with the...