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 presidency to produce this event, the few minutes in the weak sun of a clear China morning are — well, perhaps they are pure Chinese. Think of the great entries of other journeys. Cheering, shouting, jumping, massed hundreds of thousands. Nixon in Mexico, in Rumania, in Yugoslavia. Great sounds swelled then over the President and he glowed, measuring the effects. But the most momentous journey of his life — and any President's life in recent years — is producing the most anticlimactic arrival.
By American standards, the capital airport is almost deserted only half an hour before the President touches down. Where are Chou En-lai and the palace guard? Around, say the Chinese officials, but not in sight. Finally, from behind some buildings come the sound of troops. Rhythmic marching, hard boots, the shout of a command.
Contingents of army, navy and air force — 120 men of each service — circle the field and begin to sing The Three Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points of Attention, a Red Army ballad from the 1930s. Still no Chou or anyone else around to suggest the momentous collision of East and West. About ten minutes before touchdown, the silence of the sky is broken. The presidential plane drops into view.
Soon the plane is on the ground. Just then Chou and a corporal's guard of officials come casually out. It is an understatement. Not in memory has a host not been in place when the presidential jet came to rest. The President and Pat Nixon appear in the doorway to a ripple of applause from Chou's thin line down below. After the Premier greets the President there is the usual small talk. Apparently.
Chou asks about Nixon's trip. "It was very pleasant." Nixon replies, his voice carrying 25 yards in the stillness of the airport. "We stopped in Hawaii and Guam to catch up on the time. It is easier that way. The Prime Minister knows about that. He is such a traveler."
After the playing of the American and Chinese national anthems, Nixon and Chou move off down the line of troops. The other members of the official parties straggle along behind them. It is utterly unregimented, seemingly almost unorganized. -
On the way into town, the day is benign, bright. The guide, Mr. Ma, chats freely in the good English he has learned in Peking. He translates the passing signs: "Long live the great Chinese Communist Party," "Long live the great leader Chairman Mao." The cars go past workers' dormitories. Never are there more than two or three people along the roadside. The caravan passes the foreign diplomatic quarters, a ghetto with red brick apartment houses. A few foreigners are looking out from their balconies and taking pictures.