The President's Odyssey Day by Day

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.

The city materializes. There are people in blue waiting for buses or looking. Nobody waves. There has been no organized welcome, no cymbals and drums. Past the Gate of Heavenly Peace, painted red except for its weathered orange tiles. Past the Great Hall of the People and the Hotel of Nationalities. Opposite the guesthouse is a terrace for fishing. The lake is frozen now, but a small pavilion with a two-tiered green-tiled roof juts above the ice. It is the classic moon-viewing site for composing poems, sipping wine, watching the willows on the shoreline and contemplating nature and man.

Yet this is hardly the Utopia of a beautiful pastoral people described by recent visitors. Construction materials abound on the main streets of Peking. Straw mats shield new buildings. It is a backward, proud country struggling furiously to grow and improve. -

The silence of this city is overwhelming. It is the dominant note of Richard Nixon's first day in Peking. The huge, roaring, dazzling spectacle of the presidency that has mesmerized whole nations is simply swallowed up in China. It is muffled, shrouded, forced into surrealism. Peking is silent at dawn. It is hushed at noon. If there is a rush hour, it is imperceptible. Reporters huddle in the cold on the steps of the Great Hall waiting--one hour, two hours. What is wrong? Nixon ill? Trouble in Viet Nam? This sort of void in awareness does not happen in this age. But it does. Of course, Nixon has slipped away to meet with Mao Tse-tung, the Mount Rushmore of China, and for that matter of the world.

Presidential Press Secretary Ron Ziegler emerges now and then from the void and says nothing. He will not comment on the health of Mao, the tone of the meeting, even how long the two shook hands. It remains one of the most remarkable such meetings on record. Richard Nixon has bragged before about the number of hours he has spent with heads of state. This time he flew 11,510 miles and so far he has had one hour with the top guy. That boils down to half an hour of talk. Is that enough to start this historic chain of events going that Nixon talks about so much? Maybe. But there is also the sense that the President has come to China to kowtow.

There is a Nixon off there somewhere. There is a glimpse at the Great Hall in the afternoon as he goes to the meeting with Chou Enlai. Then there is a banquet at night. While Americans watching on television get the idea that it is some kind of folk festival, it is not quite so hearty. The huge hall engulfs the guests, much like China itself. Nixon is a dim figure with Chou, nibbling at his shark's fin dish and supping his almond junket. Pat's red dress is a drop of warm blood in the gray.

The toasts are a traditional exercise and Nixon makes the most of it. Seized by this emotional moment, Nixon visits each of the top tables, toasting each Chinese official with a clink, a touch of his glass to his lips. For the Americans there, it is a moving moment. There is the suspicion that the Chinese like it too. But who really knows? The night and the silence swallow everybody again. The visitors go back to their hotels in buses, passing shadowy figures on bicycles, a thin moon shining through the cold. Nixon goes off somewhere and that immense silence closes in again.

Second Day

People's Daily front-pages a picture of Mao and Nixon. Nixon and Chou En-lai confer privately for four hours. Evening at the ballet:

The Chinese smile has spread this week. In the first hours there was a deep reserve, unmoved faces watching. The guards at the gates did not smile when they motioned you on. People on the street were remote. Then a perceptible change. Smiles from the guards. A real camaraderie with the interpreters. Jokes, laughter. Perhaps it was the big spread in the People's Daily, which certified that this group of Americans is okay.

Just as some ease is beginning to be established, there is this shattering spectacle. Richard Nixon and Pat Nixon at the ballet. Sitting cozily between them is Madame Mao, the fire-breathing dragon lady of the Cultural Revolution. They are observing the drama of a wicked landlord and how he beats the peasants who turn on him and join the Communists. They go off into the red sunset shooting, bombing and hacking their way to liberation and the new age. My God, this same Nixon is advocating cutting landlords' taxes back home and suggesting a generation of peace without bloodshed! Is there no consistency to be found in political experience? One sits in the seat and wonders, then laughs at the whole improbable world. The sight of this man and his glassy-eyed young aides who have ridden to power denouncing people like those in the ballet. No. 1 Imperialist Dog applauding No. 1 International Bandit. It boggles the mind. -

The artistic director of the Central Philharmonic Orchestra is Li Teh-lun. He is a round-faced, portly man who smiles when asked how the Cultural Revolution affected his orchestra and replies: "That is a long story." When pressed gently for a response, he says: "There was a change in the content but not the form of the orchestra." Then he explains how the orchestra no longer plays Western music publicly but rather adapts the best from Western music into new Chinese compositions. He says that Western music is still played privately. But the subject seems to pain him, as if one who has not experienced the Cultural Revolution could not possibly understand or appreciate the experience. It is like talking to someone who has just undergone the trauma of psychoanalysis and has not yet fully assimilated the impact.

There is an inner middle-American humility about Nixon; he is not usually a grandstander. His style is subdued, although in the larger sense he understands the elements of drama. His manner fits that of the Chinese. He dresses plainly. He does not plunge into crowds to shake hands. He moves slowly and talks rather sparingly. He does not launch himself on a grand tour, exhausting himself and his hosts.

His concentration on his meetings suggests he is a serious man who could be trusted. That is his central mission, and if he implants even a speck of that idea then he will make progress.

Third Day

More talks with Chou. Evening sports spectacle of gymnastics, bad minton, table tennis:

There is the feeling that Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai put it all down on paper months ago, then stamped their chops on the agreement, shook hands and just waited for the actors to come onstage and do their parts.

(Kissinger's chop means "Henry Carrier Pigeon.") Kissinger has been the American impresario for the China trip. But in Peking this week, he stays discreetly in the background physically, saving himself for long sessions with the President. He has a remarkable facility for deferring to the President in any public setting. The word is that Secretary of State William Rogers is handling the detailed negotiations for people-to-people contacts that will come out of the visit, while the President and Kissinger direct overall policy. It is something of a slight for Rogers, who has not even been taken along to meet Mao, but he has been slighted in protocol terms so often that his role is different from what is commonly expected of a Secretary of State. He is a gentle, loyal man who serves Nixon and he accepts his role with grace and good humor--at least in public.

The Premier arrives on the dot of 2 p.m. and is greeted by Nixon, who has been waiting outside the guesthouse where he is staying--a two-story buff brick abode filled with overstuffed chairs, paintings of public works projects and calligraphy by Mao. The pair walk quickly into the first-floor conference room and sit opposite each other at a long table covered with green. As the photographers jostle each other, clicking away, Chou laughs and says: "You must take more pictures of your President." Nixon apparently doesn't get the subtle humor or maybe he does. "Pictures are very effective," he replies.

At the arena is color of dress, color in competition. Nixon turns to his party, gesturing, pointing. Even Kissinger, way down to the left of the President, is looking intently and laughing. The audience is as disciplined as the performers; people clap almost in unison. The arena has a curious regimentation, to be sure, but color is a start. One wonders if there is not an elemental force, just as clear and sure as the day Thomas Jefferson wrote about it in the Declaration of Independence, for the U.S. And one wonders further if in the end it won't come out, no matter what, won't sweep all the Mao restraints and sameness and repression in front of it.

Fourth Day

Again, talks with Chou. The visit to the Great Wall. For Americans, the Great Wall is the wonder that is worth the journey. Richard Nixon finds it so today as he walks along the ramparts on a sun-filled morning freshened by the remains of a snowfall. Nixon brings no cavalry with lances and banners. Instead he carries his electronic entourage; television cameras, soundmen and still photographers record his every move along the winding, massive fortification that was first linked together in the third century B.C. and today stretches 1,684 miles across China.

Once designed to keep Mongolian nomad warriors from breaching the frontiers of the ancient Chinese princes, the wall stands as a monument to Chinese diligence and labor and the most basic drive of all rulers --the push for unity, the defense of China's frontiers against outside invaders. Unlike any other in the world, the wall has a vitality of architectural rhythm that gives it a sense of endless movement. It seems to be a slow-moving dragon, the bricks its scales, undulating in the sunlight. Even Richard Nixon's banal description of its might fails to mute the wonder of the morning. "A people that can build a wall like this certainly have a great past to be proud of," he says, "and a people who have this kind of a past must also have a great future."

The President and Mrs. Nixon seem more interested in posing for pictures than in actually walking on the wall. The President finally calls a halt before another ascent. "We will not climb to the top today," he tells his host. "We are already meeting at the summit in Peking." Then he delivers a final homily. "As we look at this wall, we do not want walls of any kind between people."

Fifth Day

Visit to the Forbidden City in Peking. Last banquet in the Great Hall of the People:

For the Ming emperors, the center of the world between heaven and earth began in the Hall of Supreme Harmony within the red gates of the Forbidden City. Rising from a massive deep-red pedestal, the red pillars and two yellow tile roofs spread forth in gigantic yet perfect proportions. In the morning, snow falls across the Imperial Palace grounds. It is into this setting that Richard Nixon and a mob of television and still cameramen walk, making small talk and gawking. "The snow has whitewashed the world," says Yeh Chien-ying, deputy chairman of the military affairs commission of the Chinese Communist Party as he guides the President.

Nixon enters the main throne room of the emperor, then the smaller Hall of Perfect Harmony. In a corner is a sedan chair, gilded and elaborately carved, on which the emperor was transported to the throne. "He didn't get much exercise if he was always carried on the chair," the President observes. Following Nixon and his party as it sways through the hall seems a bizarre intrusion on the heavenly harmonies, but the building absorbs it all with splendid serenity. When the press and cameramen momentarily block the way, Nixon explains: "Our press is like an unorganized army." Replies Yeh: "But I think they have to work very hard."

From the palace, the Nixons drive to the west part of the grounds, where a collection of antiquities unearthed during the Cultural Revolution has been organized. The most spectacular pieces in the collection are the jade burial suits of a prince who died in 113 B.C. and his wife. "Well, you wouldn't walk around in that," observes Nixon. When he notices a pair of ear stoppers used by the emperor to keep from hearing criticism, the President says: "Give me a pair of those." Nixon is in the Forbidden City, but he makes it seem as if he were still back home in San Clemente, Key Biscayne or any place else he travels. -

The last night in town the statue of old Mao is bathed in warm light up on the Great Hall of the People. Above is a half-moon in a clear sky. Richard Nixon is giving a banquet in honor of the Chinese, and the guests come quietly along. So do the Americans. Everybody heads for the same cavernous banquet hall where they had been on the first night of the visit. Tired Americans, tired Chinese. But still smiling, still wondering. The Great Hall would pass in Chicago if it didn't have the double row of lights all the way around its roof, giving a Chinese outline in the dark, or if the Mao pictures and his sayings were not plastered to the building.

Nixon has hinted he might have some thing to say about the talks he has had with Chou that evening. So there is a little extra eagerness as the troops trudge up the long red carpet.

The guests sit down and begin an other orgy of eating. The band tootles She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain and Billy Boy. It still is not easy to take it all in. The only change in the room is the backdrop. The position of the flags, designating which country is host and which is guest, has been reversed. There is the vague feeling in the banquet hall that everybody has been part of some gigantic hoax, or maybe not quite that, but some kind of staging. After the popping of champagne corks (Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs, a scarce California label), Nixon gives a commercial for television but no revelation.

The banquet doesn't have the feeling it had on Monday. Time to say good bye to Peking, and the thrill is diminishing fast. It is almost as if the American presidency has been stolen from the nation for a few days, taken off in the mists of China and held there. There is the thread of television that beams back the story of ceremony, what there is of it, and sight seeing, but fails to give a sense of the inner working between Mao, Chou and Nixon. There is less here than meets the eye, of course, but even a little is a lot after 20 years.

Sixth Day

Joint communique concluded.

Flight to Hangchow. Boat ride in park with Chou.

The President's mood has changed for the better after concluding the long, final negotiations for the joint communique at 5 this morning. He then flies to Hangchow. Remarkably, the President abandons his own jet to accompany Chou aboard a Russian-built Chinese Ilyushin aircraft. In Hangchow, he wanders through the parks and islands of historic West Lake.

He is joined by Premier Chou aboard a yellow and blue pleasure boat that proceeds in leisurely fashion past bridges and willows that were first described for the Western world by Marco Polo.

Chou catches sight of Author-Correspondent Theodore White. "He has not been here since liberation," says Chou. White smiles and replies: "That's not my fault." Laughing, the Premier adds: "We, too, are to blame."

After the boat ride, Nixon invites the press to his guesthouse. In the chill wind, he explains that he could not brief on substance during the week because "I had to do everything I could to assure that we did not jeopardize possible agreement in some areas. Here was a long road and it had to be traveled with discretion." Already, he seems to be gearing back to his world, to California, Florida, Washington -- to going home. The odyssey is nearly at an end.

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