Getting Shanghaied with Ted Kennedy suited his extended family just fine. At the invitation of the Chinese government, eleven members of the clan trooped enthusiastically around the People's Republic on a 15-day tour. Besides his wife Joan and brood of three, Kennedy brought along three sisters, a brother-in-law, R.F.K.'s son Michael and J.F.K.'s daughter Caroline. The group, shooting photographs for TIME as they traveled, visited a silk weaving mill and a tea commune in Hangchow, a prison in Shanghai, and the Great Wall. In addition to seeing the sights, the Senator looked up relatives of some Massachusetts constituents and conferred with Foreign Minister Huang Hua and Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing. "I can't help being impressed by the motivation, the drive, the organization and the commitment of these people for modernization," says Kennedy. Caroline, a Radcliffe sophomore, and Michael, a Harvard sophomore, both plan to write term papers on their China jaunt.

While the Kennedys toured China, the People's Republic opened yet another link with the West by lifting the Cultural Revolution's ten-year-old ban on certain books. "In order to criticize the Gang of Four severely and to expose Chiang Ch'ing as a traitor," intoned the front-page story in Peking's People's Daily, "large numbers of Chinese and foreign books have again seen the sunlight of day." Among newly freed works once labeled "bourgeois and therefore counterrevolutionary" are Martin Eden by Jack London, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

He worked as an architect during the Franco years, but Jose Maria Perez never felt that he had found the right blueprint for life. "I was in an interior exile," he grumbles. But when Spain moved into a more liberal era, Perez, under the pseudonym "Peridis," finally found his true calling: cartoonist. In Madrid's daily newspaper El Pais he regularly lampoons the pillars of the once untouchable Establishment--from King Carlos to Pope Paul. Some of Peridis' subjects--including both Premier Adolfo Suarez and Communist Party Chief Santiago Carillo--have even written prefaces to the cartoonist's new book, Peridis' Little Political Animals: The Year of the Transition. Why such support? "I don't put hate into my drawings," says Peridis. "Most of my political figures come off in the manner of Snoopy."

The wedding pictures are ready for the album, and at 22, Olga Korbut has left her temper tantrums--and her parallel bars--behind. The Olympic gold medalist plans to coach gymnastics rather than perform. She also hopes to travel with her husband, Leonid Bortkevich, 27, a singer with the Soviet Union's popular folk-rock group Pesnyary (Singers). First stop: Cuba, where the couple will have a delayed honeymoon and where Leonid's group has an invitation to warble. As usual Pesnyary will perform jazzed-up Byelorussian songs. A pity, since Olga's favorites are by Stevie Wonder and the Beatles.

The booze isn't bootleg any more, but the Cotton Club is as jazzy as ever. Harlem's celebrated nightspot, which closed in the 1940s, reopened its doors last week. Cavorting together in the new digs were Duke Ellington's granddaughter, Mercedes Ellington and Cab Calloway, 70, who used to Hi-dee-ho at the club in the '30s. "Just another gig," shrugged Calloway, who does about 150 a year and has just recorded a disco version of his 1931 hit Minnie the Moocher. "I live good. I don't indulge in anything other than the normal indulgences," he reflected. Indulging in his famous hep jive, he also complimented the press: "It really grabs me to have these fine scribes to beat up my gums with."

The subject tried to be gracious. It is "a remarkable example of modern art," pronounced Sir Winston Churchill at the unveiling in Westminster Hall in 1954 of his 80th birthday present, a portrait commissioned by Parliament and painted by the famed English neoromanticist Graham Sutherland. But his remark was tongue in cheek, and the audience roared. Winnie thought the portrait, which had a gloomy, resigned-to-age air about it, made him look "half-witted, which I ain't." His dutiful wife Clementine put it out of sight in the basement and promised her husband that it would never see "the light of day." She meant it. About 18 months after the presentation she saw to it that the painting was burned and totally destroyed. Last week it was revealed that Lady Soames, one of the Churchills' daughters, had informed Sutherland, 74, of the fate of the portrait. "I feel no personal bitterness about the destruction of the picture," he remarked. "Nevertheless, it must be considered as an act of artistic vandalism rather rare in the history of art." Estimated value of the canvas if it still existed: at least $150,000.

Togged up for tennis, the Los Angeles Dodgers' manager Tom Lasorda and the New York Yankees' Billy Martin struck out. It was the first time either of them had tried their hand at the sport--and probably the last. "I need oxygen," gasped Lasorda, 50, whose celebrity tournament partner in Boca Raton, Fla., was Teen Tennis Star Tracy Austin. Martin scrambled madly all over the court, cutting off his partner, Rumanian Touring Pro Virginia Ruzici, until she gently suggested he stay at the net. Judged Umpire Dan Rowan, co-host of the old Laugh-In: "Both Martin and Lasorda exhibit much sharper back talk than backhand." When the verbal volleying was over, it was Lasorda and Austin, 6 to 1. "That doesn't make up for losing the World Series," grumbled the Dodgers' boss. "But it's some consolation."

No eye-catching costumes. A swim through a million pounds of warm mud in a collapsing New York City subway. Those are some of the drawbacks to playing the Soviet astrophysicist heroine of Meteor, a $16 million disaster film. For Natalie Wood, who slipped into a comfy pants outfit and posed for a picture session off the Hollywood set, the good news is that she was forced to improve her Russian for the role. Nee Natasha Za-charenko, the daughter of Russian immigrants to San Francisco, she used to speak her mother's tongue "with the sophistication of a ten-year-old," she says. "But now I'm fluent. I can even handle a lot of technical talk." Which turns out to be quite useful in plotting an anti-meteor strategy with fellow Astrophysicist Sean Connery.

On the Record

Billie Jean King on the crowds at a tennis match: "They identify with the loser, which I don't like. It shows that the public has no self-respect. Sometimes I want to grab the mike and say, 'Heeey, no self-respect tonight, folks.' "

Felix Rohatyn, chairman of New York City's Municipal Assistance Corporation, who compared Mayor Edward Koch to Joan of Arc and was reminded that she burned at the stake: "Yes, but she saved France."

Daniel Schorr, the former CBS newsman who leaked a House Select Intelligence Committee report to the press, on his new career as a syndicated columnist: "I must overcome too much exposure as a story and get back to being a reporter."

Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer prizewinning poet, reflecting on the late Carl Sandburg: "He was a largeness, and easy in his day. He stood large in what turned out to be (after much care) raw wheat, much blown by the wind."

Jack Brennan, Nixon's aide, describing the former President's 65th birthday party: "Nixon was kidded about being eligible for Social Security and Medicare. He will not apply for Social Security benefits."

Joan Ganz Cooney, president of the Children's Television Workshop and a director of four corporations, on keeping up appearances at board meetings: "Sure, it's a killer. But I'm determined to die pretty."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.