FATIGUE is the enemy. All day you watch, all night you write," summed up White House Correspondent Hugh Sidey from Bangkok, after he had spent twelve days following President Johnson around Southeast Asia. The rest of the seven-member TIME team that reported this week's Nation cover wearily agreed. "I have two handfuls of wooden fingers after all this typing," complained Hong Kong Bureau Chief Frank McCulloch, who, along with Correspondent Art Zich, had been in Manila weeks ahead of the summit talks, first working on the cover story about President Ferdinand Marcos (TIME, Oct. 21), then planning for the TIME contingent due in for the summit meeting. After coordinating our coverage and doing his own reporting, McCulloch, without a break, hopped aboard a Navy helicopter and flew off to cover another Nation story--the tragic fire aboard the aircraft carrier Oriskany.

Our correspondents were more fortunate than most, for at every stop they were met by TIME staffers ready to smooth the way. In Manila, a special wire to New York was set up from the bedroom of Manila Stringer Gil Santos. Thus we were able to bypass the regular wire offices, which were swamped with copy from the 1,000 reporters in town.

Although the arrangements were made with great care, luck played its part: Correspondent Sidey almost never goes anywhere without his portable typewriter. He took it along when the correspondents were called to what might have been just another briefing at the U.S. embassy in Manila. Along with 44 other newsmen, Sidey was locked into a room, then whisked aboard a waiting bus for the surprise flight with Johnson to Cam Ranh Bay in South Viet Nam. No one was allowed to leave for supplies, and Sidey's typewriter was one of the few at hand. Saigon Bureau Chief Simmons Fentress scored a coup of his own.

He had flown to Manila to cover Premier Nguyen Cao Ky at the summit, and wangled permission to interview him on the return trip to Saigon. Not until the plane was in the air did Ky tell Fentress their real destination: Cam Ranh Bay. "We get there an hour ahead of President Johnson," grinned the Premier. Fentress--the only correspondent from the Saigon press corps present--had time to interview Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and a Marine general before L.B.J. arrived.

Bangkok Bureau Chief Louis Kraar found Johnson's visit to Thailand the first instance in which the rigid protocol surrounding the royal family was eased slightly. Bangkok was also the scene of Correspondent Bonnie Angelo's finest hour. Bonnie had been with Sidey and Photographer Walter Bennett on the press plane following Johnson. Her special assignment was Lady Birdwatching, and she went along as the unflagging First Lady drank ceremonial liquor in Pago Pago, patted kangaroos in Australia, and dug for burial urns in the Philippines. Once Bonnie was invited by L.B.J. to share an airborne breakfast with his group aboard the presidential plane.

During the dinner given for the Johnsons by the King and Queen of Thailand, Bonnie was presented to the royal couple. After mastering protocol--speak only when spoken to, do not point a foot at the King--she got a chance to make her bow. Reporter Angelo, who worked for Newsday and the Newhouse National News Service before coming to TIME'S Washington Bureau in March, was equal to the honor. Seven years ago she covered Queen Elizabeth's visit to Canada and the U.S. and learned her curtsies. In Bangkok, she managed a bow, "majestically conventional if somewhat rusty," before a battery of television cameras. "Like all road-show troupers," she wired, "I'll always reminisce about the night I played the palace."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.