WASHINGTON Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey is an old hand at traveling abroad with Presidents. Richard Nixon's two predecessors kept him constantly on the move. With Lyndon Johnson, he went to Seoul and to Viet Nam; he covered Johnson's two-week tour of Asia in 1966 and the famous 4 1/2-day dash around the world in 1967. Sidey was with Kennedy and Khrushchev in Vienna; he stood below as Kennedy shouted "Ich bin ein Berliner!" in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. And he went along on the young President's visit to the old family sod in Ireland.

Kennedy's trips, says Sidey, "were boisterous affairs, full of disorganization and laughter and youth and hope. There was elegance and eloquence. Johnson liked spectacles. He was a man in seven-league boots employing his power as President of the United States to stride across the world and preach: 'Come, let us reason together.' " As for this week's flight with Richard Nixon, Sidey reports that preparations have been like the campaign: "cool, meticulous, competent. The trip has been plotted with care and it is expected to unwind with precision."

TIME'S coverage of Nixon's first trip as President had to be plotted with equal care. Senior Correspondent John Steele traveled the presidential route as a journalistic advance man, reporting on the mood of the various capitals that Nixon will visit. Across Europe, TIME bureau chiefs scheduled interviews with diplomats, financial experts and military men to bolster their own observations and put together thorough reports on the problems that the new U.S. President is likely to face. From Washington to Rome, TIME correspondents cabled files for use by the

New York-based cover-story contingent: Writer Keith Johnson, Senior Editor Michael Demarest and Researcher Harriet Heck.

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