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In Soweto, South African black teen-agers refused to talk in public, fearful of police retribution. Instead, they climbed on the bus that carried the visiting Americans and, standing in the aisle, spoke haltingly of their struggle for civil rights. Two days later, in an empty Port Elizabeth nightclub, with purple curtains and pedestals of flowers as a backdrop, South Africa's Prime Minister John Vorster met with the same group to argue the cause of apartheid.

To get such sharply contrasting points of view on basic issues troubling Africa and the Middle East, a contingent of 32 top U.S. businessmen and leaders, accompanied by 18 TIME editors, correspondents and executives, last week completed a 16-day, 8,000-mile trip that began in South Africa and ended in Egypt. The tour was the sixth sponsored by TIME in the past 15 years to various parts of the world with the aim of helping the travelers become better informed about the global problems that so deeply affect us all. Day after day, the group was able to question closely, and at length, a number of key figures who are trying to bring peace to their nations. Among the hosts of the traveling Americans: Israeli Premier Menachem Begin, Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan, Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith and Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere.

Making the trip were Robert Anderson, president, Rockwell International; George W. Ball, senior managing director, Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb Inc.; Louis L. Banks, adjunct professor of management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; John R. Beckett, chairman, Transamerica Corp.; Philip E. Beekman, president, the Seagram Co.; James F. Bere, chairman, Borg-Warner Corp.; Theodore F. Brophy, chairman, General Telephone & Electronics Corp.; Philip Caldwell, vice chairman of the board, Ford Motor Co.; Michael D. Dingman, chairman, Wheelabrator-Frye Inc.; Edwin D. Dodd, chairman, Owens-Illinois, Inc.; Donald N. Frey, chairman, Bell & Howell Co.; W.H. Krome George, chairman, Aluminum Co. of America; Henry J. Heinz II, chairman, H.J. Heinz Co.; William A. Hewitt, chairman, Deere & Co.; Barron Hilton, president, Hilton Hotels Corp.; Matina S. Horner, president, Radcliffe College; James R. Kerr, chairman, Avco Corp.; Robert E. Kirby, chairman, Westinghouse Electric Corp.; Walter J. Levy, president, W.J. Levy Consultants Corp.; Sol M. Linowitz, senior partner, Coudert Bros.; Stewart G. Long, vice president, Trans World Airlines, Inc.; Robert H. Malot, chairman, FMC Corp.; Hamish Maxwell, senior vice president, Philip Morris Inc.; Walter J. McNerney, president, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations; C.E. Meyer Jr., president, Trans World Airlines, Inc.; Frank Pace Jr., president, International Executive Service Corps; Bert E. Phillips, president, Clark Equipment Co.; Charles A. Shirk, president, the Austin Co.; Forrest N. Shumway, president, the Signal Companies, Inc.; Curt R. Strand, president, Hilton International Co.; O. Pendleton Thomas, chairman, the B F Goodrich Co.; Thomas R. Wilcox, chairman, Crocker National Corp.

The 1978 tour was certainly right on top of events. After seeing Vorster and Soweto residents in South Africa, the travelers arrived in Rhodesia on the historic day that the nation's new executive council met for the first time to begin the process of ending white minority rule. That evening Prime Minister Smith played host to the group at his home, accompanied by his new black colleagues on the council: Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Ndabaningi Sithole and Chief Jeremiah Chirau. Smith called on the U.S. to support his "internal settlement" and rebuked America for what he called its "obsession" with a proposed patriotic front government that would embrace guerrilla factions.

Tanzania's President Nyerere intrigued the group for two hours in his rambling, high-ceilinged statehouse in Dar es Salaam. He used his ivory-tipped chiefs staff as a stage prop, sometimes rapping it for attention, at other times pointing it at his listeners like a machinegun. Asked if he thought American business should pull out of South Africa or stay and try to help the blacks, he lifted his voice like a preacher: "Out, out, I tell you, leave that blessed land," a view directly opposite that expressed by black leaders in Johannesburg.

Departing Africa for the Middle East, the tour landed in Saudi Arabia for a session with Crown Prince Fahd at his working palace in Riyadh. Sipping bitter cardamom tea, the de facto head of state stressed his country's role as a moderating influence in the Arab world and spoke of its long friendship with the U.S. But the Prince left little doubt that the friendship would be reappraised if Congress denied the Saudis the F-15 fighter-bombers that he claims to need for national defense.

The group also arrived in Israel at a particularly apt time--just as Premier Begin was returning from his contentious talks with Jimmy Carter. Still fatigued from his unfruitful trip, Begin summarized: "My first meeting with President Carter was wonderful; the second very useful; the third quite difficult."

Before the Americans left Israel, they visited a hillside kibbutz near Jerusalem to hear Opposition Leader Shimon Peres, and talked with Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan over dinner at the Israel Museum. Then they flew deep into the Sinai desert to hear Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman during a luncheon at a forward airbase. Next day, after going on to Egypt, the group crossed the Suez Canal as a guest of the Egyptian Second Army, saw the wrecked Bar-Lev line and toured Egyptian fortifications.

In Jordan, King Hussein hosted the group at his palace in central Amman. Back in Egypt a day later, the tour was welcomed by President Sadat to his home at Barrages outside Cairo. There the Egyptian leader was presented with the original cover portrait of himself as TIME's Man of the Year for 1977. Sadat warmly received the Americans and insisted that he was still buoyed by "the spirit of perseverance" in striving to achieve peace with Israel. He accused Prime Minister Begin of maintaining the old divisions between their two countries that he had tried to overcome when he made his journey to Jerusalem. Asked if he had any regrets about making his peace initiative, Sadat said, "Never," and added, "There is no going back. I have chosen my fate."

Throughout the trip, the members of the news tour heard opposing leaders argue their positions with fervor and eloquence. Said Hewitt of Deere & Co.: "Everyone talked about peace with freedom, equality and self-determination. But how to do it? The ideas are so divergent!" Bell & Howell's Frey saw one common denominator in the areas the group had visited: "Blacks and Palestinians. They want the vote and a voice in their own future. That's the bottom line" Even if solutions were worked out, said Borg-Warner's James Bere, "they may blow up tomorrow." But as the trip concluded, there was no question in the mind of Bere--or anyone else--about one point. "History," he said, "is being forged right here and right now."

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