The opening of the Brussels World's Fair was
only 24 hours away, and, despite seven years of planning and 16 months
of frenetic construction, the 470-acre showcase was still a littered
building site. “We'll never make it,” muttered a French official—and
in fact the French were not ready on opening day. In
the U.S. pavilion one entire exhibit was torn out for being unready. In
most pavilions there were similar last-minute crises. But after workmen
had performed a herculean overnight cleanup job, Belgium's tall, shy
King Baudouin, 27, formally opened the first world's fair anywhere
since New York's in 1939. Under grey skies and an umbrella of 50
Belgian air force jets, the bespectacled Baudouin proclaimed in French
and Flemish: “The aim of this World's Fair is to create an atmosphere
of understanding and peace.”Mixed Notices. With these hopeful words out of the way, the men of 42
nations hustled back to their pavilions and to the reality of today's
world. The Brussels fair, however noble the aims and claims of its
participants, has become a propaganda and prestige battleground in the
cold war. The chief contestants: the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. From last
week's opening until the closing next Oct. 19, an estimated 35 million
visitors are expected.Within minutes of the opening, most of the 160,000 first-day visitors
tried to descend on the U.S. and Russian pavilions. Both pavilions got mixed notices. There was
almost universal agreement that in architectural beauty Edward Stone's
circular U.S. pavilion of steel and gold aluminum
surpassed Russia's rectangle of frosted glass and steel, though the
Soviet building was an improvement on Russia's usual grim monoliths.
Those who think that fairs should be fun preferred the U.S. exhibit.
But for all its air of sophistication and relaxation, the candor with
which American life is portrayed, the humor displayed in the drawings
of Cartoonist Saul Steinberg, some Europeans thought the U.S. exhibit
“empty-looking” and something of a hodgepodge. Many criticized the
“heavy propaganda” and the ponderous predominance of machinery in the
Soviet pavilion, but felt that the Russians provided more to study.Wolves & Mink. The big drawing cards at the outset: for Russia—models
of the Sputniks. For the U.S.—a continuous parade of European fashion
models, decked out in American-made bathing suits, $15 chemises or
$7,500 mink coats. Almost unnoticed in the wolf-whistling stampede
toward the fashion models: the U.S. atomic energy exhibit. Other
American attention-getters: the “Circarama,” a 15-minute movie of
America the Beautiful projected on a 360 screen; the IBM 305 Ramac,
which produces answers in ten languages in ten seconds; a set of U.S.
voting machines. The pavilion's transplanted “corner drug store” and
restaurant sold hot dogs, hamburgers, milk shakes at a brisk rate,
chiefly to Americans.
