Disaster or Masterpiece?

No one at Expo 67 can miss seeing the U.S. pavilion. The 20-story geode sic dome looms like a rising sun over the 1,000-acre site on the St. Lawrence; the heavily traveled minirail zips right through it, and every day an aver age of 5,000 people an hour line up to get in. Unquestionably, Architect Buckminster Fuller's bubble is a huge success; but the high-camp, soft-sell show inside is quite another matter. For in choosing to combine levity with patriotism, the designers of the U.S. exhibit have let themselves in for a scorching controversy in which comments range from soaring praise ("a masterpiece of pleasing self-irony," "no less profound for its easy wit and beauty") to bruising brickbats ("a sterile disaster," "it stinks"). No one, it seems, is neutral.

Among the early critics was Michigan's Governor George Romney, who stalked through the pavilion in mid-May. Snapped Romney afterward: "It was pretty on the outside but full of trivia on the inside. When you go through it on the minirail all you see is blowup pictures of Hollywood actors and actresses. I was bitterly disappointed."

Members of Congress have often left the exhibit with a similarly letdown feeling. "The dome is beautiful, and the moon surface and burned hulls of space craft are very good. But the rest of it is very sick," was the opinion of North Dakota Republican Mark Andrews, who added, "Tens of thousands of people a day pass through on the minitrain to see what America is like. And what do they see? They see Liz Taylor, who's not even a citizen any more. It wasn't a soft sell; it was no sale."

Raggedy Ann & 300 Hats. The command decision to play down both The Great Society and the Viet Nam war and instead to fill up Bucky's bubble with lighthearted exhibits was made three years ago when the theme, "Creative America," was chosen. Said USIA Exhibits Director Robert Sivard: "These exhibits are meant to entertain, not to educate or advertise our wares." To work out the designs that were to be placed on escalator-linked platforms leading up to the suspended space-scarred Apollo capsule, the USIA picked a group of sophisticated young designers known as "the Cambridge Seven."

"We wanted it to be low key, not full of chest-beating technology," says Terry Rankine, one of the Seven. "We took very much to heart the request of Expo officials that it should not be made into a trade fair. We didn't want exhibits to say that 'our ball bearings are better than theirs.' We wanted to show the craftsmanship, inventiveness and creativity of the American people."

Ball bearings aside, the U.S. offers a wealth of examples of creativity and culture. Perhaps they could have been a bit more meaningful, but the Seven opted for whimsy, pop art and Hollywood camp. U.S. history, for instance, is told in terms of Sioux war bonnets, branding irons, and presidential campaign posters picked from the collection of John DeWitt, chairman of the Travelers Insurance Companies. Art ranges from antique duck decoys to banners of pop art; rock 'n' roll gets the silent treatment with a collection of famous guitars, including the favorite: Presley's own. Male individuality is illustrated with a collection of 300 hats; the universality of childhood with a jungle-gymful of Raggedy Ann dolls and a 20-minute film of children playing.

Biggest crowd catcher, next to the space capsules, is Hollywood, where maxi-size billboards show such favorites as Charlie Chaplin, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe alongside such old studio props as the actual chariot used in the 1927 version of Ben Hur. The real hit is the show of short film clips from dozens of past alltime favorite movies. "We can't get the people watching the films off the platform," complained the Seven's Ivan Chermayeff. "They get tears in their eyes, who knows why? Maybe they remember when they first took their girl to the flicks."

Quilts & Space Seats. Such light, sentimental touches delight many overseas visitors. "The largest industrial nation of the world does not exhibit one single automobile, supersonic plane or computer," marveled the Frankfurter Allgemeine. "They are not trying to educate or boast; they are just pleasing." Oslo's Aftenposten agreed, called the exhibits "a breath from another world."

Even Canadians, sensitive to American size and brashness, found U.S. modesty refreshing. All this set up the whole show for Lyndon Johnson to have the final say. But after a 15-minute tour, including everything from country quilts to astronauts' space seats, L.B.J. firmly and determinedly said nothing at all. Which leaves the U.S. pavilion with two attributes no showman will disavow: controversy and crowds.

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