There were four mass rallies: an opening ceremony and parade in the Weiner Sports Stadium; an anti-colonialism meeting which was largely unsuccessful because of a poor choice of location and impending rain; an expertly handled parade on Vienna's Ring ending in a "solidarity" rally in a public park, featuring singer Paul Robeson; and the closing ceremony by the Vienna Rathaus, which was basically an international talent show.

The opening ceremony in the huge Sports Stadium indicates the arrational tones of the rallies. An expectant hush was broken by the Czechoslovakian motorcycle brigade, complete with flags, as it raced about the outer track, followed by briefly clad athletes and the Parade of Nations. The accompaniment was an excited running description from the loudspeakers, the periodic release of colorful balloon clusters, bombs bursting and dropping "peace and friendship" signs in every language, and finally the freeing of thousands of white "peace doves." The Austrians sardonically reported that the Soviet skyrockets finished off the doves.

The Communist propoganda at the first meeting was subtle but apparent. The Soviet entry was timed to coincide with the height of the peace chants, and they used the most prominent parade gimmick, a large sweeping frame ending in a golden sputnik. In contrast, the only association with American science was not peace, but the Japanese signboards of "No More Hiroshimas."

The Festival, however, was not a series of rallies--only the four were staged in ten days. The total impression of the Festival was diffuse, ranging over the entire breadth of Vienna, and, for the average impressionable delegate, an orgy of cultural events dominated by the Russians (e.g. the Leningrad Ballet) and the Communist Chinese (e.g. the Peking Circus). Dozens of such events were running each day in all available auditoriums in Vienna, and in the evenings Eastern and African folk performers appeared in neighborhood parks across Vienna.

The other major activity was the seminar program on trade and political interests, held in every building offering multi-lingual translation facilities. Since the Communists had for the first time come from behind the Iron Curtain to stage a Festival, it is surprising that they would spoil the effect so badly by repressive techniques in these meetings. Some, such as the seminar on underveloped countries, traced a pre-planned picture with heavy-handed accuracy wavering only when the shouting down of contrary viewpoints neared violence.

BACKGROUND

World Youth Festival: An allegedly representative meeting held every two years since 1947, this summer for the first time outside the Soviet controlled countries. Financed by the U.S.S.R., it was managed by Communist front organizations--the World Federation of Democratic Youth, and the International Union of Students. Some 20,000 "youth," officially including many over 30 years old, attended from over 100 nations.

The Independent Service for Information on the Vienna Youth Festival: A small group of Americans, centerer in Cambridge, who publicized the Communist nature of the Festival and prepared informative pamphlets for use there. The Service was responsible for encouraging the attendance inside the Festival of some 150 non-Communist Americans, and coordinated much of the press and student activity inside the Festival. Financed by the private contributions of prominent citizens, the Service has the support of national leaders such as Senator Humphrey. Gloria Steinam and Leonard Bebchick were co-chairmen, and Paul E. Sigmund of the Harvard Government Department, and Senior Tutor of Quincy House, provided overall guidance.

"New York-Chicago Split": Non-Communist Americans signed up with both of the U.S. Festival groups, and the publicized "split" became an easy way of simplifying a number of facts: that party faithfuls like Paul Robeson, Jr., were New Yorkers who were cooperating with the Festival organizers, and that it was a large number of the Chicago group whose right to attend was challenged on fabricated technical grounds.

It was by violence that the Communist organizers made their gravest publicity error. You may recall, for instance, the American girl who was struck by a Communist guard when she was trying to add Department of Agricultural reports to the "people's literature" at an agricultural meeting.

Yet even when the seminar argumentation was not totally censored, the Communists did no better. It was in this area, and in the opportunity for personal contact, that the Americans working within the Festival achieved their best effects.

The great majority of the some 350 Americans at the Festival were non-Communist. Of these about 150 participated directly through the contacts and encouragement of of the Independent Service (see Box); the remainder included 30 prematurely professional Communist party faith-

The author and his wife were among the American participants within the Festival. A former CRIMSON President and Rhodes scholar, Thompson was active in the seminar program. fuls and another 70, young and vacousminded, faithful to the people who got them there.

The motives of the non-Communist Americans in attending were a mixture of the opportunity to make meaningful contacts with uncommitted individuals, the hope of presenting a clear American viewpoint, and the curiosity to see first hand how the Soviets would run a show for 20,000. The objectives were twofold: to counter the Communist party line directed at festival participants, and to provide material opposed to the Communist's flood of propaganda both during and after the Festival.

In Moscow in 1957, George Abrams and Tony Quainton had read the U.N's Hungary Report in Red Square, attracting attentive crowds and threatening pans from Pravada.