Recently TIME Correspondent Ramelle MaCoy of our Bonn Bureau drove into Russian-occupied East Germany to visit the Leipzig international trade fair. After his trip, he reported the impact his American automobile had made on East German audiences:

MY 1954 plastic-topped "Skyliner" Ford (blue and ivory) was unquestionably one of the biggest hits of the Leipzig fair. It was rivaled only by a Rolls-Royce and a two-toned Oldsmobile convertible that arrived in Leipzig just before I left.

Driving slowly through the streets I could hear involuntary gasps of surprise and admiration from people who happened to look up and see a gleaming new car instead of the rattletraps they're accustomed to seeing. Every time I parked, crowds of people gathered around the car talking about it. "There must be room for at least eight people," said some. Others remarked, "I hope some of the people at the 'People's Factory' are taking a good look." Several times police had to clear a path for traffic. Little boys would run along behind for blocks waiting for me to park.

At the fair grounds one day I parked next to the gate. When I returned, the ticket taker told me he had to abandon his post to keep people from crawling all over "your beautiful car." In fact, so many people fondled the car I figure I'll be able to sell it to Intelligence --the fingerprints of half the Communists in East Germany must be on it.

We also received a description from TIME Correspondent Keith Wheeler on what happened when Cinerama hit the international trade fair at Damas cus. You'll recall that in an earlier story (TIME, Sept. 13) on this Damascus fair, TIME reported that the official first-night audience didn't quite know how to take Cinerama, adding that "the real test would come" when the Syrian people got to see the show. I found Wheeler's report on "the real test" particularly interesting, having spent a great deal of time in Damascus during the war. Wrote Wheeler:

DAY after day, at every showing, 2,000 Syrians and their neighbors from other Arab countries sat entranced watching the motion-picture scenes and Commentator Lowell Thomas, and listening to the Arabic sound track booming out on the loudspeakers. At every showing there was an overflow crowd beyond the eight-foot sheet-iron fence enclosing the outdoor theater. Spectators perched like crows high in the shadows of eucalyptus trees, stood on auto tops and rooftops. Hundreds of others, defying the laws of balance and endurance of hu man muscle, stood spread-legged on the upper bars of the steel traffic-control fences outside the iron barrier.

Still others sat on the terrace of a restaurant across the road, where they sipped beer and munched sandwiches, still able to see the top half of the screen and hear the sound. The restaurant's business boomed so hugely that the grateful owner sold beer to the Cinerama staff at cut-rate prices.

Except for coming to look, the Russians failed to react visibly at first to the fact that Cinerama had stolen the show at the fair. Then the reaction came. They rented a downtown theater and offered free round-the-clock showings of Russian films. The pro-Communist newspaper Barada announced loftily that "Russia has had Cinerama for 20 years. In fact, Cinerama was invented in Russia and the Americans stole the patents."

When the fair was over, an estimated 176,000 people had seen the Cinerama show. It was beyond all question the whoppingest theatrical success ever to strike Syria.

Cordially yours, James A. Linen

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