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From early morning until after midnight last Tuesday, Finnish President Urho Kekkonen practically camped at the Helsinki airport. Every 40 minutes or so, he dashed down to the tarmac to greet one foreign delegation after another as they arrived to attend the summit spectacular that marked the windup of the European Security Conference (TIME cover, Aug. 4). Fortunately for Kekkonen, most delegations showed up on time-and by air. But not all. In mid-afternoon Kekkonen raced into town to the railway station to shake hands with Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, who had chosen to make the 18-hour...
Protocol Problems. The Finnish government has been bending every effort to make sure that the conference will be remembered as a grand success. It has employed as many as 3,500 workers since mid-July to make ready for the huge meeting. The white-marble Finlandia House in downtown Helsinki has been equipped with special conference tables and translating equipment. The government planned to requisition at least 2,500 of the city's 4,000 hotel rooms (thereby creating a problem for 1,500 doctors who are due this week for an international conference on blood transfusion). Police leaves...
...dinner; the ranking member of each delegation will be seated closest to the host and to U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim at a gigantic C-shaped banquet table. The dinner menu and wine list remained a state secret, at least partly because Kekkonen, under local pressure to serve a Finnish sparkling wine,* was privately determined to offer French champagne...
Little Gusto. The U.N. itself could hardly be accused of approaching the conference with gusto. Only $2 million was allotted for Mexico City, compared with well over $3 million for last year's World Population Conference in Bucharest. Conceded Helvi Sipila, 60, a Finnish lawyer who is the U.N.'s secretary-general for the International Women's Year: "There has not been much enthusiasm for the year"-which is hardly surprising since the U.N. is a predominantly male organization. Women account for only 8% of the delegates to the current General Assembly...
...Switzerland, to avoid jeopardizing their neutrality, ban arms sales to nations engaged in war or to areas "ridden by tension." Nonetheless, together they export about $75 million in arms annually. The Swedes specialize in sophisticated electronic equipment and fighter planes; Saab's Draken is flown by the Danish and Finnish air forces, and the firm hopes to find NATO customers for its new Mach 2 Viggen. Switzerland's specialties are antiaircraft weapons, which it has sold in quantities to West Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands...