1954: THE SOVIETS HAD JUST EXPLODED their first I l-bomb; the McCarthy hearings had come to an ignominious end in Washington; Stalin had died and Khrushchev had risen to power in Moscow. And in Damascus, Syria, Harris Peel had a problem.

Peel, the information director for the U.S. Hmbassy in the Syrian capital, needed something quickly. The Soviets were inaugurating a new front in the Cold War. The International Trade Fair was due to open in Damascus in just a few weeks, and the Soviets were pouring men, material, and money into it in an all-out effort to gain friends and influence in a region of growing strategicimportance. They had hired 1,200 laborers and spent a half-million dollars to build a 3,500-square-foot pavilion that would dominate the fairgrounds with a 100-foot steeple topped by an illuminated Red Star.

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