I'm grateful, I think, to Alan Reid for the link to a gritty and grainy film of the first (that is, real) Tbilisi conference in 1977. Shot in black, white, and 50+ shades of grey, this is a Soviet propaganda style output which matches my sense of the gloom that pervaded the 1970s. From the arrival of the Aeroflot jet, the relieved be-suited delegates emerging into the light, the soviet realist architecture of the conference centre, the serried ranks of attendees listing to UN and other panjandrums explain what they were all going to agree, the ... . No. Best watch it yourselves; but be warned, it starts as soon as it appears on the screen. Best with the sound off I found.
Spot the delegate, is a good game to play, and it was splendid to see Director-General M'Bow in action – the reason (pretext, some say) why the UK left UNESCO in 1985.
Compelling stuff.
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