The case of Indonesia at 1964 New York World's Fair would appear to have much in common with the Philippines. As another formerly colonized, newly independent Southeast Asian nation with an even vaster archipelagic reach than its neighbour to the east, it also sought to represent itself in ways that championed modernity and tradition, wrapped in a national framework that celebrated cultural diversity. Yet unlike the Philippines, the Indonesian pavilion's content, design, and even its very location in New York was largely directed not by a diverse team of officials, but largely by one man: President Sukarno. Because Sukarno's fall from grace was so spectacular, with his health and grip on power rapidly declining as his country spiraled into economic chaos in a geopolitical region increasingly plagued by instability – much of it of his own making – his role in directing and shaping Indonesian culture has been a difficult one to assess openly and honestly. Sukarno's nation fell into its ‘Year of Living Dangerously’ – a phrase he famously coined – in 1965, the second year of the New York fair, and by early 1967, he was under house arrest, his reputation in tatters. Though Suharto, the military commander who eventually succeeded him as President ran the country for a vastly longer period of 31 years, it is Sukarno, for all of his failings, who is still regarded as the founder of modern Indonesia.