Glawischnig told Winn he wouldn't attend the second show. Nor would anyone else he knew.

"It is our moral responsibility to inform the German and Austrian press in order to protect new exhibitors (from) being misled."

Plans for the second show continued.

With the lobbying help of Winn's son, Bar-Gera's company received state money. It got a $200,000 state grant in July 1986, after the first show, and a second $200,000 grant in 1987, before the second show.

"They had funded this situation substantially with their own funds, " said Cohen, the lawyer. "The amount they got from the state was a very small portion."

The promoters promised exhibitors, who paid from $1,450 to $10,000 per booth, that attendance at the November 1987 show would exceed 6,000.

Pre-show literature predicted that the show would be "the largest event of its kind in the Western Hemisphere." One document boasted that "over 7,000 rooms have been booked." The registration packets listed at least 10 travel groups that allegedly scheduled meetings in conjunction with the show. None had.

The show began on Nov. 19. By the following day, it was clear the show would not succeed. The convention center hall was nearly empty. Exhibitors wanted refunds. They complained to Commerce Department representatives.

The state employees told them that the tourism agency was powerless to help them.

So the exhibitors banded together outside the company's exhibition hall offices. They began to clap and chant "Money back! Money back! Money back!"

It did no good.

Said the convention bureau's Kent: "The second show was worse than the first. Then they just quit. They had lost all credibility."

Dade County businesses lost, too.

The inspector general's report estimated that the company owed at least $1 million as of Dec. 12, 1987. The report concluded that the $400,000 grant went toward putting on the second show, but poor management ensured it would fail. The report estimated that the company spent $800,000 on the first show and probably would spend just as much on the second -- when all the obligations were paid.

That never happened. Some people sued. They could never find Bar-Gera to collect.

"I think he went back to Europe or Israel, " said Cohen, the firm's lawyer. "Both shows lost money. This wasn't a scam where they took the state's money and ran."

The state was also left in the red. The company owed it back taxes.

"They made promises to exhibitors they couldn't keep, " said Robert Holtzman, who did public relations for the firm. "They disappeared without paying a great deal of people. I was one of them."

Gelco Convention Services had moved the show into the Miami Beach Convention Center.

"They left town owing us some money, $10,000, $15,000, somewhere in that vicinity, " said Gelco president Bob Spiegelman. "We had called. They said we were going to get it."

Spiegelman said he had no idea the convention had received $400,000 in state money.

"That is mind-boggling, " he said. "I have a real good idea of what it takes to put on a trade show. I can't conceive of how they could have spent that much money."

Carnival Cruise Lines' Dickinson agreed. "You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to add up the costs of the booths, " he said. "It was just a major rip-off for the industry."

The state investigation concluded that the firm did not have internal controls to account for its money. The company had never even prepared a budget on how it would run the shows.

"Based on the findings of this audit review team, it is the team's opinion that it would not be in the best interest of the State of Florida or the taxpayers to continue to support this show with public funds."

The inspector general suggested that the attorney general and the auditor general review the report to see if further investigation should be done. Nothing more happened.

The auditors also made two recommendations to the Legislature:

* Include accountability requirements for all grants "to assure that the interests of the State of Florida and the taxpayers are protected;

* Give the Commerce Department the resources and the authority to determine whether a grant is effective, and the power to ask for the money back if the funds are not spent the way they should be.

The recommendations have not been followed.

"I think it's frowned upon to set up procedures to monitor, " former Commerce Secretary Bush said. "The attitude is, 'I got this through the Legislature. You are the flow-through entity. Don't bug me.' "

The last correspondence from Bar-Gera was a letter written to Sherman Winn on Dec. 13, 1987.

Bar-Gera blamed the show's problems on "an invisible hand." He said the state auditors had told him "everything is O.K. and done by the law and rules and even more than this."

The letter was dictated by phone. Bar-Gera wrote he was already on his way to London to find money for a third show in 1988.

"I hope to be back with positive results, " he said.