The Publicity Snatchers

by Tony Jaques

The Committee on Vietnam never has been reluctant to cash in on publicity, but its present efforts would surely have impressed Phineas T. Barnum himself.

Even the old bogey of Brigadier Gilbert's nasty security service had been unearthed, and a Minister of the Crown has been threatened with "appropriate action".

About $40 worth of advertising space in the Sunday Times was taken up to protect the refusal of the Reserve Bank to permit overseas funds to be used to bring overseas speakers to the Peace, Power and Politics in Asia Conference.

The 'protest was signed by 108 defenders of free discussion; from Professors Brookes and Beaglehole to Salient editor, Bill Logan, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.

But everything has its price, and who is paying out the $12,000-odd needed to make this free discussion possible?

A large part has come from the conference delegates' registration fees. "Three hundred delegates at $10 each is $3,000 for a start", said the conference organiser, Mr. Alister Taylor. "Most of the unions have given substantial amounts," he said. 'The two drivers unions for instance have given $50 each, and some other unions have given up to $100."

Private donations appear to be flowing in steadily, but Mr. Taylor seems unaware of the designation or political affiliations of many of these benefactors.

Similarly he seems unaware of the exact persuasion of many of the conference delegates.

Seven or eight Labour M.P.s will attend the conference, and about 25 unions are sending delegates, said Mr. Taylor, but the majority of the delegates will be unaffiliated citizens who as yet are just names on application forms; and on $10 cheques.

Mr. Taylor said, however, that "probably 40-50$ of the delegates who will be attending are not fully committed to the C.O.V. line".

The New Zealand Communist Party will not be attending in force as might have, in some quarters, been expected.

Several major New Zealand pacifist and church bodies are among the forty co-sponsors of the conference, but in addition to this, individual churches were circularised for support. About 150 ministers sent personal donations and 250 parishes agreed to take conference material.

Conference financing seems to proceed like any well stage-managed melodrama. The Committee was "overwhelmed" when the inevitable little-old-grey-haired-couple in Auckland coughed up on cue with $3, and a note saying that they were "rather short of cash".

This was followed by a gold watch chain and a solid silver watch bought in 1910 for $5. A cheque for $20 followed this, and then a sterling silver christening set.

These items will be auctioned during the conference at what promises to be a heart-rendingly pathetic orgy of publicity.

The Reserve Bank clamp-down on overseas funds prompted yet another candidate for immortality who walked in to the Committee's Lambton Quay office with a cheque for $100 and a.note describing it as "An indignation donation triggered by morning news."

This effort resulting from the Dominion news-story however was somewhat overshadowed by the more attractive offers by New Zealand citizens of overseas funds allegedly totalling $10,000.

"This is no fly-by-night, deliberately irritant protest," said an Evening Post leader writer, and he was dead right. This is a well organised and soundly financed conference which need not wallow in publicity.

To eagerly anticipate being "smeared" is a painfully immature stance for any group seeking to emphasise its credibility as a responsible seeker-after-truth.