PROTESTERS AT AIRPORT

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32810, 10 January 1972, Page 10

PROTESTERS AT AIRPORT

About 120 demonstrators, some of them shown above, gathered at Christchurch Airport when Senator Barry Goldwater arrived about 9.30 p.m. on Saturday. Some carried placards opposing United States involvement in the Vietnam war; others had banners with inscriptions uncomplimentary to the United States or to Senator Goldwater.

The demonstrators were slow to recognise Senator Goldwater, bearded and wearing a yellow, open-necked

shirt, but they quickly crowded round when he and his party walked briskly from the airport building for about a chain to where his car was waiting. One of the demonstrators spat at him as he entered the car.

Senator Goldwater went direct to the headquarters of the United States Navy’s Antarctic support ' force, where he attended an informal reception, but many of the demonstrators, believing that he had gone to the White Heron Hotel, clustered round the entrance there. For about an hour about 70 of them with banners marched, chanting slogans, round the hotel or grouped in

front of it while about a dozen uniformed policemen remained on duty nearby. Inspector D. B. Read repeatedly told the protesters that Senator Goldwater was not inside the hotel, but they continued to cluster round the entrance. A newly married couple threaded their way through the group at the door on their way from a reception inside. Soon after this the police appeared to lose patience with the protesters and chased the remaining 20 or so away from the entrance. All dispersed quickly except one, who was arrested. He was carried to a police van by four constables. Behind them was Superintendent G. Tait, the com-

mander of the Christchurch police district, who carried the protester’s banner, neatly rolled up, under his arm. The arrested man was later charged with trespass on hotel property and will appear in the Magistrate’s Court this morning. Earlier in the afternoon about 30 demonstrators carrying placards protesting against United States involvement in the Vietnam war gathered at the airport for the arrival of the United States Secretary of the Navy (Mr J. H. Chafee). The United States visitors left yesterday morning by air for McMurdo Station for a six-day inspection of bases in the Antarctic.