Guard for staff after car blast

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33527, 7 May 1974, Page 17

Guard for staff after car blast

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, May 6. The managing director of an advertising agency which has been filming commercials for the Liberal Party said today that police and private guards were protecting his female office staff in East Sydney.

Mr John Singleton said that the police had told him that the explosive device that destroyed his Rolls Royce car on Saturday, had been professionally prepared. He had moved his wife and two-year-old son from their expensive Sydney home, in response to threats against their safety. Mr Singleton is the managing director of Doyle, Dane Berbach, a leading Americ a n-o w n e d Australian agency.

Mr Singleton declined to comment on press reports that several Australians who have appeared in television commercials, have been threatened since last week. He would not directly

answer the question whether he and his family were under police guard. His response to the question was: “I don’t want any guard.”

Mr Singleton’s car was destroyed by a bomb at a week-end retreat at Berowra Waters, several miles north of Sydney. The car was parked some distance away from where Mr Singleton war sleeping, and he was not awakened by the blast, in the hours before dawn on Saturday.

Mr Singleton says that his firm is filming fifteen more commercials in their antiGovernment campaign today, all over Sydney. He had no intention of ending the campaign. He said that the police and private guards at his Sydney office, were escorting female employees to and from their cars.

The Doyle, Dane, Berbach campaign consists of edited filmed interviews with Sydney people, most of whom voted for their Australian Labour Party candidate in 1972 and explained why they don’t plan to vote for the A.L.P. again in the elections on May 18. One commercial in the series shows an Estonian immigrant describing the policies of the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) as "disguised Communist,” and a Labour Party candidate has unsuccessfully sought a court injunction removing the commercial from the air.