‘Club of Ten’ unmasked ?

Press, 3 July 1978, Page 4

‘Club of Ten’ unmasked ?

A propaganda campaign against the World Council of Churches in 1974 — part of which made accusations through New Zealand newspaper advertising — originated in the South African Governmnet Information Department.

This has been disclosed in a recent “Rand Daily Mail” story, according to the general secretary of the New Zealand Council of Churches (the Rev. Angus H. MacLeod).

“The accusation that the World Council supports terrorism and violence has repeatedly been shown to be false,” Mr MacLeod said. “But the poison of propaganda still does its evil work, and some people in New Zealand believe it." He said that the South African Government had "clearly felt threatened by the consistent moral stand taken by the World Council

of Churches agamst apartheid, and by its humanitarian help to victims of racism.”

The secret propaganda drive included full-page advertisements in leading newspapers of Western Europe, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Mr MacLeod said that it had been “a sad reflection on the lengths the proponents of apartheid will go to, to defend their position.” The advertisement, carried in “The Press” of November 23, 1974, was signed by “The Club of Ten,” with a London post office box as its address.

It called for the World Council of Churches to give money towards solving famine in northern Africa instead of aiding “political causes” in southern Africa. “Africa needs grain not guns, bread not bombs,” it said. “Let us save lives, not take lives, in Africa.”