INFORMATION WAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27346, 23 March 1950, Page 7

INFORMATION WAR

Posters In Bucharest

BRITAIN’S MORAL WIN

NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 8 p.m. LONDON. Mar. 22. One of the reasons for the closure of the British information centre in Bucharest by the Rumanian authorities was the official Rumanian objection to a British billboard which, it was considered, attracted too much notice from the public. The British information office used this billboard to display posters showing scenes of British life. When the Rumanian authorities found crowds congregating to look at the posters they had a hole dug in front of the hoarding and erected a rival billboard on the other side of the street. The British countered this move by floodlighting their posters, whereupon the Rumanians retaliated by installing still stronger lighting. When the British painted a broad blue border round their display the Rumanians surrounded their posters with a red border. The British thereupon changed their display and showed impressive photographs of Royal Air Force planes. The Rumanians met this by showing their own air ambulances, which, the captions claimed, were “working in the service of mankind.” Then the British put up a collection of photographs showing colonial development, but the Rumanians answered by displaying photographs which they alleged proved that the British were oppressing colonial peoples. When the British put up photographs of election scenes the Rumanians employed a poster entitled “Five Years of Treachery by the British Labour Government.” The Rumanians then ordered the British information office to be closed, •and posted detectives near its premises to take the names of any Rumanians making inquiries.