POISON PEN LETTERS

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30957, 13 January 1966, Page 11

POISON PEN LETTERS

(N.Z. Pres., ,4ssn. — Copyright) SYDNEY, Jan. 12.

Australian troops in Vietnam are being sabotaged with a vicious stream of poison pen letters.

The letters, posted in Australia, tell the troops that while they are risking their lives in Vietnamese jungles their wives at home are being unfaithful to them. Judge Harvey Prior, a deputy chairman of the Australian Forces Overseas Amenities Fund and Entertainment Fund, said: “We know these letters are being received by the boys in Vietnam and we are very worried about them. “They are a direct hit at morale there and one of the oldest and dirtiest tricks of war. (It is believed that an organised group in Sydney is sending letters to the troops.) “When Don Lane (an entertainer) was up there he became very friendly with a lot of the boys and some of them took him into their confidence. “He told me they talked to him about the letters they and their mates had been getting—and they weren’t nice.” Warned Beforehand “All the boys were warned before they left that they might expect this sort of thing, but actually receiving these letters has not made things easy for them. “It is, in fact, sabotage and! of the dirtiest sort.”

Judge Prior said that to try to combat the effects of the letters on the men, members of the Amenities and Entertainment Fund are arranging for a series of taped letters to be airmailed between husbands and wives. Each man will be able to tape a five-minute “letter” to his wife, girlfriend or family approximately once a month and it will go at ordinary airmail rates, the fund members hope. Return Tapes

The wives and girlfriends will be able to make similar tapes to be flown to Vietnam. “A tape recording of someone’s voice is a much more personal and intimate thing than a letter, and by making this a regular service to the troops we hope to overcome some of the harm the poisonpen letters have already done,” said Judge Prior. It is also believed that wives of men in Vietnam are also receiving letters posted there, informing them that

their husbands have taken Vietnamese mistresses. The “Sun” spoke to wives living in Holsworthy and Anzac Army villages this week, but none of the women admitted having received the letters.