Wilson Replies To Demonstrators

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31112, 15 July 1966, Page 13

Wilson Replies To Demonstrators

(N.Z. Pres* Association—Copyright)

BRIGHTON, July 14.

Britain’s Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson, defended himself and the former Australian Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, against “warmonger” jibes at Sussex University yesterday.

Students carried banners reading “Why honour warmongers Menzies and Wilson?” when the two men arrived to receive honorary degrees at the university graduation ceremony. Mr Wilson told the gathering later that both Sir Robert Menzies and himself wanted peace in Vietnam. “Last year Sir Robert Menzies and I offered to carry the peace-in-Vietnam banner to Peking and Hanoi,” he said in a reference to the commonwealth peace mission proposal at the 1965 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference. “We failed, but we shall continue to try.” *♦**♦*♦♦<*♦**♦*♦**♦******♦<

Sir Robert Menzies and Mr Wilson faced cat-calls, jeers and more banners from more than 1000 anti-Vietnam war demonstrators as 394 graduates of the University of Sussex were launched on their careers. At the ceremony, 10 distinguished men, including the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche, received honorary degrees. Armband Protest A plan for demonstrators to wear white armbands broke down. One student approached a faculty member and said: “Have you got a white armband?” The faculty member replied: “We’ve run out, can you use a hankie?” Some' students pinned pieces of, white toilet paper to their j sleeves.