Peace Gesture

BEATLE BEDDED DOWN

MONTREAL (CP) -- The scene was anything but peaceful when Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono began their seven-day bed-in for world peace in a luxurious downtown hotel suite.

"The main object is to talk about peace," the 28-year-old Lennon told a news conference Tuesday.

"Hey, will ya move down in front?" yelled a red-faced cameraman.

"I'm against violence, period," Lennon said.

"Watch your knee, you..." a reporter muttered through clenched teeth.

The hotel room was a mob scene as sweating, cursing reporters and photographers elbowed each other for interviews and better camera angles.

Meanwhile in the House of Commons yesterday, Prime Minister Trudeau who had been invited to participate in the "Bed-in" by Lennon, declined to answer an opposition question on whether he intends to join the long-haired pop music star in his peace gesture.

Personal crusade

Lennon, who along with Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, became the idols of millions of teen-agers with their pop music, has taken on a personal crusade for world peace.

He has said that if everyone stayed in bed for a week, there would be no killings.

Lennon told the reporters:

"We've invited all peace-lovers to join us in our campaign, but they can do it in their own beds."

He urged peace-lovers to spend some of their holidays in a symbolic lie-in.

His wife said their "main objective" is to "stimulate other ideas for the promotion of peace."

Lennon's five-year-old stepdaughter, Kyoko, sat in a huge bed with the couple, clutching a teddy bear, during the hour-long news conference.

She periodically jumped out of the bed to grab handfuls of white flower petals that had fallen to the floor from a flower plant in the room.

A mob scene

The hotel room was a mob scene as reporters and photographers gathered around the couple for photographs and interviews.

Lennon also did an educational program on "exploring music" from Radio Quebec, the provincially-operated agency, behind closed doors.

It is designed for children in Grades 5 to 7, but its contents were not revealed.

Lennon, his wife and Kyoko arrived in Montreal Monday night from Toronto where they were met by reporters and hundreds of teen-agers.

Once Lennon got a glimpse of the large crowd waiting to greet him, he decided against going through a corridor at Montreal airport and asked for a police escort.

Police help out

Clutching Kyoko in his arms, he and his wife were taken to a waiting police car.

Lennon was granted a 10-day stay in Canada by the department of immigration after a two-hour hearing with immigration officials at Toronto airport Monday.

The hearing was held to inquire into Lennon's admissibility to Canada. He had been denied entry to the United States because of a recent conviction in London for possession of marijuana.

He said he would like to spend two or three weeks in Montreal and also plans to visit New York and Washington.

End of article. Copyright by the Canadian Press news services, 1969. All rights reserved.