DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270114

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   91 lines

PUBLIC AGENCIES BACKPEDALING FROM LIDDY

ON MONDAY morning, the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, the Southeastern Public Service Authority and the Norfolk Botanical Garden all abandoned their booths at Monday's Talkfest '97 starring G. Gordon Liddy.

At least that's what their representatives say. And I believe them.

All three say that I, in a column Monday, unfairly criticized them and misrepresented their participation in Talkfest '97, a public celebration of talk radio.

They contend that:

They were not Talkfest '97 sponsors. Instead, they merely planned to have booths with informational materials at the event.

No public money was spent on Talkfest '97. Especially offensive was the headline ``Your tax dollars at work'' on the column, they say.

There's a lot of circling of wagons going on, as is usual when bureaucrats have blundered.

HRSD, SPSA and NBG are saying they were not sponsors, although an advertisement listing them as sponsors appeared in the Aug. 19 issue of The Virginian-Pilot.

These are agencies with public relations staffs that can crank out press releases and position statements in quantities sufficient to wallpaper your home, garage and beach cottage in a matter of hours.

HRSD, SPSA and NBG could have disavowed any and all connection with Talkfest '97 and Liddy immediately after the ad appeared. To be fair, in calling all three groups, I found SPSA more eager to disassociate itself than the others. SPSA said someone would get back to me, but nobody did.

``Phone me if you decide to pull your booth out,'' I said. Yet no phone call came from SPSA. Not until Monday morning, after the column appeared, did SPSA pull its booth.

As I mentioned in that column, those three arms of government seemed to want it both ways at the same time.

Last Friday, three days after a huge ad promoting the event listed the trio as sponsors - and tired of attempting to have the agencies distinguish between a Talkfest '97 ``sponsor'' and ``participant'' - I phoned Julianne Drewry, sales manager for WNIS and WTAR Radio. She placed the ad listing Talkfest '97 sponsors in our newspaper.

``Are HRSD, SPSA and Norfolk Botanical Garden sponsors of Talkfest '97?'' I asked.

Drewry's reply was: ``Yes, they are.''

Mind you, WNIS and WTAR were putting on Talkfest '97 and bringing Liddy here.

Now, having abandoned their booths at Talkfest, the publicly funded trio say they were not sponsors. Pity they failed to inform the person who was advertising them that way.

I have in hand a letter from Jerry Del Core, the general manager of WNIS and WTAR, who says none of the three served as `` `sponsors' for G. Gordon Liddy'' as noted in my column. (I said they were sponsors of Talkfest '97 for which Mr. Liddy was the grand enchilada.)

``None of these three organizations provided any financial support for this event or for any booth space,'' Del Core says.

Maybe not, but they had people working with taxpayers' money to associate those organizations with Mr. Liddy's unique brand of irresponsible rat-in-the-coffee-can craziness. They had information booths there.

Del Core writes: ``You owe the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, the Norfolk Botanical Garden, Southeastern Public Service Authority . . . as well as your readers an apology in your next article.''

Let's see if I can get this right. Del Core's stations place an ad listing the three organizations as ``Talkfest sponsors.'' For five days after the ad appeared I did not hear a word of retraction - or apology - aired by his stations - the producers of Talkfest - denying their involvement as sponsors.

And he wants me to apologize?

Now, for some of the phone calls we've gotten about the Monday column on Liddy.

John Lawrence of the Pinewell section of Ocean View was ``outraged'' that any government money would be spent in connection with Liddy. ``If not much was spent it was too much,'' he said.

A reader who didn't give his name said I was out of line ``to compare Liddy to the KKK grand wizard.'' ``Liddy's not prejudiced against Catholics and Jews - he's Catholic himself,'' the caller said.

B-Cat Graham (he's listed that way in the phone directory) phoned to say that Liddy is ``a knucklehead.'' He wasn't happy about local government's connection with Talkfest, he said. However, B-Cat thought I'd have kept my mouth shut if there had been a super liberal featured instead of Liddy.

Bob Hayhurst phoned to say he thought Liddy had paid for his crimes in prison and backs up much of what he says with the truth. ``But I enjoy your column,'' he said.

Peyton Robertson of Norfolk, a retired Marine colonel, offers congratulations for the column. ``I'm offended by that crook doing the speech-making on radio,'' he said.

And, finally, Robert Tuberson, who says he's a retired FBI agent, objects to my reference to Liddy as ``G-Man,'' even though the talk-show host calls himself that. Tuberson says Liddy is not entitled to the title because he is a felon.

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