Report Opec Considering Paying Readers Digest to Publish Articles Sympathetic About the Oil Group

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is considering paying Readers Digest to publish sympathetic articles and accepting a “cold turkey” offer from a New York advertising agency to bring OPEC’s “message” to “the American people,” according to Business Week.

In an editorial entitled “Blacklist Backlash in Congress,” Business Week said that “Administration officials fear that escalating anti-Arab sentiment in Congress will make new trouble for legislation dealing with trade or foreign investment in the United States.” The magazine pointed out that “amendments are sprouting to block commercial deals with countries that participate in boycotts against Israel or discriminate against U.S. companies with Jewish interests.”

One top Senate aide is quoted in the Business Week editorial as saying that “people are really upset” over the blacklist. “Unless the Arabs renounce the blacklist, pressure for Congressional reprisal may grow irresistible” although “State and Treasury Department officials argue the best way to handle the problem is through quiet diplomacy.”

WOULD COST SEVERAL MILLION DOLLARS

In its news article on OPEC seeking to improve its image in America, Business Week reported in its March 24 issue that an OPEC report it obtained showed that three editorial and advertising representatives from Readers Digest met OPEC officials in Vienna Jan. 17 to discuss the campaign. “They told chief M.O. Feyide, the oil group’s Secretary General, who is from Nigeria,” the magazine said, that “a suitable program would cost anywhere from $1.87 million to $4.58 million, depending on the length of the articles and the number of insertions.”

In New York, according to Business Week, the managing editor of Readers Digest, Edward T. Thompson, said that the “articles” mentioned in the OPEC document were strictly paid advertising, not editorial material. One of the Digest representatives at the Vienna session, European director John D. Panitza, is quoted by Business Week as saying the Digest team went to great lengths to explain the difference between advertising and editorial content to the OPEC group.

“If the oil group is confused about what is or is not paid advertising, it is not apparent from the rest of the report,” Business Week emphasized. Part of the report discusses a letter received by OPEC from PKL Advertising Inc., New York, which proposed an advertising campaign in television, news weeklies, newspapers and radio, that, the agent was quoted by Business Week as saying, “guarantees that the campaign will reach 95 percent of adult Americans over and over again throughout 1975.” The letter suggested, Business Week reported, that mounting the campaign would cost “less than $10 million.”

John Shima, PKL’s president, the magazine said, had confirmed he wrote to OPEC “cold turkey” to offer his services, OPEC will consider the offers at its June meeting in Gabon.