Imagine a hot, crowded press conference, with some of Canada’s top journalists taking part.

They’re out to grill Beatle John Lennon on his plans to sell world peace; to find out whether Lennon and his followers are really out for personal gain in the peace campaign.

More than 50 journalists, half a dozen TV cameras, a score of tape recorders and a multitude of microphones are crammed into the Ontario Science Centre lecture room.

Spot lamps overheat the room and the reporters. The atmosphere is tense and expectant.

The room goes quiet as Lennon enters, looking more like a latter day saint than a leader of the new generation.

Lennon, all in black, his hair the way Jesus wore it, is relaxed and affable. Soon the more reactionary journalists are asking pointed questions about personal profit motives and exploitation of the peace thing.

He says the performers in next summer’s peace festival will be paid, and he doesn’t know whether he will be. Someone demands to know the cost of it all.

Lennon: “No matter how much it costs, it is cheaper than somebody’s life.” Score Lennon one, cynics nothing.

“There will be no fiddling,” says Lennon. “We know you fellows will be watching like mad to see if anything happens.” Laughter. Lennon makes it 2-0.

The reporters are warming to an honest man. The questioning takes on a more friendly manner.

A TV Journalist sitting behind me has been noisy and boorish throughout the conference, asking his colleague (so everyone can hear): “Tell me, do these long- hairs view me with as much distaste as I view them?” Things like that. It makes you sick.

He stands up, interrupts another questioner to demand of Lennon: “Do you believe in God?”

There is silence. The question is fair enough, but the harshness of his tone causes embarrassment.

Lennon replies simply: “I believe in God, as a supreme power. He is neither good nor bad, wrong nor right, black nor white. You do what you want with him.”

“God is like electricity. You can kill people with it, or light up a room with it.”

“God is what you make of him. God is.”

The tasteless reporter sits down, deflated. The silence now is a respectful one, and it’s game, set and match to Lennon.

And when Lennon is asked whether there will be a car race at the Mosport festival, and replies: “There’s no car race. The race is for peace,” the journalists break into spontaneous applause.

And journalists never, never applaud in the course of duty.

“Peace is no violence , and everybody grooving, if you don’t mind the word.”

With typical dry humor, John Lennon summed up the ideal that he and wife Yoko Qio are working for all over the world.

The long-haired Beatle kicked off his campaign for world peace last week in Don Mills with a press conference at the Ontario Science Centre.

Dressed all in black, Lennon and Yoko announced a “peace festival” for Mosport Park July 3, 4 and 5.

“We don’t want to set up a holocaust, you know. It will be peace, poetry or whatever. We’ll ask everyone we know to take part.”

Lennon said Canada had been chosen to start the campaign “because we feel there’s a bit of hope here.

“Canada’s vibes are good. We like Canada, we like your image. We like the things you do. You talk to China.”

He hoped the festival would be “such a good scene that we could take it to Russia and around the world.”

Lennon said young people should use the established media to promote their beliefs.

“Our hope is with youth. They will be the establishment. There’s no point in breaking it down because you’ll have to build it up again.”

Asked why he was using a new method to achieve peace when others had failed, Lennon said: “That’s like saying why bother going on with Christianity when Jesus got killed.”

Lennon gave an example of what he hoped to achieve when he said: “If there is another Hitler in the world, we hope this time someone will see him and stop him. Youth will be watching.”

Lennon said he felt the same about peace as he did when the Beatles started in Liverpool’s Cavern.

“I don’t care how long it takes to achieve peace. No matter how much it costs, we feel it is cheaper than somebody’s life.”

Yoko said part of the couple’s aim was to “make violent people feel ashamed of their violence.”

MONTREAL (UPI) —John Lennon announced a Christmas-day “peace fast” with American comedian Dick Gregory yesterday, and indicated there may be something to the rumors the Beatles are headed for a split-up.

Lennon was asked about the rumors at a press conference.

He hesitated before replying:

“Well, we’ll see how it works out in July. We’re going to see then about doing another album together.”

He said a new Beatles movie would be released shortly, a documentary-type film showing “how emotionally draining it is to make an album.”

Lennon is in Canada with his wife, Yoko Ono, promoting their peace campaign. He hasn’t said where the fast will be held.

Times News Services

OTTAWA — The much-vaunted charisma of Prime Minister Trudeau has even touched Beatle John Lennon.

“I think he’s a beautiful person,” Lennon said, standing’outside Trudeau’s office today after he and his wife Yoko finished an hour-long chat with the prime minister.

“lf all politicians were like Trudeau, there would be world peace,” he said. ‘‘You don’t know how lucky you are in Canada.”

The long-haired, bearded, black-cloaked British pop singer is in Canada on a Christmas mission to promote peace.

Beatle John Lennon does himself a disservice when he refers (as he did in a recent interview in this country) to the United States as “the other place.”

“You mean the other place?” he said in answer to a question. The sarcasm in his voice was evident, but Lennon should not forget he owes much of his wealth to the United States. In fact the main factor in his being awarded the MBE by the Queen (he sent it back recently as a protest against Britain’s supply of arms to Nigeria) was his dollar contribution to Britain’s coffers.

Now he has compounded this impertinence by sending the bill for- his full-page “peace” advertisement in The New York Times to President Nixon, saying it costs less than the life of one man.

Lennon says he is also placing the advertisement in newspapers in other capitals. It reads: “War is Over — If You Want It.” He did not say which capitals, or whether he is including for example Moscow, Peking or Hanoi.

Such calls to peace? are useless if they do not include the Communist world which is playing a major part in keeping the hostilities in Vietnam going. The current build-up of North Vietnamese forces for a possible new offensive in the new year is a case in point.

The trouble is, Lennon likely has never been heard of in the Communist world — until now that is. He will get all the support he needs from that quarter if he persists with this campaign. What he will not obtain, we suspect, is permission to place the same advertisement in the Communist press — even if he wants that.

TORONTO (CP) – Smile, clap hands and hope and the world will find peace. That, in brief, was the Christmas message the Lennons— John and Yoko—offered Saturday.

Both agreed that their way of achieving peace may be overly simple but said peace is a “very simple thing.”

“Peace is no violence, no frustration, no fear,” John Lennon said during an interview to be shown Christmas Day by the CBS television network.

“If I smile at you, you’re liable to smile back,” he told the CBS interviewer. “We’re smiling at the world.”

Earlier, he told Marshal McLuhan, author of The Medium is the Message, “that it’s a cinch to drop in anywhere in the world, clap your hands and get a good response.”

Between the interviews, the Lennons said a rock festival planned for next summer at nearby Mosport Park and the festival held this summer in Woodstock, N.Y., is the kind of event that can raise hopes for peace.

GIVING UP HOPE

“In London, we were giving up hope until the Woodstock festival,” he said. “The vibes (vibrations) from Woodstock were beautiful.”

“There were 125,000 people there—the largest group ever assembled that wasn’t meant to fight.”

Later he was interviewed on the CBC-TV program Weekend where he said he took drugs when he lost hope but added that those who take drugs “have no hope.”

He said that Canada is the first country he has come to where he has been given help.

During the CBS interview he said Canadian newspapers radio and TV stations were the first to give his peace campaign a chance.

NO IDENTITY

Mr. McLuhan explained that “having no national identity. Canada has never had any goals.”

“That’s why Canada is not as frustrated and therefore not as aggressive as most countries,” he said.

After a lengthy explanation by Mr. McLuhan of how individuals, corporations, countries and dinosaurs “grew large because of a flow of adrenalin to compensate for their frustration” Mr .Lennon gave an example of his dry humor.

“I knew we wouldn’t have to read your books,” he told Mr. McLuhan.

Although Mr. and Mrs. Lennon looked sombre in their black costumes and both were annoyed at missing their dinner because of the interviews, they were in fine form, making funny faces directly into the camera.

SHAKES HAIR

At one point, after Mr. McLuhan discussed at length the disappearance of dandruff commercials, Mr. Lennon shook his shoulder-length brown hair and said:

“Dandruff is still with us.”

The Lennons managed to include the word “peace” in almost every answer and said that it was intentional.

“We’ve manoeuvred all our production, our creativity, towards peace,” he told the CBS interviewer.

When asked what their Christmas message would be, Mrs. Lennon replied: “Peace.”

“Peace on earth,” her husband added.

With that they left Mr McLuhan’s Centre for Culture and Technology, slipped into their white Rolls – Royce limousine and were gone.

TORONTO – (CP) – Smile, clap hands and hope and the world will find peace.

That, in brief, was the Christmas message the Lennons — John and Yoko — offered Saturday.

Both agreed their way of achieving peace may be overly-simple but said peace is a “very simple thing.”

“Peace is no violence, no frustration, no fear,” John Lennon said during an interview to be shown Christmas Day by the CBS television network.

“If I smile at you, you’re liable to smile back,” he told the CBS interview. “We’re smiling at the world.”

Earlier, he told Marshall McLuhan, author of The Medium is the Message, “that it’s a cinch to drop in anywhere in the world, clap your hands and get a good response.”

Between the interviews, the Lennons said a rock festival nearby Mosport Park and the festival held this summer in Woodstock, N.Y. is the kind of event that can raise hopes for peace.

“In London, we were giving up hope until the Woodstock festival,” he said. “The vibes (vibrations) from Woodstock were beautiful.

“There were 125,000 people there — the largest group gathered for battle.

“If we can bring a package of hope with the Mosport thing, maybe we can take the whole shebang, the whole world. ,

“Peace is a nice message; it’ll get around.”

Later he was interviewed on the CBC-TV program weekend where he said he took drugs when he lost hope but added that those who take drugs “have no hope.”

He said that Canada is the first country he has come to where he has been given help.

During the CBS interview nr Canadian newspapers, radio and TV stations were the first to give his peace campaign a chance.

Mr. McLuhan explained that “having no national identity, Canada has never had any goals.

“That’s why Canada is not as frustrated and therefore not as aggressive as most countries,” he said.

Lennon of the Beatles and his wife Yoko Ono extended their Christmas peace campaign to the United States Sunday by running a full-page anti-war advertisement in the New York Times.

The ad appeared earlier this week in Paris’ English-language Herald Tribune and in newspapers in Toronto and Montreal.

It is modelled after posters Lennon is having printed and displayed in major cities throughout the world. The posters are up all over London already and Lennon has said they will be up in 10 more cities by Christmas.

He says the campaign will cost $72,000 and has promised that he will send President Nixon the bill.

“War is over,” the ad proclaims, “if you want it.”

It is signed: “Happy Christmas from John and Yoko Lennon.”

The Lennons arrived in Toronto last Tuesday to launch the crusade. The singing star said when he arrived at the aiport that his ads and posters “cost less than the life of one man and I am sending the bill for printing to Presidnt Richard Nixon.”

Canadian youngsters have been warned to stay away from hard drugs, such as speed, by no less an authority than John Lennon. Appearing on Canadian television, he said his own period on drugs was a time when he had no hope. He found that when one is on drugs it is even harder to find hope. The Beatle and his wife, artist Yoko Ono, were on the CBC program Weekend as part of their campaign for peace. Lennon’s recipe for peace? Smile, clap hands and hope. “If I smile at you, you’re liable to smile back,” he told the interviewer.

TORONTO – Beatle Lennon says he and his wife Yoko Ono wanted to go to Biafra a few months ago but decided against it because they do not want to become martyrs for peace.

The Lennons are in Canada gathering ideas for spreading a peace movement to young people around the world.

Lennon said they decided not to visit Biafra because “we’re scared to go to where it’s happening because we don’t want to be dead saints.”

“I’m scared to go to Vietnam and Biafra. Until I’m convinced that I can do better there than I can do outside, I’ll stay outside.”

Ono told a crowded news conference that this year’s pop festivals at Woodstock and Idlewild in the United States were “very historical” because “before that when that number of people gathered it was only for war.”

The festivals, which attracted thousands of young people, were quiet. If this quiet, peaceful mood can spread, she said, “the noisy people, the violent people will become ashamed.”