Richard Gunnar Juve

To the editor:

At breakfast at George’s Diner with a buddy, reminiscing, talking about the 1938 film "The Saint In New York," starring George Sanders; the suave, swashbuckler actor Basil Rathbone and his film role as super sleuth, Sherlock Holmes in the "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1939) my breakfast mate mentioned the little girl Coppertone suntan ad with a five year old girl and her little dog on the beach.

His statement reminded me of the big girl Coppertone ad that reigned supreme over the rooftops of Tehran in 1978 during the reign of the Shah and the Iranian revolution.. The Coppertone girl that was all grown up and illustrated over the high-rise structures of the capital of Iran and was for me the beginning of what we see today in the Middle East. Tehran at 4,000 feet was a beautiful city of seven million in those days. Snug up against the Albroz mountains, a skier's paradise. A city along the ancient mystical silk road.

A massive billboard dominated central downtown, Tehran in close proximity of their capital building, the crown jewels and the Niavaran Palace complex. It was seen by all, a reclining almost naked buxom, young nubile who invited seduction by her suggestive pose. Her young body silhouetted and inviting. The young men of Tehran could only long to touch and feel the flesh of this inviting young seductress, a femme fatale in bikini, that advertised sun tan oil. No longer the little girl ad, but a full mature beauty scantily clad with all the right features showing. A gaze to the clear blue sky resulted in a view of this enormous billboard with the subliminal suggestion that if you used this lotion, you too might acquire more than a tan, but also this delightful blond gem who would satisfy your every fantasy.

Iranian religious leaders said that this was dangerous advertising which lured men's minds by creating an aura of charm and mystery. Perhaps the billboard predicted disastrous consequences as well, because I got caught in the center of a bloody war. The naked body did not generate political and social equality of the sexes. She helped me to remember repressed thoughts of Ayatollah Khomeni, the revolution the take over of the U.S. embassy, our recent nuclear dispute and their continued enrichment of uranium and support of terrorism.

Young Iranian males never saw women in bathing suits or for that matter any lady in bathing attire because women were covered in their black chadors, a capelike umbrella which covered their heads, faces and all features of their anatomy down to the tips of their toes. Islamic dress codes prohibit the display of the female figure. Femininity is restricted to the home.

At the time I wondered how the religious leaders felt about this free exercise of Western capitalistic advertising in a conservative Islamic culture. There was an inappropriateness about the ad. The billboard dominated the downtown skyline and represented all that was wrong with the West. The focus was on raw sex when there was so much that was good in Western culture. My friend’s cute Coppertone ad raised this item in my memory.

Now with some of our leaders discussing military options to a nuclear threat by Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President of the Islamic Republic of Iran an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, the cute photo of the innocent little five-year-old Coppertone girl was a trigger to a memory bank with stored up thoughts regarding the Iranian revolution and all the brutal killing. None of it was innocent. In 1978 in Isfahan, the machine guns were popping all night long and bodies were carried out of buildings and dumped in the back of military trucks their naked feet protruding. What kind of better image could we have presented to the Iranians other than an almost naked female languishing over their capital? Their president refuses to stop his nuclear program, wants Israel wiped off the face of the map and says the Holocaust was a myth.

The Coppertone girl raised the hormonal level of young men in Teheran which was siphoned off by the Iranian revolution which immersed many youth in a continuous eight year war with Iraq killing over a million people. The biggest tank battles in history took place between the Iraqis and Iranian military and gas warfare was exercised.

The Iranians portrayed the U.S. as a singular sinister Great Satan.

Our culture was characterized by that seductive ad. The Middle East is fertile ground for such advertising and resourceful ad men attack the imagination and thought centers of a growing male population. The ad was fissionable material. The Mullahs used the ad and other like it as a firebomb to ignite the population against a pro western Shah and continue to attack us today with their destructive propaganda.

We transmitted the wrong message with the near naked female body The Middle East is like a steam boiler sustaining high pressure and the temperature is increasing. Iranian leadership is highly militant in disposition and we need some finesse and refinement in skillfully handing our activities overseas. Some adroit maneuvering with our propaganda machine might meticulously avoid sexual ads and make use of some higher taste which could accomplish our goals without the use of total brute force. We might consider placing some restrictions and limitations on our language, music lyrics and advertising in Islamic countries.

Richard Gunnar Juve

Meredith