Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 28
1 A. About press releases?
2
3 Q. About what the Company was going to put out in terms of the
4 trial?
5 A. No, not until the end, not until they had determined
6 what they were going to do, brought it to me, I had a
7 read. We talked briefly through it and we went forward.
8
9 Q. Who was it that you talked about it to?
10 A. The entire Communications Group, Mike, Edwina and
11 others.
12
13 Q. Right, so you had a meeting with all those people present?
14 A. I do not recall that they were all present. I took
15 advice from counsel. I assured myself that -- that was
16 maybe why they sent the press release out from that fax
17 number. They may have been with counsel at the time,
18 I really do not know for sure, I can only hypothesise --
19 what we were doing was right, correct and proper
20 considering where we had been, what had happened over the
21 years, and that which was contained in your own material
22 released from the first of the year in 1994, including your
23 background document on Greenpeace, London.
24
25 Q. But at this meeting, did you specifically ask about all
26 these points or did you just assume that they were all be
27 true?
28 A. Ms. Steel, I cannot remember whether I asked about
29 every paragraph or every line on that page or not.
30 I assured myself that my people had done their very best in
31 putting together a document which accurately spoke to the
32 issue to counter balance that which you yourselves were
33 putting out.
34
35 Q. Does Mike Love still work for McDonald's?
36 A. Yes.
37
38 Q. What is his position now?
39 A. He heads communications.
40
41 Q. What about Miss Bensilum, does she still work for
42 McDonald's?
43 A. Yes.
44
45 Q. What is her position now?
46 A. She works for Mike. She is his assistant.
47
48 Q. Why is it that they have not come to court to give evidence
49 seeing as they might know a bit more about it?
50 A. The issue, I think, is probably best covered by me as
51 the buck stops here.
52
53 Q. So you are responsible, but before you came into the
54 witness box you did not bother to find out all these points
55 that you could have quite safely assumed you would have
56 been asked about?
57 A. Ms. Steel, I assured myself that what was on that paper
58 was accurate and had been put together with the correctness
59 and we went forward on that basis. My people had no reason
60 whatsoever to not tell me the truth as they understood it
