NBC Sunday Prime Time - 1973 TV Hit Piece on Hare Krishna Airport Book Distribution

In 1973 a popular investigative news television program, similar to 60 Minutes, does a negative report on the Hare Krishna's book distribution that was going on in all major US airports at the time. The American devotees took advantage of their First Amendment free speech rights and the courts decided that Hare Krishna devotees, do indeed have the right of free speech as protected by the US constitution, allowing them to distribute Srila Prabhupada's books at airports across America.
As NBC's latest candidate to join the magazine ranks of CBS's enormously successful “60 Minutes” and ABC's still developing “20/20,” the new series, "Sunday Prime Time," is banking heavily on the provocative personality of its host Tom Snyder.
Although there were many problems with the way the devotees acted, in many cases they were not even distributing Prabhupada's books but just collecting money in one way or another, and the ISKCON leadership of the time was stressing the money collection without a lot of concern for the book distribution or the public opinion and reputation of the Hare Krishna movement in the United States.
But, indirectly, this mishandling of the Airport book distribution program may have turned out to be one of the greatest preaching programs ever. You can see here, this is one of the most-watched TV programs in the 1970s, and they mention KRISHNA in this dozens of times. And we can see that the congress has an anti-Krishna bill they are debating, and has one also. And everyone in the US is very much aware there are Hare Krishnas in all the airports and most are wanting there own personal Krishna Airport experience.
Actually the Americans had great fun with the Hare Krishna's when they were selling books in the airports. Meeting a devotee is an experience one does not forget, ever...