Swiss Timing Pits Deukmejian Against Playboy Chairman

It wasn’t much of a contest when international financiers and economists were given the choice of hearing Gov. George Deukmejian talk about “The Nation State of California” or Playboy’s Christie Hefner discuss “Leisure Life in the Nineties.”

The Playboy Bunny outdrew the Bear Flag by more than 2 to 1.

But Deukmejian and his entourage later recouped at a reception featuring perhaps the best draw of all: California wines. Several hundred of the world’s business and political elite stood in long lines to quaff down the fine wines and a bountiful spread of hors d’oeuvres.

Deukmejian on Tuesday wound up a three-day stint as a guest speaker at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference by hosting a “briefing” on “business opportunities in the world’s sixth-largest economy.” The governor’s aides had worried for days about the competition from Hefner.

Hefner, 36, daughter of Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner and now chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy Enterprises, opened her talk with the observation that, “The governor of California is concerned because our seminar is scheduled opposite his. As someone who does a lot of business in California, I am sympathetic, but. . . . “

About 160 people packed Hefner’s meeting room and more were turned away when all the chairs and standing room quickly filled. But if the conference delegates came expecting such Playboy trademarks as nude centerfolds or bunny costumes, they must have been disappointed.

Hefner lectured at length about the changing tastes of America’s aging baby boomers, how they are “seeking to behave appropriately as both parents and adults. The ‘me generation’ is becoming the ‘us generation.’ ” She talked about “an increasingly conservative marketplace,” saying, “American adults are sending signals that they have purchased enough toys for themselves.”

And, yes, she even discussed family values. “People in the States,” she reported, “are looking for traditional affiliations--family, friends, community groups, church--and traditional values--loyalty, honesty, industriousness and patriotism. . . . The emphasis on family life is a growing part of the American reality.”

Hefner, whose company is branching into worldwide marketing of many products and brands, also assessed America’s “return to immigrant values--the values each immigrant generation brought to America: education and hard work.”

It was a speech Deukmejian might have been proud to give. The governor, meanwhile, was in another meeting room delivering a hard-sell pitch on California business opportunities to about 65 people and some empty seats.

“The more people learn about our life style, our climate, our public services and our job opportunities, the more they want to move to California,” the governor boasted. “An enterprise in California is an enterprise strategically located, not only near our own wealthy and highly trained populace, but near the dynamic Pacific region.”

“We have a diverse population of more than 28 million people drawn from dozens of ethnic backgrounds,” he continued. “With the migration of people to our state has also come a migration of ideas and entrepreneurs, inventions, new industries and national leadership in many fields.”

But not all the European business executives who have listened to Deukmejian here in the Swiss Alps and earlier in Bonn, West Germany, have shared his enthusiasm for California’s ethnic immigrants. Many have queried the governor about the state’s immigrant “problem,” especially with Latinos.

“I don’t know what they’ve been hearing that gives rise to those questions,” Deukmejian told a reporter Tuesday night. Trying to put the best face on it, the governor theorized that perhaps the questioners are from countries--such as West Germany--that “are beginning to see some major immigration and they’re asking whether it has created major problems for us.”

He added, “It’s not unexpected when you get questions about earthquakes. There’s been a lot of publicity about those. But I don’t know what would cause somebody to ask about immigrants.”

Deukmejian assured his audience on Tuesday that “we have minimal damage” from earthquakes because modern California structures are built to withstand tremblers.

“Except for a little jolt, it’s nothing to fear very much,” he said. “I’ve experienced many of them and I am still here.”