The Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia today officially dropped all disorderly conduct charges against a local Jewish communal leader and a neo-Nazi who were arrested after a scuffle over public distribution of anti-Semitic handbills.
Today’s action terminated the entire case. It had involved Irving Berman, 48, northern Virginia leader of the Israel Bond drive, and Kenneth Morgan, 34, leading henchman of Fuhrer George Lincoln Rockwell of the “American Nazi party.”
The dropping of the charges ended efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union to transform the case into a classic free speech issue. The ACLU had sought to incriminate Mr. Berman on alleged grounds of “interfering with free speech” because he opposed the street-corner distribution of handbills urging the gassing of American Jews. The ACLU had assigned two attorneys of Jewish faith to enter the case on the Nazi side.
Their injection of a “free speech” controversy complicated what had previously been considered only a simple street corner fracas. The ACLU attempt to turn the “disorderly conduct” episode into a question of constitutional free speech guarantees caused widespread controversy.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
