2,609 U.S. Servicemen Received Anti-jewish Correspondence Course, War Dept. Reveais

A War Department spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the correspondence course containing anti-Jewish statements, which was distributed by the U.S. Armed Forces Institute, was sent to 2,609 members of the armed forces in various parts of the world. The Institute, he revealed, purchased 9,000 copies of the course.

The course was purchased from the University of Alabama, one of the 85 universities and colleges cooperating with the U.S. Armed Forces Institute, which operates under the auspices of the Army and Navy, the War Department spokesman disclosed. It was used for approximately one year, he added.

Emphasizing that the 2,609 soldier and sailor students who used or are using this course are scattered all over the world, the War Department official said that this accounts for the fact that it is still cropping up here and there. He pointed out that the institute began moving toward elimination of the course in October, because it failed to meet the Army’s academic standards.

Planning has been started for a new course to begin early this month, he declared. Work on this course is continuing. In the meantime, with the controversial course eliminated, nothing has replaced it. He added that the 2,609 students who applied for and received the course constitute a very small percentage of the over 1,000,000 students in the Army and Navy who took USAFI courses.

The Army spokesman said that Col. Carl. W. Hansen, commandant of the Armed Forces Institute, upon whom the War Department has placed responsibility for distribution of the anti-Jewish material, had a purely academic background prior to entering the Army, and specialized in education and educational psychology. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where he took his master’s degree and has received the degree of Doctor of Education from the University of Minnesota. He was a teacher of history in a university, the name of which was not given, and, at one time, he held the post of superintendent of schools in Quincy, Ill.