Comedian Alan King, appearing on NBC-TV’s “Tonight Show” Tuesday night, said he could understand why, for political reasons, Pres. Georges Pompidou of France, Pres. Richard M. Nixon, New York State Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay acted the way they did during the recent Pompidou visit. “But,” said King, “I’m not Pompidou, I’m not Nixon, I’m not Rockefeller and I’m not Lindsay. So I did what I had to do as an American Jew– I picketed the Waldorf,” (Monday evening). King, who produced Peter Weiss’s “The Investigation,” dealing with the Nazi concentration camp trials, on Broadway a couple of seasons back, and is active In pro-Israel activities, said he would have made Pres. Pompidou “an honorary Jew, which would have entitled him to 2,000 years of retroactive persecution.” “Tonight” host Johnny Carson suggested M. Pompidou should have returned to France via El Al.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
