Confidential Files on Anti-semitic Groups Ransacked

The files of the national headquarters of the Jewish War Veterans were ransacked over the week-end with mounting evidence leading police to a theory that the break-in was motivated by anti-Jewish espionage.

An investigation disclosed that items of value that would attract a common thief were ignored. The intent of intruders was apparently to study the confidential records of the JWV including that organization’s files on hate groups.

The FBI was "in touch" today with an extensive investigation launched by police in nearby Arlington, Va., following a bomb threat that forced cancellation of services at Arlington Unitarian Church yesterday at which Rabbi Emmet A. Frank, of Alexandria, was scheduled to deliver a guest sermon. Rabbi Frank has been a target of segregationist wrath because of a recent sermon in which he advocated equality for Virginia Negroes. The rabbi will address the church next Sunday.

A group of Unitarian ministers in the District of Columbia area said the bomb threat was part of "a dangerous nationwide pattern of lawlessness and violence." Chairman Ralph Kaul of the Arlington County Board of Supervisors said "it is a sad day when a small group of extremists can intimidate and disrupt a church service." The Rev. Ross A. Weston, pastor of the church, said Rabbi Frank was being invited back because the church will not be intimidated.

(Many West German newspapers are deliberately playing down and sometimes suppressing reports of the wave of anti-Jewish bombings and threats in the United States, it was reported today German publishers were described as fearing that wide publicity about American anti-Semitism might regenerate anti-Semitic violence in West Germany.)