Hassan Assails Adl, Threatens to Sue U.S. over Fund Withholding

Col. Hassan Jeru-Ahmed, director of the Blackman’s Development Center, threatened today to sue the Government unless the Department of Health, Education and Welfare rescinds its order to cut off a $197,847 training grant pending an administrative audit to make sure the funds will not be used to breed bigotry. He accused the B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League, which has charged him with anti-Semitism, of “systematically trying to turn the white and Jewish community against us. ” Hassan claimed that this has been going on “for more than three years.” He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that since 1965 the B’nai B’rith has used its influence to persuade the Stern Foundation and private businessmen not to give money to the Blackman’s Development Center which, among ether things, runs narcotics rehabilitation programs. He said that evidence the ADL cited against him consisted of “excerpts from our literature taken completely out of context.” Asked for comment on the charges, Seymour Graubard, ADL national chairman, told the JTA in New York that “the documented record is clear and we assume that the federal government will act accordingly.”

In a letter to the ADL last week, HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson said Hassan’s funds would be out off pending an audit. However, an official HEW statement said the cut-off had nothing to do with the ADL’s charges and that a separate action informing Hassan that his organization would be “monitored” for signs of bigotry had been taken by Deputy Commissioner of Education, Terry T. Bell. In response to a charge by Hassan that HEW violated its own administrative procedures by not holding a hearing before announcing the cut-off, HEW postponed the audit for two weeks to give Hassan an opportunity to get his books in order.