The charge that the Department of Justice is suppressing a purporting affidavit linking Father Charles E. Coughlin with the Nazis, and alleging that the Detroit radio priest was a paid German agent was made today by the news letter “In Fact,” edited by George Seldes.
The publication prints what purports to be the suppressed affidavit, signed by one Father Aleksi Pelypenko, who, “In Fact” says, was in contact with numerous Nazi agents in this country, one of whom, he alleges, was Father Coughlin. The purported affidavit contains an account of an alleged meeting between Pelypenko and Coughlin, during which the latter is said to have stated that the late President Roosevelt was trying to embroil the United States in a war because he was a hireling of the Jews. Coughlin is also quoted as saying that he was interested in securing as much anti-Semitic material as possible.
The reported affidavit also alleges that a secretary at the German embassy in Washington, named von Heyden, told Pelypenko that Coughlin was “our man, we help him financially and we give him material to use.”
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