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Nashville Chief of Police Testifies on Anti-jewish Bombings

May 18, 1959
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The police chief of a major southern city has testified that investigation of the bombing of a Jewish center in that city, Nashville, Tenn. , has produced evidence indicating an inter-state terrorist gang.

Police Chief Douglas E. Hosse told a House Judiciary subcommittee studying possible anti-bombing legislation that “the Jewish center bombing followed a pattern extended all over the southeast part” of the United States. He called the violence occurring in other southeastern cities at about the same time “amazingly parallel. “

The dynamiting of a synagogue in Miami occurred on March 16, 1958, the same day the center in Nashville was bombed. In the following month, he noted, a Jewish institution in Jacksonville, Fla. , was bombed and an attempt which fizzled, was made to dynamite a synagogue in Birmingham, Ala.

The police chief said he believed that the sudden abatement of the wave of threats and bombings was due to knowledge that the FBI has been investigating the violence. He urged adoption of federal anti-bombing legislation “to remove the reign of fear and terror. ” He was supported by Abe Goldstein of Atlanta, speaking for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

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