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Rockwell Afraid to Show Up in New York; Warrant for Arrest Awaiting Him

April 12, 1962
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George Rockwell, American Nazi party leader, decided today not to risk certain arrest by entering New York City to deliver a talk to a college group and one of his followers, Seth D. Ryan, spoke in his place.

Police were waiting for Rockwell and his entourage this morning, prepared to arrest him as soon as he entered New York State, on a warrant issued two years ago charging him with disorderly conduct arising from a fracas in a New York State Supreme Court building lobby here two years ago.

Ryan, dressed in street clothes without any Nazi adornments, spoke for 40 minutes to a packed hall at Hunter College while 150 police and detectives watched outside. The 500 students, some of whom wore skullcaps, remained completely calm, either laughing at or ignoring most of Ryan’s statements. The students left without any incidents for their classes after a question-and-answer period.

In answer to questions by students, Ryan said that most Jews are not members of the white race equal to others, and that the “fiction” that the Nazis in Germany had killed 6,000,000 Jews or had used gas chambers “had been invented by Jewish Communists.” He charged that President Kennedy is a Communist.

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