Senator Kenneth Keating, a member of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee today called for designation of George Rockwell’s American Nazi party as subversive on the U.S. Atorney General’s list. “We are prone to overlook these extremist right-wing groups, in our investigations of subversion,” said the New York Republican.
Speaking as a member of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Sen. Keating told a television audience the Communist menace was well known “but there are dangers on the right as well as on the left — and it is important that subversive influence on both extremes be scrutinized and exposed.”
Sen. Keating made known that he asked Attorney General Kennedy this weekend to list the Nazis as subversive because of “the continued outrages” of the Rockwell group. He told Mr. Kennedy Nazis should be listed as well as Communists and cited the past subversive designation of such right-wing groups as the Ku Klux Klan and the Silver Shirt Legion.
“The Attorney General’s list is a guide used in determining the suitability and reliability of Federal employees,” Sen. Keating stated. “I do not see how anyone could believe that a member of the American Nazi party could be qualified for any employment by the Federal Government.”
He held that Rockwell’s Nazi group was “past the stage at which it can be safely ignored” and that time had come for the Federal Government “to demonstrate the abhorrence and distrust in which Americans hold this group” by listing it as subversive. He stressed that “The Nazis are un-American and a contradiction of every part of the American tradition.” The neo-Nazi movement “mocks those who made the supreme sacrifice in the war against tyranny,” he declared.
Sen. Keating questioned the past attitude of the Justice Department. He said, “the attitude of the Department of Justice to date can be summed up in these words: ‘Poison–Do Not Touch.’ My own attitude is: ‘Poison — Apply Strong Antidote.”
Revealing previous correspondence with the Justice Department on the Nazis, Sen. Keating said: “I have received a rather disappointing reply from the head of the Department’s Internal Security Division saying, in effect, that the activities of the party were under study but nothing has been done.”
National commander I.L. Feuer of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. similarly called today on Attorney General Kennedy to place Rockwell’s American Nazi party on the Attorney General’s list of subversive organizations. He submitted Nazi propaganda boasting “we are not on the subversive list.” Mr. Feuer charged that the Nazis solicit membership and contributions alleging they have been “cleared” by the U.S. Justice Department.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
