The State Department denied today that Ambassador Arthur Gardner, U.S. envoy to Cuba, had voiced an anti-Semitic statement at a public luncheon in Havana. At the same time, John O’Donnell, Washington columnist for the New York Daily News, who made the accusation, stuck by his guns.
Mr. O’Donnell reported in his Daily News column of February 5 that Ambassador Gardner, addressing a luncheon at Havana, had asserted he had traced back his family tree for many generations and was relieved “to find there were no Jews in it.” The columnist also said that the remark was received with cold silence at the luncheon, which was attended, among others, by a number of Jews whose families have lived in Cuba since before the American revolution.
A State Department spokesman told the JTA: “We know of no basis for this story.” The spokesman described the Ambassador as a “fine gentleman” who was doing “a fine job.”
Mr. Gardner, identified by the Daily News columnist as a friend of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, assumed the Cuban ambassadorship in June, 1953.
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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.
