Atlanta police have arrested five men in connection with the $200, 000 dynamiting bombing of the Reform Temple here last Sunday, it was disclosed today. Two of the men were believed to have participated in the plot to dynamite the synagogue, which police said was conceived last May by an anti-Semitic and anti-Negro group which has branches in several states.
Atlanta police pointed out today that the synagogue dynamiters could, if apprehended and convicted, face the death sentence. Georgia state law provides up to 20 years’ imprisonment or execution for dynamiting a building within city limits.
Police officers hinted that if they could solve this case, they believed they could provide leads to the individuals responsible for an earlier series of bombings of synagogues in southern cities last Spring. FBI agents were reported to be engaged in an intensive campaign to find the perpetrators both of recent bombings of integrated schools in the South and of the synagogue blastings.
Police also reported that they had seized, during raids on homes of two of the five suspects, a penciled draft of an unsigned letter which threatened Atlanta Jews with "a terrifying experience." Detective Captain R.E. Little said the letter, additional contents of which were not disclosed, had been written before the dynamite blast Sunday morning. He said it was not certain whether any copies of the letter had been mailed.
The police officer said another letter taken in the raids indicated that an Atlanta organization involved in the case was "directly connected, probably financed and directed from out of state." The second letter was mailed from Arlington, Va. The raids late yesterday were made at the homes of Wallace H. Allen and George Bright. The others in custody were Robert A. Browning, Luther Corley and Kenneth C. Griffin. All are of Atlanta.
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.
