WEBVTT - George Lincoln Rockwell's Coffin Flop 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Col Zone Media. 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:07.960 In the summer of nineteen sixty four, a recent law 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.280 school graduate was sitting down for a meeting with one 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:13.840 of his former professors, Philip Hirshcopp had worked his way 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.880 through Georgetown Law as a patent examiner, but even before graduation, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.320 he knew he was never going to be a patent attorney. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.239 While he was still a student, he met civil rights 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.680 attorney Dean Rob at a party the summer before his 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.840 last year of law school, who traveled with Rob to Danville, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.320 Virginia to help defend the civil rights demonstrators arrested in 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.800 the aftermath of Bloody Monday, a particularly brutal state response 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.599 to protests for racial equality. By the time he graduated 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.320 law school, Hirshkopp was already working on a case that 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.839 would protect the right of public school teachers to engage 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.919 in civil rights protests in their personal time. And on 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.800 that afternoon in nineteen sixty four, as he was chatting 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.560 with his old professor, another of the professor's former students 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.880 stopped by. Bernie Cohen had been working on a civil 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.360 rights case in Virginia for more than a year already, 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.440 but he was looking for some help. It was a 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.760 perfect coincidence maybe that Philip Pershkopp was there that day, 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.919 and the pair spent the next several years working together 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.720 on the case. In April of nineteen sixty seven, just 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.400 three years out of law school, Philip Phershkopp stood before 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.120 the Supreme Court of the United States and argued on 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.240 behalf of his clients, Mildred and Richard Loving, you have 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:28.880 before us. 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.600 Today we consider the most odious of the segregations laws 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:33.640 and the slavery laws. 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:35.840 And our view of this law, and we hope could 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.680 clearly show is that this is slavery. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.400 A few months after winning the right to interracial marriage 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.479 for not only the Lovings but all Americans, Philip Hirshkopp 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.160 took on a very different kind of client. He agreed 0:01:51.200 --> 0:02:00.200 to represent the American Nazi Party. I'm Molly Conger, this 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:21.760 is weird little guys. Philip Hushcopp is not our weird 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.840 little guy. But the case he took on in the 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.840 fall of nineteen sixty seven concerns the corpse of George 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:34.840 Lincoln Rockwell. Hirshcop's career as a civil rights attorney spanned decades. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.360 He won the case that forced the University of Virginia 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.919 to admit female students. He won a case that outlawed 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.119 the common practice of placing pregnant teachers on unpaid leave. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.560 He defended the right to teach evolution in schools. He 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.600 represented thousands of demonstrators arrested for protesting the Vietnam War, 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:58.120 including novelist Norman Mayler. He was an outspoken advocate for 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.240 prison reform. In his his later years, he worked on 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:05.400 cases for animal rights, representing PETA for many years. He 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.160 is listed as the council of record for Tillicum the 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.520 Whale in a twenty twelve lawsuit against SeaWorld. Taking on 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.640 the American Nazi Party as a client seems out of 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.240 step with the rest of his career. In a twenty 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.800 seventeen article in the American Bar Association Journal, he says 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.000 he turned the case down when it was first presented 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.960 to him, but his colleagues at the American Civil Liberties 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.600 Union pressured him. It was a matter of free speech, 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.880 was it not. It comes up every now and again 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.960 on this show that the ACLU has a long standing 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.840 habit of representing American fascists. They call it a principled 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.560 commitment to constitutional rights. Regardless of how odious the speaker 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.960 or how unpleasant the speech. Personally, I would call it 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:56.200 shortsighted at best, and more often than not, a dangerous, foolish, 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.120 and morally bankrupt course of action, And I'm sure they 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.640 would defend my right to say it. Real life doesn't 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.280 have the same clean rules as a hypothetical scenario in 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.680 a bar exam question. In theory, defending the rights of 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.640 everyone equally should result in more equal rights for everyone. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.560 In practice, it would seem that the only reward you 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.680 get for honing your enemy's weapon is the blood on 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.839 your face the next time he strikes you. Here in Charlottesville, 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.360 none of us have forgotten how the acl use eleventh 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.560 hour defense of the organizers of the Unite the Right 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.600 rally led to the violence in our streets less than 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.880 a day later. They defended the rights of those neo 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.559 Nazis to demonstrate in the heart of downtown, and in turn, 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.039 those Nazis used that right to violate the rights of 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.080 everyone they encountered. But I'm sure I'll have an opportunity 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.880 to talk more about the ACLU's history of defending the 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:58.360 indefensible some other time. In that article, in twenty seventeen. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.000 Hirschkob says his own parents refused to speak to him 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.320 for two years after he represented the American Nazi Party. 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.320 But what exactly did those Nazis need his help with. 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.240 The ACLU had gone to bat for the American Nazi 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.880 Party before they represented George Lincoln Rockwell when the New 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.320 York City Parks Commissioner denied him a permit to speak 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.280 in nineteen sixty and the ACLU came to Rockwell's aid 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.680 again when a group of Jewish war veterans sought an 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.720 injunction to prevent him from leading another Nazi march in 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.080 Chicago after the violent assault his stormtroopers unleashed in Marquette 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.400 Park in nineteen sixty six. But in the fall of 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.760 nineteen sixty seven, the ACLU couldn't very well represent George 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:46.120 Lincoln Rockwell IVI. George Lincoln Rockwell was dead. This case 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.480 was about his dead body. You see, George Lincoln Rockwell 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:56.000 was a veteran. He was technically entitled to a military 0:05:56.040 --> 0:06:00.799 funeral and burial in a national cemetery. As the leader 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.960 of the American Nazi Party. He'd called himself Commander Rockwell, 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.960 and that wasn't just an affectation. He had reached the 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.960 rank of commander in the United States Navy. The man 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:19.080 who believed that he was America's hitler had technically served 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:24.120 honorably in World War II. Rockwell joined the Navy after 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.760 dropping out of Brown University in nineteen forty, and he 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.120 was commissioned as a naval aviator just days after the 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.080 attack on Pearl Harbor. He never flew any combat missions, 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.440 but he served in both the Battle of the Atlantic 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.800 and in the Pacific Theater. By the end of the war, 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.400 he was a lieutenant commander, a rank he held as 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.880 a reserve officer until he was recalled to active duty 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.200 during the Korean War. He returned to reserve status at 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.560 the rank of commander in nineteen fifty four. Before we 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.599 get into the battle to bury Rockwell with military honors, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.520 I should answer a question you might be asking. I mean, 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.440 I was asking it. Could he possibly have been eligible 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.520 for this? He was discharged from the Navy in nineteen 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.880 sixty and that discharge was absolutely explicitly because he was 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.480 a Nazi. Parading around in a Nazi uniform is the 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.120 kind of thing that gets you a dishonorable discharge, surely 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:24.239 right in this case. 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:24.400 No. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.720 By the late nineteen fifties, Rockwell was making a name 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:31.400 for himself as an anti semit. In nineteen fifty nine, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.680 he set up shop just outside of Washington, d c. 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.040 And he was holding frequent demonstrations in the nation's capital. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.320 There he was declaring himself the head of the American 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.880 Nazi Party, wearing a swastika armband, passing out hateful literature 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.000 right outside the White House, and some of his fellow 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:55.720 veterans were understandably disgusted. In nineteen fifty nine, irritated by 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.120 a series of unflattering articles digging into his less public affairs, 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:05.440 Rockwell filed a libel lawsuit against columnist Drew Pearson. During 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.920 a deposition in that case, Rockwell said, quote, here in 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.360 this country, I have the right to pass out literature. 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.520 If anyone tries to stop me, the police protect me. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.760 I was in the Navy once. When people complain to 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.800 the Navy about me, the Navy says, that's okay. He 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.920 has a right to belong to a political party, and 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:29.000 he wasn't wrong as a reservist. He wasn't really the 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.720 Navy's problem. It's not that they didn't know what he 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:37.560 was up to. They did. Even before those weekly rallies 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.120 in DC put him in the public spotlight, the government 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.520 had been keeping an eye on him. By the spring 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.560 of nineteen fifty nine, the FBI was monitoring his bank accounts, 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.000 surveilling his home, receiving photo copies of the exterior of 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.320 every piece of mail he sent or received, and for 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.840 several months that year they were intercepting all of his 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:05.480 household garbage. But Jay Edgar Hoover's neuroses didn't necessarily concern 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.840 the Navy. Rockwell hadn't been on active duty for years, 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:12.600 and according to a statement from a Navy spokesman, he 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.920 wasn't subject to the Uniform Code of Military Conduct while 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:22.120 on inactive status. But the stunts continued. And remember this 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:27.400 is nineteen sixty. World War II is not some distant past. 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.800 It's not a piece of history. If you stop by 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.199 your local VFW halt today, you might see a couple 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:39.640 of very old Vietnam veterans. But in nineteen sixty, the 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.199 men hanging out at the veterans of foreign war posts 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.520 had very fresh memories of fighting the Nazis in Europe, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.520 and they were starting to make noise. In January of 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.480 nineteen sixty, the Fairfax County Virginia VFW adopted a resolution 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.240 by unanimous vote to ask the Navy to strip Rockwell 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.840 of his rank. The ADL was complaining to the press 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.440 the Jewish Labor Committee was making public demands for an 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.840 investigation by the Attorney General. After their initial public statements 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.160 that as a reservist, Rockwell's political activities were the free 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.880 speech of a private citizen, the Navy changed their minds. 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.600 There's no clear public statement pointing to exactly what it 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.520 was that changed their minds, but it seems like all 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.360 the public attention had escalated the issue to the point 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.920 that it was now a problem in need of a solution. 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.080 The Navy sent Rockwell a letter notifying him that his 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.320 quote mobilization potential has been reduced to a point where 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.600 he is of no further value to the Navy, and 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:46.760 they called him to appear before a board of officers 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:51.160 in DC. In February of nineteen sixty, a Navy spokesman 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.959 told the press that proceedings to discharge reserve officers are 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.160 not of a public nature, so I don't have any 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:03.080 primary source documentation from their end As to what charges 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.000 Rockwell was defending himself against, But I do have the 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.680 statement he presented to the Navy in his own defense. 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:14.560 According to this bizarre eight page letter, the proceedings concerned 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:19.880 five primary allegations that he had been quote an active 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:24.400 participant and leader of various organizations styled along Nazi lines. 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.800 That he had quote publicly and openly espoused race and 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.360 religious hatred. That he had used or permitted to be 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.920 used his rank and status in the Naval Reserve in 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.920 printed matter distributed to the public fostering rachel and religious hatred. 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:42.960 That he had left the United States without permission from 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.680 the Navy, and that as an officer, if he were 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.959 to be recalled to duty, he would be commanding members 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.319 of the races and religions at which his propaganda was aimed. 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.080 He admitted guilt on just one of the charges. He 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.520 had left the United States in late night teen fifty 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.360 nine to visit his estranged wife in Iceland. He promised 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.200 it would never happen again, which was probably true. That 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.280 was the last time he ever saw his second wife. 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.400 As for the rest of it, well, he felt like 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.319 they were being very unfair to him. Is it even 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:24.480 really hatred if the people you hate deserve it, He wrote, quote, 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:29.320 I have never promoted or advocated hate, except of traitors 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.160 or subverters and others deserving of the hate of all 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:38.600 decent moral people. After a few pages of rambling vitriol 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:40.960 about how Jewish people are responsible for the evils of 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:45.160 communism and really, isn't he actually more loyal to the 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.240 United States because he's so committed to rooting out their influence, 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.480 he caps things off by saying he's never promoted unfounded 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:57.680 hatred of any innocent person or group. He brought two 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.800 witnesses with him to the hearing, a member of the 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.880 American Nazi Party who testified that the group didn't support 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.360 hatred or violence, and a weird old Holocaust denier who 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.040 gave a forty minute speech accusing the Assistant Secretary of 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.280 Defense of being a communist. The board voted unanimously to 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:23.960 discharge Rockwell, but this was purely administrative. He wasn't court martialed, 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:31.400 wasn't punished or disciplined or demoted. He wasn't on active duty, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:38.679 so again, technically, when he died in nineteen sixty seven, 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.560 George Lincoln Rockwell was a United States Navy veteran who 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:50.000 had been honorably discharged after nineteen years of service, and 0:13:50.080 --> 0:14:07.800 apparently he wanted a full military funeral. George Lincoln Rockwell 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.520 died at noon on Friday, August twenty fifth, nineteen sixty seven. 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.800 His family had not shared his politics, and they'd mostly 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.960 fallen out of touch. His parents divorced when he was 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.880 a child, but at the time of his death they 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.720 were both still alive. His father told reporters that he'd 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:28.680 seen less and less of his son in the final 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.080 years of his life, saying, quote, He'd always have those 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.360 bloody stormtroopers around him, and we could never talk, so 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.080 the visit stopped. His brother had cut off contact nearly 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:43.080 a decade earlier, when newspapers reported a possible connection between 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.880 Rockwell and the bombing of a synagogue in Atlanta. His 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.520 mother and sister kept in touch by letter over the years, 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.760 but they saw each other infrequently. But now he was dead. 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:59.680 In family, his family, he'd been their son, their brother. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.360 After the autopsy was performed, his body waited in the 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.360 hospital Morgue. His father got on a train from Maine 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.680 and headed south. Matius Cole, having assumed command of the 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.840 American Nazi party claimed to be in possession of a 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:20.400 last will and testament that entrusted him personally with Rockwell's remains. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:23.920 Rockwell's brother Bobby said the family wished to have a 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.200 private service in the small town in Maine where they'd 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:31.480 spent their childhood. And just a quick interjection here in 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.480 case anyone was wondering about this, I've been saying, and 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:41.200 we'll continue to say Cole Matius Cole. His name is German, 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:46.600 and it's spelled k o e h L. In German, 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.800 it would be something closer to kerl, but English speakers 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.640 tend to read that as coal, so that's what I 0:15:53.680 --> 0:16:00.840 settled on. But apparently he pronounced it kale. Here's Frank 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.080 Smith talking about it back in the sixties. 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.760 Matthias Kale. Now I don't know where he gets the 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.560 name Kale. I think the German pronunciation would be curl 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.600 and the little translation in English would be coal, and 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.880 I don't think that's acceptable to him. So somehow are 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.640 these get kale unless I'm wrong on a German pronunciation. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.840 For any way, it's kale. That's how he goes using 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:23.240 his name. 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:28.240 Frank's close enough on the German pronunciation but it doesn't 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.440 mean coal. It's closest to the German word for cabbage, 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:34.960 but it's not a word at all. It's just a 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.240 last name that probably originated as an occupational name for 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:45.440 someone who grows crops. Anyway, Coal, Curl, Kale, whatever you 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:47.920 want to call him, He's the guy in charge of 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:53.600 the American Nazi Party. After Rockwell's death on Saturday, the 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.240 body was moved to the funeral home. Bobby Rockwell told 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.440 reporters that the family was probably going to have to 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.720 get a lawyer to fight Cole for custody of the remains. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.840 But just a day later, the same newspapers reported that 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.080 the funeral home in Virginia had received a telegram from 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:14.280 the family, and it read only the family no longer 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.080 wishes to contest the claim of Matt Cole concerning his 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.680 right to make funeral arrangements for g Lincoln Rockwell. Bobby 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.280 Rockwell told reporters that the family had made the difficult 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:29.720 decision for personal reasons and offered no further explanation. Years later, 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:35.240 Rockwell's biographer, Frederick Simonelli, interviewed one of Rockwell's cousins, and 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.560 the picture became a little bit clearer. The family gave 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:44.040 up the fight for Rockwall's body because they were afraid 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.800 Matias Cole had threatened to stage demonstrations outside Rockwell's mother's home. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.239 She was in her seventies and living alone in an 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.880 apartment in a predominantly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood. Nothing good could 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:02.400 come from provoking the Nazis, so they relented. The Nazis 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:07.000 could have the body. On Monday, three days after the murder, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.760 as John Patler was being reigned for that murder in 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:15.119 an Arlington courtroom, Matia's coal was busy making funeral arrangements. 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.159 The Pentagon granted the burial permit. They had no valid 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.840 reason to deny the application. Rockwell had served in two 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.400 wars and received an honorable discharge. He'd never been convicted 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.200 of a crime more serious than disorderly conduct, and he'd 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.560 never been formally linked to any group on the government's 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:41.959 list of subversive organizations. For some reason, the American Nazi 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:46.639 Party was never on that list. Decorated veterans who'd been 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.040 dragged through the mud of McCarthyism were denied burial and 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:55.960 national cemeteries for being Communists, but the Nazi he was 0:18:56.000 --> 0:19:01.159 good to go. They would allow George Lincoln Rockwell to 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.960 be interred in a national cemetery, but there would be conditions. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.600 The letter Rockwell left coal with his final wishes requested 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:14.680 burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The government said they could 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.080 have any cemetery but Arlington, so they settled on nearby 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.919 Culpeper National Cemetery in central Virginia. The Navy did not 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.960 agree to the request that the military honor guard consists 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.919 only of white officers. They said they would get whoever 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.360 was available, and in the end no honor guard showed 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.679 up at all. And while they would allow Rockwell's corpse 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.560 to be dressed in a Nazi uniform inside the coffin, 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.120 they would not allow any visible display of Nazi iconography, 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:54.560 no Nazi flags, no Swastika armbands. The official statement from 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.320 the Department of Defense read, unseemly demonstrations such as the 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.160 wearing of the un insignia and emblems, or the display 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.800 of flags or banners of the American Nazi Party or 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.159 its members will not be permitted in ceremonies at a 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.600 national cemetery. A national cemetery is a permanent shrine in 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.120 honor of the dead of the armed Forces of this country. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.840 Burial ceremonies must be conducted with dignity and with proper 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:24.080 concern for the sensibilities of those whose loved ones lie there. 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.919 The rules were relayed to Coal on Monday afternoon, and 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.879 the funeral was scheduled for eleven a m On Tuesday morning. 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.960 As long as the Nazis wore normal clothes and behaved 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:39.600 like normal mourners, they could have a perfectly normal funeral 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:44.840 at Culpeper National Cemetery On Monday evening. Cole told reporters 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.640 that they intended to give George Lincoln Rockwell the kind 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.919 of funeral he would have wanted, and the army was 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:56.200 ready for them. The funeral procession left Arlington at nine 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.520 am Tuesday morning, accompanied by a police escort from the 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:04.080 Arlington County Police. In a later issue of Stormtrooper magazine, 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.560 the Nazis claimed this procession was made up of sixty vehicles, 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.800 but most news accounts put the number of total mourners 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.320 at around fifty, so that can't be right. The line 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.360 of cars was led by a white Cadillac convertible full 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.879 of men in Nazi uniforms. Matius Cole rode in the 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.040 front seat of the hearse, which was decorated with a 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:30.600 giant red swastika wreath. I wonder if they assumed they 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.880 would be allowed to break the rules. Did they think 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.040 that there would be no one on scene to ensure 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.320 they were following the guidelines, Or did they think that 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.640 whoever was there to see them breaking the rules wouldn't 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.520 be willing or able to stop them, Or were they 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:51.080 hoping for a confrontation. Whatever it was they expected, I 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.480 don't think it was bus loads of military police with 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:57.960 helicopters full of even more soldiers landing in nearby fields. 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.119 When they arrived in Caper at ten thirty am, the 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.320 entrance to the cemetery was blocked by state and local police. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:08.879 The poor funeral home employee who got stuck driving the 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.760 hearse that day must have been fairly rattled by the 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.239 whole experience. He was so surprised at the line of 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.280 officers that he stopped the hearse directly over the train 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.480 tracks as a freight train was approaching. By all accounts, 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:27.119 there were mere seconds and inches between this near miss 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:30.280 and an accident that would have rendered the whole thing moot. 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:33.880 When the train passed Cole stepped out of the hearse. 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.720 He wasn't wearing a Nazi uniform, just a plain black suit, 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:41.399 and he was clutching Rockwell's personal copy of Mind Komf 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.359 in his hands. The cemetery superintendent explained to him that 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.919 if they would all agree to remove their Nazi armbands 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.760 and Swastika lapel pens and put away the giant swastika wreaths, 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:55.919 they would be free to enter the cemetery and conduct 0:22:55.920 --> 0:23:00.280 the funeral. As the cemetery superintendent is trying to negotiate 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.040 with this crowd to get them to take off their 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:07.000 Nazi armbands, reinforcements were already on their way. The Army 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:12.240 Provost Marshal Major General Carl Turner arrived by helicopter along 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:17.000 with dozens of military policemen and US marshals. So this 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:22.760 small crowd of maybe fifty Nazis was surrounded by dozens 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:26.960 of reporters, one hundred police officer, hundreds of curious spectators 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:31.640 milling around the edges, and the standoff that followed would 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:48.240 last six hours. Shortly after General Turner arrived, the first 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:51.920 arrest was made. He noticed that one of the soldiers 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:56.840 in uniform outside the cemetery. Gates hadn't arrived with him. 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:00.320 This soldier wasn't standing in line with the others. He 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.840 was chatting casually with the Nazis standing around the hearse. 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.840 Private first Class James de Witt told the general he'd 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:10.520 been granted emergency leave from his post at Fort Gordon 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.800 in Georgia to attend the funeral of a friend. General Turner, 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.600 who was also out of Fort Gordon, reactivated the soldier 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:21.080 on the spot, which is apparently a thing a general 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:24.240 can do, and had him taken into custody for violating 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:27.720 uniform regulations for the black armband he was wearing, and 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:32.160 for violating regulations prohibiting soldiers from participating in political demonstrations 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:36.119 in uniform. As military policeman dragged James de Witt away, 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:40.280 he shouted racial slurs at nearby black onlookers and threw 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:43.520 a Nazi salute for the news cameras. As he passed 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.520 a gaggle of reporters. He said, I'd like to take 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:49.560 this uniform off and throw it away. The military stinks 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:52.159 and I'm ashamed to be a part of it. It 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.480 turned out that de Witt had not been granted leave. 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:59.399 He was a wall from Fort Gordon. He'd enlisted in 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:01.720 the Army a yar year earlier, but he'd been a 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:05.440 member of the American Nazi Party for two years. For 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:09.159 another hour or so, everyone just stood there at the 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:13.720 cemetery gates, waiting for someone else to break The funeral 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:18.359 scheduled start time of eleven am came and went around noon. 0:25:19.160 --> 0:25:23.359 The Nazis were getting antsy. I wonder if they forgot 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:28.520 to pack lunches. The exact sequence of events is different 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:32.359 in almost every single account I could find, even the 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:36.800 archival video footage I found this strange fifteen minutes of 0:25:36.920 --> 0:25:40.080 TV news b roll looks like it was cut together 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:42.800 out of order. I wish I could have gotten my 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:45.320 hands on a copy of the Army's after action report, 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:48.040 because I think that would have helped pin down the specifics. 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:53.080 I know the report exists. It's referenced in a footnote 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:54.720 in a book about the use of the military and 0:25:54.760 --> 0:25:58.399 domestic disorders in the twentieth century published by the Army's 0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:02.080 Center for Military History, But I couldn't find any trace 0:26:02.119 --> 0:26:06.760 of the actual report. So, in the absence of certainty, 0:26:07.119 --> 0:26:12.600 here's my best guess at piecing together thirty different reporters recollections. 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:17.440 One thing I found in that compilation of TV news 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:20.360 footage that I didn't actually find written up in any 0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:24.639 of the reporting is this odd exchange between General Turner 0:26:25.600 --> 0:26:28.840 and a man I recognize in the footage as Douglas Niles. 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:33.560 Charge will react, I have no idea a federal arrest. 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:39.200