Speaker 1: Col Zone Media.
Speaker 2: In the summer of nineteen sixty four, a recent law
Speaker 2: school graduate was sitting down for a meeting with one
Speaker 2: of his former professors, Philip Hirshcopp had worked his way
Speaker 2: through Georgetown Law as a patent examiner, but even before graduation,
Speaker 2: he knew he was never going to be a patent attorney.
Speaker 2: While he was still a student, he met civil rights
Speaker 2: attorney Dean Rob at a party the summer before his
Speaker 2: last year of law school, who traveled with Rob to Danville,
Speaker 2: Virginia to help defend the civil rights demonstrators arrested in
Speaker 2: the aftermath of Bloody Monday, a particularly brutal state response
Speaker 2: to protests for racial equality. By the time he graduated
Speaker 2: law school, Hirshkopp was already working on a case that
Speaker 2: would protect the right of public school teachers to engage
Speaker 2: in civil rights protests in their personal time. And on
Speaker 2: that afternoon in nineteen sixty four, as he was chatting
Speaker 2: with his old professor, another of the professor's former students
Speaker 2: stopped by. Bernie Cohen had been working on a civil
Speaker 2: rights case in Virginia for more than a year already,
Speaker 2: but he was looking for some help. It was a
Speaker 2: perfect coincidence maybe that Philip Pershkopp was there that day,
Speaker 2: and the pair spent the next several years working together
Speaker 2: on the case. In April of nineteen sixty seven, just
Speaker 2: three years out of law school, Philip Phershkopp stood before
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court of the United States and argued on
Speaker 2: behalf of his clients, Mildred and Richard Loving, you have
Speaker 2: before us.
Speaker 3: Today we consider the most odious of the segregations laws
Speaker 3: and the slavery laws.
Speaker 4: And our view of this law, and we hope could
Speaker 4: clearly show is that this is slavery.
Speaker 2: A few months after winning the right to interracial marriage
Speaker 2: for not only the Lovings but all Americans, Philip Hirshkopp
Speaker 2: took on a very different kind of client. He agreed
Speaker 2: to represent the American Nazi Party. I'm Molly Conger, this
Speaker 2: is weird little guys. Philip Hushcopp is not our weird
Speaker 2: little guy. But the case he took on in the
Speaker 2: fall of nineteen sixty seven concerns the corpse of George
Speaker 2: Lincoln Rockwell. Hirshcop's career as a civil rights attorney spanned decades.
Speaker 2: He won the case that forced the University of Virginia
Speaker 2: to admit female students. He won a case that outlawed
Speaker 2: the common practice of placing pregnant teachers on unpaid leave.
Speaker 2: He defended the right to teach evolution in schools. He
Speaker 2: represented thousands of demonstrators arrested for protesting the Vietnam War,
Speaker 2: including novelist Norman Mayler. He was an outspoken advocate for
Speaker 2: prison reform. In his his later years, he worked on
Speaker 2: cases for animal rights, representing PETA for many years. He
Speaker 2: is listed as the council of record for Tillicum the
Speaker 2: Whale in a twenty twelve lawsuit against SeaWorld. Taking on
Speaker 2: the American Nazi Party as a client seems out of
Speaker 2: step with the rest of his career. In a twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen article in the American Bar Association Journal, he says
Speaker 2: he turned the case down when it was first presented
Speaker 2: to him, but his colleagues at the American Civil Liberties
Speaker 2: Union pressured him. It was a matter of free speech,
Speaker 2: was it not. It comes up every now and again
Speaker 2: on this show that the ACLU has a long standing
Speaker 2: habit of representing American fascists. They call it a principled
Speaker 2: commitment to constitutional rights. Regardless of how odious the speaker
Speaker 2: or how unpleasant the speech. Personally, I would call it
Speaker 2: shortsighted at best, and more often than not, a dangerous, foolish,
Speaker 2: and morally bankrupt course of action, And I'm sure they
Speaker 2: would defend my right to say it. Real life doesn't
Speaker 2: have the same clean rules as a hypothetical scenario in
Speaker 2: a bar exam question. In theory, defending the rights of
Speaker 2: everyone equally should result in more equal rights for everyone.
Speaker 2: In practice, it would seem that the only reward you
Speaker 2: get for honing your enemy's weapon is the blood on
Speaker 2: your face the next time he strikes you. Here in Charlottesville,
Speaker 2: none of us have forgotten how the acl use eleventh
Speaker 2: hour defense of the organizers of the Unite the Right
Speaker 2: rally led to the violence in our streets less than
Speaker 2: a day later. They defended the rights of those neo
Speaker 2: Nazis to demonstrate in the heart of downtown, and in turn,
Speaker 2: those Nazis used that right to violate the rights of
Speaker 2: everyone they encountered. But I'm sure I'll have an opportunity
Speaker 2: to talk more about the ACLU's history of defending the
Speaker 2: indefensible some other time. In that article, in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Hirschkob says his own parents refused to speak to him
Speaker 2: for two years after he represented the American Nazi Party.
Speaker 2: But what exactly did those Nazis need his help with.
Speaker 2: The ACLU had gone to bat for the American Nazi
Speaker 2: Party before they represented George Lincoln Rockwell when the New
Speaker 2: York City Parks Commissioner denied him a permit to speak
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty and the ACLU came to Rockwell's aid
Speaker 2: again when a group of Jewish war veterans sought an
Speaker 2: injunction to prevent him from leading another Nazi march in
Speaker 2: Chicago after the violent assault his stormtroopers unleashed in Marquette
Speaker 2: Park in nineteen sixty six. But in the fall of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven, the ACLU couldn't very well represent George
Speaker 2: Lincoln Rockwell IVI. George Lincoln Rockwell was dead. This case
Speaker 2: was about his dead body. You see, George Lincoln Rockwell
Speaker 2: was a veteran. He was technically entitled to a military
Speaker 2: funeral and burial in a national cemetery. As the leader
Speaker 2: of the American Nazi Party. He'd called himself Commander Rockwell,
Speaker 2: and that wasn't just an affectation. He had reached the
Speaker 2: rank of commander in the United States Navy. The man
Speaker 2: who believed that he was America's hitler had technically served
Speaker 2: honorably in World War II. Rockwell joined the Navy after
Speaker 2: dropping out of Brown University in nineteen forty, and he
Speaker 2: was commissioned as a naval aviator just days after the
Speaker 2: attack on Pearl Harbor. He never flew any combat missions,
Speaker 2: but he served in both the Battle of the Atlantic
Speaker 2: and in the Pacific Theater. By the end of the war,
Speaker 2: he was a lieutenant commander, a rank he held as
Speaker 2: a reserve officer until he was recalled to active duty
Speaker 2: during the Korean War. He returned to reserve status at
Speaker 2: the rank of commander in nineteen fifty four. Before we
Speaker 2: get into the battle to bury Rockwell with military honors,
Speaker 2: I should answer a question you might be asking. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was asking it. Could he possibly have been eligible
Speaker 2: for this? He was discharged from the Navy in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty and that discharge was absolutely explicitly because he was
Speaker 2: a Nazi. Parading around in a Nazi uniform is the
Speaker 2: kind of thing that gets you a dishonorable discharge, surely
Speaker 2: right in this case.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: By the late nineteen fifties, Rockwell was making a name
Speaker 2: for himself as an anti semit. In nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: he set up shop just outside of Washington, d c.
Speaker 2: And he was holding frequent demonstrations in the nation's capital.
Speaker 2: There he was declaring himself the head of the American
Speaker 2: Nazi Party, wearing a swastika armband, passing out hateful literature
Speaker 2: right outside the White House, and some of his fellow
Speaker 2: veterans were understandably disgusted. In nineteen fifty nine, irritated by
Speaker 2: a series of unflattering articles digging into his less public affairs,
Speaker 2: Rockwell filed a libel lawsuit against columnist Drew Pearson. During
Speaker 2: a deposition in that case, Rockwell said, quote, here in
Speaker 2: this country, I have the right to pass out literature.
Speaker 2: If anyone tries to stop me, the police protect me.
Speaker 2: I was in the Navy once. When people complain to
Speaker 2: the Navy about me, the Navy says, that's okay. He
Speaker 2: has a right to belong to a political party, and
Speaker 2: he wasn't wrong as a reservist. He wasn't really the
Speaker 2: Navy's problem. It's not that they didn't know what he
Speaker 2: was up to. They did. Even before those weekly rallies
Speaker 2: in DC put him in the public spotlight, the government
Speaker 2: had been keeping an eye on him. By the spring
Speaker 2: of nineteen fifty nine, the FBI was monitoring his bank accounts,
Speaker 2: surveilling his home, receiving photo copies of the exterior of
Speaker 2: every piece of mail he sent or received, and for
Speaker 2: several months that year they were intercepting all of his
Speaker 2: household garbage. But Jay Edgar Hoover's neuroses didn't necessarily concern
Speaker 2: the Navy. Rockwell hadn't been on active duty for years,
Speaker 2: and according to a statement from a Navy spokesman, he
Speaker 2: wasn't subject to the Uniform Code of Military Conduct while
Speaker 2: on inactive status. But the stunts continued. And remember this
Speaker 2: is nineteen sixty. World War II is not some distant past.
Speaker 2: It's not a piece of history. If you stop by
Speaker 2: your local VFW halt today, you might see a couple
Speaker 2: of very old Vietnam veterans. But in nineteen sixty, the
Speaker 2: men hanging out at the veterans of foreign war posts
Speaker 2: had very fresh memories of fighting the Nazis in Europe,
Speaker 2: and they were starting to make noise. In January of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty, the Fairfax County Virginia VFW adopted a resolution
Speaker 2: by unanimous vote to ask the Navy to strip Rockwell
Speaker 2: of his rank. The ADL was complaining to the press
Speaker 2: the Jewish Labor Committee was making public demands for an
Speaker 2: investigation by the Attorney General. After their initial public statements
Speaker 2: that as a reservist, Rockwell's political activities were the free
Speaker 2: speech of a private citizen, the Navy changed their minds.
Speaker 2: There's no clear public statement pointing to exactly what it
Speaker 2: was that changed their minds, but it seems like all
Speaker 2: the public attention had escalated the issue to the point
Speaker 2: that it was now a problem in need of a solution.
Speaker 2: The Navy sent Rockwell a letter notifying him that his
Speaker 2: quote mobilization potential has been reduced to a point where
Speaker 2: he is of no further value to the Navy, and
Speaker 2: they called him to appear before a board of officers
Speaker 2: in DC. In February of nineteen sixty, a Navy spokesman
Speaker 2: told the press that proceedings to discharge reserve officers are
Speaker 2: not of a public nature, so I don't have any
Speaker 2: primary source documentation from their end As to what charges
Speaker 2: Rockwell was defending himself against, But I do have the
Speaker 2: statement he presented to the Navy in his own defense.
Speaker 2: According to this bizarre eight page letter, the proceedings concerned
Speaker 2: five primary allegations that he had been quote an active
Speaker 2: participant and leader of various organizations styled along Nazi lines.
Speaker 2: That he had quote publicly and openly espoused race and
Speaker 2: religious hatred. That he had used or permitted to be
Speaker 2: used his rank and status in the Naval Reserve in
Speaker 2: printed matter distributed to the public fostering rachel and religious hatred.
Speaker 2: That he had left the United States without permission from
Speaker 2: the Navy, and that as an officer, if he were
Speaker 2: to be recalled to duty, he would be commanding members
Speaker 2: of the races and religions at which his propaganda was aimed.
Speaker 2: He admitted guilt on just one of the charges. He
Speaker 2: had left the United States in late night teen fifty
Speaker 2: nine to visit his estranged wife in Iceland. He promised
Speaker 2: it would never happen again, which was probably true. That
Speaker 2: was the last time he ever saw his second wife.
Speaker 2: As for the rest of it, well, he felt like
Speaker 2: they were being very unfair to him. Is it even
Speaker 2: really hatred if the people you hate deserve it, He wrote, quote,
Speaker 2: I have never promoted or advocated hate, except of traitors
Speaker 2: or subverters and others deserving of the hate of all
Speaker 2: decent moral people. After a few pages of rambling vitriol
Speaker 2: about how Jewish people are responsible for the evils of
Speaker 2: communism and really, isn't he actually more loyal to the
Speaker 2: United States because he's so committed to rooting out their influence,
Speaker 2: he caps things off by saying he's never promoted unfounded
Speaker 2: hatred of any innocent person or group. He brought two
Speaker 2: witnesses with him to the hearing, a member of the
Speaker 2: American Nazi Party who testified that the group didn't support
Speaker 2: hatred or violence, and a weird old Holocaust denier who
Speaker 2: gave a forty minute speech accusing the Assistant Secretary of
Speaker 2: Defense of being a communist. The board voted unanimously to
Speaker 2: discharge Rockwell, but this was purely administrative. He wasn't court martialed,
Speaker 2: wasn't punished or disciplined or demoted. He wasn't on active duty,
Speaker 2: so again, technically, when he died in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 2: George Lincoln Rockwell was a United States Navy veteran who
Speaker 2: had been honorably discharged after nineteen years of service, and
Speaker 2: apparently he wanted a full military funeral. George Lincoln Rockwell
Speaker 2: died at noon on Friday, August twenty fifth, nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 2: His family had not shared his politics, and they'd mostly
Speaker 2: fallen out of touch. His parents divorced when he was
Speaker 2: a child, but at the time of his death they
Speaker 2: were both still alive. His father told reporters that he'd
Speaker 2: seen less and less of his son in the final
Speaker 2: years of his life, saying, quote, He'd always have those
Speaker 2: bloody stormtroopers around him, and we could never talk, so
Speaker 2: the visit stopped. His brother had cut off contact nearly
Speaker 2: a decade earlier, when newspapers reported a possible connection between
Speaker 2: Rockwell and the bombing of a synagogue in Atlanta. His
Speaker 2: mother and sister kept in touch by letter over the years,
Speaker 2: but they saw each other infrequently. But now he was dead.
Speaker 2: In family, his family, he'd been their son, their brother.
Speaker 2: After the autopsy was performed, his body waited in the
Speaker 2: hospital Morgue. His father got on a train from Maine
Speaker 2: and headed south. Matius Cole, having assumed command of the
Speaker 2: American Nazi party claimed to be in possession of a
Speaker 2: last will and testament that entrusted him personally with Rockwell's remains.
Speaker 2: Rockwell's brother Bobby said the family wished to have a
Speaker 2: private service in the small town in Maine where they'd
Speaker 2: spent their childhood. And just a quick interjection here in
Speaker 2: case anyone was wondering about this, I've been saying, and
Speaker 2: we'll continue to say Cole Matius Cole. His name is German,
Speaker 2: and it's spelled k o e h L. In German,
Speaker 2: it would be something closer to kerl, but English speakers
Speaker 2: tend to read that as coal, so that's what I
Speaker 2: settled on. But apparently he pronounced it kale. Here's Frank
Speaker 2: Smith talking about it back in the sixties.
Speaker 5: Matthias Kale. Now I don't know where he gets the
Speaker 5: name Kale. I think the German pronunciation would be curl
Speaker 5: and the little translation in English would be coal, and
Speaker 5: I don't think that's acceptable to him. So somehow are
Speaker 5: these get kale unless I'm wrong on a German pronunciation.
Speaker 5: For any way, it's kale. That's how he goes using
Speaker 5: his name.
Speaker 2: Frank's close enough on the German pronunciation but it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean coal. It's closest to the German word for cabbage,
Speaker 2: but it's not a word at all. It's just a
Speaker 2: last name that probably originated as an occupational name for
Speaker 2: someone who grows crops. Anyway, Coal, Curl, Kale, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call him, He's the guy in charge of
Speaker 2: the American Nazi Party. After Rockwell's death on Saturday, the
Speaker 2: body was moved to the funeral home. Bobby Rockwell told
Speaker 2: reporters that the family was probably going to have to
Speaker 2: get a lawyer to fight Cole for custody of the remains.
Speaker 2: But just a day later, the same newspapers reported that
Speaker 2: the funeral home in Virginia had received a telegram from
Speaker 2: the family, and it read only the family no longer
Speaker 2: wishes to contest the claim of Matt Cole concerning his
Speaker 2: right to make funeral arrangements for g Lincoln Rockwell. Bobby
Speaker 2: Rockwell told reporters that the family had made the difficult
Speaker 2: decision for personal reasons and offered no further explanation. Years later,
Speaker 2: Rockwell's biographer, Frederick Simonelli, interviewed one of Rockwell's cousins, and
Speaker 2: the picture became a little bit clearer. The family gave
Speaker 2: up the fight for Rockwall's body because they were afraid
Speaker 2: Matias Cole had threatened to stage demonstrations outside Rockwell's mother's home.
Speaker 2: She was in her seventies and living alone in an
Speaker 2: apartment in a predominantly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood. Nothing good could
Speaker 2: come from provoking the Nazis, so they relented. The Nazis
Speaker 2: could have the body. On Monday, three days after the murder,
Speaker 2: as John Patler was being reigned for that murder in
Speaker 2: an Arlington courtroom, Matia's coal was busy making funeral arrangements.
Speaker 2: The Pentagon granted the burial permit. They had no valid
Speaker 2: reason to deny the application. Rockwell had served in two
Speaker 2: wars and received an honorable discharge. He'd never been convicted
Speaker 2: of a crime more serious than disorderly conduct, and he'd
Speaker 2: never been formally linked to any group on the government's
Speaker 2: list of subversive organizations. For some reason, the American Nazi
Speaker 2: Party was never on that list. Decorated veterans who'd been
Speaker 2: dragged through the mud of McCarthyism were denied burial and
Speaker 2: national cemeteries for being Communists, but the Nazi he was
Speaker 2: good to go. They would allow George Lincoln Rockwell to
Speaker 2: be interred in a national cemetery, but there would be conditions.
Speaker 2: The letter Rockwell left coal with his final wishes requested
Speaker 2: burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The government said they could
Speaker 2: have any cemetery but Arlington, so they settled on nearby
Speaker 2: Culpeper National Cemetery in central Virginia. The Navy did not
Speaker 2: agree to the request that the military honor guard consists
Speaker 2: only of white officers. They said they would get whoever
Speaker 2: was available, and in the end no honor guard showed
Speaker 2: up at all. And while they would allow Rockwell's corpse
Speaker 2: to be dressed in a Nazi uniform inside the coffin,
Speaker 2: they would not allow any visible display of Nazi iconography,
Speaker 2: no Nazi flags, no Swastika armbands. The official statement from
Speaker 2: the Department of Defense read, unseemly demonstrations such as the
Speaker 2: wearing of the un insignia and emblems, or the display
Speaker 2: of flags or banners of the American Nazi Party or
Speaker 2: its members will not be permitted in ceremonies at a
Speaker 2: national cemetery. A national cemetery is a permanent shrine in
Speaker 2: honor of the dead of the armed Forces of this country.
Speaker 2: Burial ceremonies must be conducted with dignity and with proper
Speaker 2: concern for the sensibilities of those whose loved ones lie there.
Speaker 2: The rules were relayed to Coal on Monday afternoon, and
Speaker 2: the funeral was scheduled for eleven a m On Tuesday morning.
Speaker 2: As long as the Nazis wore normal clothes and behaved
Speaker 2: like normal mourners, they could have a perfectly normal funeral
Speaker 2: at Culpeper National Cemetery On Monday evening. Cole told reporters
Speaker 2: that they intended to give George Lincoln Rockwell the kind
Speaker 2: of funeral he would have wanted, and the army was
Speaker 2: ready for them. The funeral procession left Arlington at nine
Speaker 2: am Tuesday morning, accompanied by a police escort from the
Speaker 2: Arlington County Police. In a later issue of Stormtrooper magazine,
Speaker 2: the Nazis claimed this procession was made up of sixty vehicles,
Speaker 2: but most news accounts put the number of total mourners
Speaker 2: at around fifty, so that can't be right. The line
Speaker 2: of cars was led by a white Cadillac convertible full
Speaker 2: of men in Nazi uniforms. Matius Cole rode in the
Speaker 2: front seat of the hearse, which was decorated with a
Speaker 2: giant red swastika wreath. I wonder if they assumed they
Speaker 2: would be allowed to break the rules. Did they think
Speaker 2: that there would be no one on scene to ensure
Speaker 2: they were following the guidelines, Or did they think that
Speaker 2: whoever was there to see them breaking the rules wouldn't
Speaker 2: be willing or able to stop them, Or were they
Speaker 2: hoping for a confrontation. Whatever it was they expected, I
Speaker 2: don't think it was bus loads of military police with
Speaker 2: helicopters full of even more soldiers landing in nearby fields.
Speaker 2: When they arrived in Caper at ten thirty am, the
Speaker 2: entrance to the cemetery was blocked by state and local police.
Speaker 2: The poor funeral home employee who got stuck driving the
Speaker 2: hearse that day must have been fairly rattled by the
Speaker 2: whole experience. He was so surprised at the line of
Speaker 2: officers that he stopped the hearse directly over the train
Speaker 2: tracks as a freight train was approaching. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: there were mere seconds and inches between this near miss
Speaker 2: and an accident that would have rendered the whole thing moot.
Speaker 2: When the train passed Cole stepped out of the hearse.
Speaker 2: He wasn't wearing a Nazi uniform, just a plain black suit,
Speaker 2: and he was clutching Rockwell's personal copy of Mind Komf
Speaker 2: in his hands. The cemetery superintendent explained to him that
Speaker 2: if they would all agree to remove their Nazi armbands
Speaker 2: and Swastika lapel pens and put away the giant swastika wreaths,
Speaker 2: they would be free to enter the cemetery and conduct
Speaker 2: the funeral. As the cemetery superintendent is trying to negotiate
Speaker 2: with this crowd to get them to take off their
Speaker 2: Nazi armbands, reinforcements were already on their way. The Army
Speaker 2: Provost Marshal Major General Carl Turner arrived by helicopter along
Speaker 2: with dozens of military policemen and US marshals. So this
Speaker 2: small crowd of maybe fifty Nazis was surrounded by dozens
Speaker 2: of reporters, one hundred police officer, hundreds of curious spectators
Speaker 2: milling around the edges, and the standoff that followed would
Speaker 2: last six hours. Shortly after General Turner arrived, the first
Speaker 2: arrest was made. He noticed that one of the soldiers
Speaker 2: in uniform outside the cemetery. Gates hadn't arrived with him.
Speaker 2: This soldier wasn't standing in line with the others. He
Speaker 2: was chatting casually with the Nazis standing around the hearse.
Speaker 2: Private first Class James de Witt told the general he'd
Speaker 2: been granted emergency leave from his post at Fort Gordon
Speaker 2: in Georgia to attend the funeral of a friend. General Turner,
Speaker 2: who was also out of Fort Gordon, reactivated the soldier
Speaker 2: on the spot, which is apparently a thing a general
Speaker 2: can do, and had him taken into custody for violating
Speaker 2: uniform regulations for the black armband he was wearing, and
Speaker 2: for violating regulations prohibiting soldiers from participating in political demonstrations
Speaker 2: in uniform. As military policeman dragged James de Witt away,
Speaker 2: he shouted racial slurs at nearby black onlookers and threw
Speaker 2: a Nazi salute for the news cameras. As he passed
Speaker 2: a gaggle of reporters. He said, I'd like to take
Speaker 2: this uniform off and throw it away. The military stinks
Speaker 2: and I'm ashamed to be a part of it. It
Speaker 2: turned out that de Witt had not been granted leave.
Speaker 2: He was a wall from Fort Gordon. He'd enlisted in
Speaker 2: the Army a yar year earlier, but he'd been a
Speaker 2: member of the American Nazi Party for two years. For
Speaker 2: another hour or so, everyone just stood there at the
Speaker 2: cemetery gates, waiting for someone else to break The funeral
Speaker 2: scheduled start time of eleven am came and went around noon.
Speaker 2: The Nazis were getting antsy. I wonder if they forgot
Speaker 2: to pack lunches. The exact sequence of events is different
Speaker 2: in almost every single account I could find, even the
Speaker 2: archival video footage I found this strange fifteen minutes of
Speaker 2: TV news b roll looks like it was cut together
Speaker 2: out of order. I wish I could have gotten my
Speaker 2: hands on a copy of the Army's after action report,
Speaker 2: because I think that would have helped pin down the specifics.
Speaker 2: I know the report exists. It's referenced in a footnote
Speaker 2: in a book about the use of the military and
Speaker 2: domestic disorders in the twentieth century published by the Army's
Speaker 2: Center for Military History, But I couldn't find any trace
Speaker 2: of the actual report. So, in the absence of certainty,
Speaker 2: here's my best guess at piecing together thirty different reporters recollections.
Speaker 2: One thing I found in that compilation of TV news
Speaker 2: footage that I didn't actually find written up in any
Speaker 2: of the reporting is this odd exchange between General Turner
Speaker 2: and a man I recognize in the footage as Douglas Niles.
Speaker 5: Charge will react, I have no idea a federal arrest.
Speaker 3: I'm a federal arrest marshall, And will.
Speaker 2: The charge be threat batter?
Speaker 3: I don't know what it will mean.
Speaker 2: If you can make it out over the helicopter noise.
Speaker 2: That's Nazi funeral attendee and American Nazi Party member Douglas Niles,
Speaker 2: and he's asking General Turner what someone might be charged
Speaker 2: with if they did choose to disobey the orders of
Speaker 2: the military police and attempt to enter the cemetery without
Speaker 2: removing their swastikas. He didn't get a straight answer, but
Speaker 2: he must have felt reasonably assured that it would be
Speaker 2: something minor like trespassing, because he then made the decision
Speaker 2: to escalate the situation again. I'm doing my best to
Speaker 2: put these pieces in order, and this isn't in the
Speaker 2: video I found, But according to a write up in
Speaker 2: the Washington Daily News, the crowd gets rowdy. They're screaming
Speaker 2: taunts at the officers and at General Turner in particular,
Speaker 2: and Niles jumps up onto the hood of the hearse
Speaker 2: and he's shouting, you ain't gonna stop me, you two
Speaker 2: star communists, swine, let's go. And as he's standing there
Speaker 2: on the hood of the hearse screaming at the General,
Speaker 2: the hearse starts to roll slowly forward and it bumps
Speaker 2: gently into the General. I don't know what Douglas Niles
Speaker 2: thought would happen, but as he's lunging forward into the
Speaker 2: line of military police, they just grab him and drag
Speaker 2: him away. Christopher Vignyevitch seemed emboldened by this shift in
Speaker 2: the energy of the crowd, and he tried to keep
Speaker 2: the momentum going. If you're not keeping careful track of
Speaker 2: all the side characters. Bidnyevitch was the twenty three year
Speaker 2: old head of the American Nazi Party's Chicago office. He
Speaker 2: immigrated to the United States as a child after his
Speaker 2: father was executed for war crimes. He committed as a
Speaker 2: Nazi collaborator in Croatia. He joined the American Nazi Party
Speaker 2: as a teenager. He testified against John Patler in the
Speaker 2: murder trial, and his testimony that Patler had made threatening
Speaker 2: comments about Rockwell in the months before the murder was
Speaker 2: seen as particularly convincing evidence by an appeals court. At
Speaker 2: Rockwell's funeral, Bidnyevitch was one of just six mourners who
Speaker 2: arrived dressed in a full Nazi uniform. He was to
Speaker 2: be one of the pallbearers, and so as Doug Niles
Speaker 2: is being hauled off by the military policeman, Vidnyevitch now
Speaker 2: jumps up onto the hearse and he's standing on the
Speaker 2: roof of the v vehicle shouting, you see what the
Speaker 2: Jews are doing. They're keeping us out of here. It's
Speaker 2: Jewish power. What we need is white power. And after
Speaker 2: he whips the crowd into a frenzy with a couple
Speaker 2: of sieguiles and a couple of Hyle Hitler's, vin Yevitch
Speaker 2: jumped down from the hearse and charged directly into the
Speaker 2: line of military policemen. I think he thought everyone was
Speaker 2: behind him, but they weren't. As he was being taken
Speaker 2: into custody, a single Nazi half heartedly broke ranks and
Speaker 2: tried to follow him. Mike Stewart is listed in the
Speaker 2: newspaper as being sixteen or seventeen years old, and it
Speaker 2: says that he lives with a guardian in Spotslovania County,
Speaker 2: although he'd been arrested at a Nazi Party rally in
Speaker 2: Chicago a year earlier, and in nineteen sixty six he
Speaker 2: told police he was eighteen. An issue of the party's
Speaker 2: magazine says Stewart had been living at the party's printing
Speaker 2: facility in Spotsylvania for six months, having transferred from the
Speaker 2: Chicago office. How old he actually was at the time
Speaker 2: of either arrest isn't clear, but it does seem likely
Speaker 2: that he was a miner, and you have to wonder
Speaker 2: if his parents knew where he was, if they knew
Speaker 2: he was living in a converted hen house under the
Speaker 2: supervision of a couple of middle aged Nazis. After that
Speaker 2: flurry of arrests, the crowd quieted down again. Matias Cole,
Speaker 2: who'd been sitting inside of the hearse for most of
Speaker 2: the morning, got out and had a private meeting with
Speaker 2: General Turner in a nearby maintenance shed. The Army's position
Speaker 2: had not changed. They could hold the funeral if they
Speaker 2: could follow the rules, if they took off the swastikas.
Speaker 2: They would be allowed to enter the cemetery and bury
Speaker 2: Rockwell in the open grave that was waiting for him.
Speaker 2: If they were dead set on keeping the swastikas on,
Speaker 2: they would not be allowed pass the gates. But they
Speaker 2: were running out of time to decide if they were
Speaker 2: willing to compromise. The grave diggers shift ended at fourth
Speaker 2: thirty PM, and cemetery regulations don't allow a coffin to
Speaker 2: sit in an open grave overnight. If they were going
Speaker 2: to put him in the ground, they had to do
Speaker 2: it before three point thirty to ensure there was enough
Speaker 2: time to fill the hole. When three point thirty rolled around,
Speaker 2: nothing had changed.
Speaker 4: Fifteen managed to comply with the instructions and the regulations
Speaker 4: prescribed for burial at this ceremony. It is now fifteen
Speaker 4: thirty hours.
Speaker 2: In William Schmaltz's biography of Rockwell, the exchange that followed
Speaker 2: is written to be much more dramatic than I think
Speaker 2: it really was. General Turner reiterates the requirements for burial,
Speaker 2: and Schmaltz includes Cole's reply in the form of a
Speaker 2: direct quote, and the quote is verbatim correct, but in
Speaker 2: the book he puts exclamation points in it, and he
Speaker 2: wrote that Cole was shouting when he replied. The video, though,
Speaker 2: does not show a bombastic, defiant Nazi leader. It's a weary,
Speaker 2: defeated man.
Speaker 1: The body cannot be brought in under those circumstances. I
Speaker 1: will have remained custodian of the body wherever it may
Speaker 1: be with or cheered, but I cannot allow it to
Speaker 1: be buried against the express wishes of matter Rockland.
Speaker 2: At three thirty, General Turner gave them fifteen minutes, and
Speaker 2: that deadline came and went. The Nazis did nothing with
Speaker 2: their last fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: The Department of Army has withdrawn approval for the burial
Speaker 3: of George Lincoln Rockwell in this cemetery.
Speaker 2: At three forty five, the General announced that the Army
Speaker 2: had withdrawn its approval for the burial. If they wanted
Speaker 2: to bury Rockwell in a national cemetery, they couldn't do
Speaker 2: it today and they would have to apply for a
Speaker 2: new burial permit. For a funeral on another day, a
Speaker 2: Culpeper County Justice of the Peace grabbed the bullhorn and
Speaker 2: announced to the crowd that there would be no funeral
Speaker 2: here today, and he told everyone to go home, and
Speaker 2: remarkably they did. The whole day can really only be
Speaker 2: described as weird. I'm not just saying that because that's
Speaker 2: in the name of the show. It really was the
Speaker 2: only word people could think of to describe what they
Speaker 2: had seen that day. The Associated Press story about the
Speaker 2: whole affair appeared in newspapers across the country, but with
Speaker 2: slightly different headlines from paper to paper, headlines like Rockwell
Speaker 2: unburied after end of weird day in Culpeper, Nazi unburied
Speaker 2: after a weird day. Rockwell would have liked his weird
Speaker 2: Nazi funeral weird performance rockwell burial delayed his unfinished funeral
Speaker 2: weird scene. I think my favorite one of these headlines
Speaker 2: is Rockwell's non funeral weird event. Newspaper editors everywhere agreed
Speaker 2: that shit was weird. Defeated, the Nazis drove the hour
Speaker 2: and a half back to Arlington with the commander's corpse.
Speaker 2: James DeWitt, the young soldier arrested while absent without leave,
Speaker 2: was taken into military custody. After a hearing the following week,
Speaker 2: he was demoted to private and given forty five days
Speaker 2: of extra duty. Christopher Vidnyevitch, Douglas Niles, and Michael Stewart
Speaker 2: were taken into federal custody after their arrests for disorderly conduct,
Speaker 2: but Stuart's charges were dropped because he was a minor.
Speaker 2: Niles and Vignevitch were both eventually convicted, but the court
Speaker 2: declined to impose any jail sentence because quote, they were
Speaker 2: emotionally upset and had not intended to cause any trouble.
Speaker 2: After the standoff in Culpemper, Rockwell's brother made another attempt
Speaker 2: to gain custody of the remains, but he told reporters, quote,
Speaker 2: Unfortunately they beat us to it. The Nazi Party had
Speaker 2: already cremated him. George Lincoln Rockwell was cremated the morning
Speaker 2: after the failed burial, but the fight didn't end there.
Speaker 2: By the end of the day Wednesday, the American Nazi
Speaker 2: Party had retained council from the American Civil Liberties Union,
Speaker 2: and the ACLU said they planned to seek a court
Speaker 2: injunction to force the Army to allow the Nazis to
Speaker 2: interur Rockwell's ashes at the National Cemetery, accompanied by a
Speaker 2: service that included their Nazi paraphernalia. Their attorney Philippershkopp sent
Speaker 2: a letter to the Secretary of the Army in early September.
Speaker 2: He offered his personal assurances that the ceremony would be
Speaker 2: no more than forty five minutes and any music played
Speaker 2: would be at a volume low enough that it would
Speaker 2: only be audible to those at the gravesite. But they
Speaker 2: wanted to wear their outfits. Secretary Stanley Rezor replied weeks
Speaker 2: later the Army's position had not changed. No Nazi uniforms,
Speaker 2: no Nazi flags, no Nazi banners, no swastik la pel pins.
Speaker 2: If they're willing to follow the rules, they can apply
Speaker 2: for a new burial permit and that's it. So the
Speaker 2: Nazis filed a lawsuit in federal court. They wouldn't settle
Speaker 2: for anything less than a spectacle. It was, I think,
Speaker 2: in a way, a genuine attempt to give George Lincoln
Speaker 2: Rockwell what he would have wanted, But not in the
Speaker 2: way you might think. I don't mean that. I think
Speaker 2: he cared really about the specifics of how his body
Speaker 2: ended up in the ground, about what his funeral would
Speaker 2: look like, Not really, But I think he would have
Speaker 2: loved to know that, even in death, he could still
Speaker 2: cause a riot. He'd lived for wasting people's time and
Speaker 2: subjecting people to spectacle and getting headlines and newspapers for
Speaker 2: some silly stunt or another. It's what he lived for.
Speaker 2: Why shouldn't he have a little more in death. The
Speaker 2: lawsuit argued that not only was the decision to bar
Speaker 2: the funeral attendees from displaying certain symbols blatantly unconstitutional prior
Speaker 2: restraint of their free speech, it was a clear case
Speaker 2: of discrimination against Nazi specifically, as other types of symbols
Speaker 2: half been or probably would be allowed. The order dismissing
Speaker 2: the suit ruled that it wasn't discriminatory and they had
Speaker 2: no constitutional right to espouse a political philosophy as part
Speaker 2: of a burial in a national cemetery. Now, obviously, this
Speaker 2: case was filed in nineteen sixty and decided in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine, so any cases that came after it aren't
Speaker 2: really relevant when we're talking about the context of the
Speaker 2: original decision. But I did a little poking around anyway,
Speaker 2: and the majority of the cases involving free speech and
Speaker 2: cemeteries are about people protesting and picketing at or near funerals,
Speaker 2: not so much about the speech of the people organizing
Speaker 2: the funeral, But either way, generally courts tend to hold
Speaker 2: the cemetery is not a public forum. The government can
Speaker 2: impose content neutral restrictions on free expression in a non
Speaker 2: public forum as compared to a public forum places like
Speaker 2: the sidewalk or designated or limited public forums like city
Speaker 2: hall or a meeting room at a public university. You
Speaker 2: cannot to this day hold a political demonstration of any
Speaker 2: kind in places like Arlington National Cemetery. That would be
Speaker 2: an outrage and a scandal, and it was for a
Speaker 2: few weeks in the news when Donald Trump made a
Speaker 2: partisan speech at a ceremony at Arlington. The current version
Speaker 2: of the Code of Federal Regulations and the United States
Speaker 2: Code contain explicit prohibitions on demonstrations and disruptions at national
Speaker 2: military cemeteries. But again, most of these rules are aimed
Speaker 2: at people protesting a funeral. It's hard to apply those
Speaker 2: guidelines to people using the funeral itself as a political demonstration.
Speaker 2: But that same Code of Federal Regulations also explicitly prohibits
Speaker 2: the display of banners, placards, and flags other than the
Speaker 2: American flag. I spent an inordinate amount of time cracking
Speaker 2: down every quarterly issue of the Federal Register from the
Speaker 2: late nineteen sixties. And I can tell you it does
Speaker 2: appear that they added this section to the Code of
Speaker 2: Federal res Regulations in nineteen sixty nine, which means it
Speaker 2: was almost certainly specifically because of this incident. Obviously, you
Speaker 2: can't apply rules that were written after the fact, But
Speaker 2: just because the rules weren't in the Code of Federal
Speaker 2: Regulations doesn't mean there weren't rules. There were rules in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven. According to the court order dismissing the lawsuit,
Speaker 2: the approved rules governing the operation, maintenance and burials in
Speaker 2: National cemeteries are found in the Army Technical Manual. A
Speaker 2: portion of that manual is included in some of the
Speaker 2: court records. And the rules are very specific about flags.
Speaker 2: There's a flag in the cemetery, but there aren't any
Speaker 2: other flags. There are no flags allowed on graves. There
Speaker 2: are no flags at grave sites. With a singular exception.
Speaker 2: A small American flag is placed on each grave on
Speaker 2: the business day before Memorial Day and removed on the
Speaker 2: business day following Memorial Day, unless it is wet, in
Speaker 2: which case it is left in place until it is
Speaker 2: dry Confederate flags may be placed in the same location
Speaker 2: during the same time periods at private expense. That's it.
Speaker 2: There's no other flags. And according to that court opinion,
Speaker 2: that same Army manual already prohibited political demonstrations at national cemeteries,
Speaker 2: and it prohibited the use of any foreign flag except
Speaker 2: during specially permitted flag ceremonies. The judge didn't specifically use
Speaker 2: the language of a public first non public forum, but
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty well implied in the opinion quote.
Speaker 2: The record here made conclusively discloses that it was the
Speaker 2: intent of the American Nazi Party to dramatize their political
Speaker 2: philosophy by wearing their Nazi style uniforms together with combat
Speaker 2: boots and displaying their banners and flags during the burial
Speaker 2: of their former leader. Cemetery is a public place so
Speaker 2: clearly committed to other purposes that their use for the
Speaker 2: airing of grievances is anomalous. The Secretary of the Army
Speaker 2: was plainly right in refusing to permit the American Nazi
Speaker 2: Party to use the Culpeper National Cemetery as a base
Speaker 2: for the symbolic dissemination of their political philosophy. No one's
Speaker 2: saying they can't wear Nazi armbands. They do it all
Speaker 2: the time. They've marched in cities across the country. They've
Speaker 2: fought this battle and they've won it. They can march
Speaker 2: around this way if they want to, but they can't
Speaker 2: do it in an army national cemetery. And it's not
Speaker 2: just Nazis. No one can demonstrate in those spaces because
Speaker 2: they are not a public forum for the airing of
Speaker 2: free expression. The ACLU appealed the decision to the Fourth
Speaker 2: Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court affirmed the lower
Speaker 2: court opinion without writing an opinion of their own, and
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy the Supreme Court declined to hear the
Speaker 2: case after losing the legal battle to inter Rockwell's ashes
Speaker 2: at the National Cemetery. They never interred them anywhere at all.
Speaker 2: They didn't give him back to his family or to
Speaker 2: either of his ex wives who were raising his children.
Speaker 2: They didn't bury him somewhere meaningful to him or scatter
Speaker 2: him to the winds. Mattias Cole packed him up into
Speaker 2: a little white urn and put it on display. When
Speaker 2: the Nazis left Virginia for the Midwest and the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: Rockwall's ashes went with them. Mattius Cole died in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: The New Order, the name he'd picked when he rebranded
Speaker 2: the party again in the eighties, was left to the
Speaker 2: leadership of Martin Kerr, that old man who held a
Speaker 2: memorial for Rockwell next to a trash can in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: He was asked at the time whatever became of Rockwell's remains,
Speaker 2: but he declined to say any more than that they
Speaker 2: were in an urn in a secure location. He's trying
Speaker 2: to be mysterious, maybe to let you imagine that maybe
Speaker 2: the ashes were somewhere in a place of great honor.
Speaker 2: But the urn is almost certainly at his house in
Speaker 2: New Berlin, a suburb outside of Milwaukee. Earlier this year,
Speaker 2: an admirer posted a video he took of the shrine
Speaker 2: when he made a pilgrimage to Wisconsin to visit Rockwell's remains.
Speaker 2: It's just a little white box sitting in the center
Speaker 2: of a slightly rumpled Nazi flag arranged in a semi
Speaker 2: circle around the ashes. There are two little tea light
Speaker 2: candles and what I can only call the Nazi equivalent
Speaker 2: of holy relics. Rockwell's corn cob pipe, the wedding rings
Speaker 2: from his failed marriages, his aviator, sunglasses, and his watch.
Speaker 2: In the video, this visitor picks up Rockwell's corn cob
Speaker 2: pipe and he handles it with a religious rever rents.
Speaker 2: He lifts it up towards his face, which you never see,
Speaker 2: and inhales deeply trying to smell the Commander. George Lincoln
Speaker 2: Rockwell died alone in a parking lot, murdered by his
Speaker 2: closest friend. His loyal followers stole his body from his
Speaker 2: family and turned his funeral into a side show. Now
Speaker 2: decades later, his urn collects dust on a shabby little altar,
Speaker 2: mostly forgotten. Weird Little Guys is a production of Cool
Speaker 2: Zoe Media and iHeartRadio. It's research, written and recorded by
Speaker 2: me while I hunger. Our executive producers are Sophie Lieutterman
Speaker 2: and Robert Evans. This show is edited by the wildly
Speaker 2: talented Rory Gagan, although I think this week it may
Speaker 2: be the equally talented Ian Johnson. The theme music was
Speaker 2: composed by Brad Dickert. You can email me at Weird
Speaker 2: Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely
Speaker 2: read it, but I probably won't answer. It's nothing personal.
Speaker 2: You can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other
Speaker 2: listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit. Just please don't
Speaker 2: post anything that's going to make you one of my
Speaker 2: Weird Little Guys.