Speaker 1: Col Zone Media. Hey there, Molly here, I wanted to
Speaker 1: take a second to talk about a different Rockwell. We've
Speaker 1: been talking in circles for weeks now about George Lincoln Rockwell,
Speaker 1: the founder of the American Nazi Party, But there are
Speaker 1: some other famous Rockwells. His own father, George Lovejoy Rockwell,
Speaker 1: was a pretty famous vaudeville performer. But it isn't Doc
Speaker 1: Rockwell I want to talk about. There is another Rockwell who,
Speaker 1: like the Nazi we've been talking about, is most famously
Speaker 1: pictured with a pipe in his mouth. Another Rockwell who
Speaker 1: lived in a city called Arlington in his forties. Another
Speaker 1: Rockwell who came out swinging in the nineteen sixties with
Speaker 1: some strong public statements about the civil rights movement. But
Speaker 1: George Lincoln Rockwell the Nazi and Norman Rockwell the illustrator
Speaker 1: don't really have much else in common, so there's never
Speaker 1: really a good reason to talk about both men in
Speaker 1: the same breath, unless it's by accident. As I was
Speaker 1: researching the story of Frank Smith and his involvement in
Speaker 1: both the American Nazi Party and the New England Mafia,
Speaker 1: I was reading through the file the FBI kept on
Speaker 1: Raymond patriarcha a mob bosson Rhode Island. About four thousand
Speaker 1: pages into that eight thousand page file, there's a memo
Speaker 1: addressed to J. Edgar Hoover. It's from the Special Agent
Speaker 1: in charge of the Boston Field Office, and it's dated
Speaker 1: January of nineteen sixty five. The memo was to notify
Speaker 1: Hoover that a patriarchic crime family associate who'd just been
Speaker 1: released from prison was meeting with a man called George
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell. The typewritten memo has a handwritten correction, so
Speaker 1: someone took a pen and circled Norman and then wrote
Speaker 1: Lincoln in the margins. It's a funny little artifact, but
Speaker 1: it reminded me of the time I heard someone make
Speaker 1: that exact same mistake in a federal courtroom. Back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. I was covering a trial in the
Speaker 1: civil lawsuit of Siins vs. Kessler, a suit filed against
Speaker 1: the organizers of the Unite the Right rally by a
Speaker 1: group of people who'd been injured at the Nazi rally.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of that trial, when the plaintiff's attorney
Speaker 1: had Jeff's Scoop on the stand, the one time leader
Speaker 1: of the National Socialist Movement, Scoop was asked about some
Speaker 1: terminology that he used with his group. The National Socialist
Speaker 1: Movement referred to their members who engage in street level
Speaker 1: activism as stormtroopers, and that was a nod to their
Speaker 1: shared history with the American Nazi Party. When the attorney
Speaker 1: rephrased that answer back to his witness, he accidentally said
Speaker 1: George Norman Rockwell instead of George Lincoln Rockwell. And I
Speaker 1: remember this moment. I remember it because it was one
Speaker 1: of the only times I laughed that day, and I
Speaker 1: remember it because I wrote it down, and I remember
Speaker 1: joking about it in person with another of the plaintiff's
Speaker 1: atorneys a few days later. I remember it. But when
Speaker 1: I went back to look at the transcript this week,
Speaker 1: it isn't actually there. And this has honestly really shaken
Speaker 1: my faith in the sanctity of court reporting. I mean,
Speaker 1: the transcript is supposed to be this perfect, indelible record
Speaker 1: of the words that were spoken aloud in a court room,
Speaker 1: and normally I would default to believing what's in the transcript,
Speaker 1: but I know the transcript is mistaken. Here. I typically
Speaker 1: take all my courtroom notes by hand, but because of
Speaker 1: the ongoing COVID pandemic back in twenty twenty one, the
Speaker 1: judge made the decision to close the courtroom to the public,
Speaker 1: and so this trial was broadcast over a telephone line
Speaker 1: that you could call into to listen. And since I
Speaker 1: was able to listen in from home, I decided that
Speaker 1: instead of taking my notes privately and then writing about
Speaker 1: them later, I would live tweet the trial, all four
Speaker 1: weeks of it. It was a nightmarish undertaking, but one
Speaker 1: I took very seriously, and when that trial finally ended,
Speaker 1: I got perhaps the finest compliment I'll ever get about
Speaker 1: my notes. Some of the attorneys for the plaintiffs told
Speaker 1: me that when they had to leave the courtroom for
Speaker 1: a bathroom break or something during the day, they would
Speaker 1: pull up those tweets to see what they were missing.
Speaker 1: So transcript be damned. That attorney made the same little
Speaker 1: mistake in twenty twenty one that an FBI agent made
Speaker 1: in that memo in nineteen sixty five. They both accidentally
Speaker 1: dragged poor Norman Rockwell into Nazi business. So those were
Speaker 1: the two examples of this that I had in mind,
Speaker 1: But I hadn't realized the extent to which this mistake
Speaker 1: was happening until I sat down to write about it.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was a frequent enough occurrence that it was
Speaker 1: a source of great pain for Norman Rockwell, particularly in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties when both men were active in their
Speaker 1: respective careers, one as America's leading neo Nazi and the
Speaker 1: other as a beloved illustrator of Americana. Despite their differences,
Speaker 1: this similarity in their names has been a source of
Speaker 1: confusion for decades. A lot of people are making this mistake.
Speaker 1: Most often it's that same mistake the FBI agent made.
Speaker 1: People are writing George Norman Rockwell when they mean George
Speaker 1: Lincoln Rockwell. So they have the first and last name
Speaker 1: of the Nazi correct, and they know it's a three
Speaker 1: named deal, but some part of their brain is just
Speaker 1: inserting the name of the other famous Rockwell into the middle.
Speaker 1: I found dozens of instances in old newspapers where stories
Speaker 1: about the American Nazi Party refer to the group's leader
Speaker 1: as George Norman Rockwell. I found papers containing apologies and
Speaker 1: corrections for having made the mistake, and letters to the
Speaker 1: editor from readers who are outraged on the artist's behalf
Speaker 1: and I also found articles that used both the correct
Speaker 1: and incorrect form interchangeably from paragraph to paragraph, and this
Speaker 1: middle name mix up accounts for most of the examples
Speaker 1: I found, but there were a few notable instances where
Speaker 1: they just switched the names entirely. In nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: of the local Young Republicans Club led the effort to
Speaker 1: invite George Lincoln Rockwell to speak at Western Washington State College,
Speaker 1: and when the day finally arrived, that student Terry Gallagher,
Speaker 1: was so nervous that he accidentally introduced the Nazi to
Speaker 1: the audience as Norman Rockwell. In nineteen sixty six, when
Speaker 1: George Lincoln Rockwell was arrested in Chicago, a newspaper in
Speaker 1: Alabama ran a photo of men in white powered T
Speaker 1: shirts with Swastika banners under the headline Nazi chief Norman
Speaker 1: Rockwell arrested. That same year, before the Senate killed what
Speaker 1: would have been the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: a Florida congressman introduced an amendment to the bill that
Speaker 1: would quote deter professional agitators by making it a crime
Speaker 1: to cross state lines to participate in civil disturbance. According
Speaker 1: to a write up in the Atlanta Journal, Constitution Representative
Speaker 1: William Kramer said his amendment was intended to keep people
Speaker 1: like Norman Rockwell from traveling from state to state, fomenting
Speaker 1: civil disorder and again shaking my faith in the sanctity
Speaker 1: of transcription. This is actually missing from the congressional record,
Speaker 1: but the reporter who wrote it up says that Kramer
Speaker 1: said Norman Rockwell several times before he was interrupted by
Speaker 1: a colleague who suggested that he probably means George Lincoln.
Speaker 1: One particularly messy example came shortly after George Lincoln Rockwell's death,
Speaker 1: when his assassin, John Patler, first appeared in court for
Speaker 1: an arraignment. Another member of the American Nazi Party had
Speaker 1: an outburst in the courtroom. So a man in the
Speaker 1: gallery stood up and he's screaming at John Patler, and
Speaker 1: he lunged toward him, and he was arrested. And after
Speaker 1: Eric Wenberg was arrested, it was discovered that he was
Speaker 1: an aust Araelian citizen who'd overstayed a tourist visa. Before
Speaker 1: authorities in the US could deport him, he traveled to Canada,
Speaker 1: and Canada too wanted the Nazi out, but the Canadian
Speaker 1: deportation proceedings were delayed by an embarrassing clerical error. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons the Canadian government gave for his removal
Speaker 1: was that he'd been arrested in the United States at
Speaker 1: a demonstration against the assassin of Norman Rockwell. John Beatty,
Speaker 1: the Canadian Nazi who represented Wenberg at his deportation hearing,
Speaker 1: showed up to court in a swastika armband and argued
Speaker 1: that clearly this record is full of errors. Norman Rockwell
Speaker 1: is still alive. Weinberg was eventually sent home to Australia,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy two he died in a car accident.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound particularly notable, but the car accident happened
Speaker 1: in Rhodesia, and it was reported at the time that
Speaker 1: there was a million dollars in cash found in the
Speaker 1: car with his dead body. So we'll have to come
Speaker 1: back to that some other time. We're talking about Norman Rockwell.
Speaker 1: But in all of these examples, people are accidentally slipping
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell's name into stories about the Nazi. I couldn't
Speaker 1: find a single instance of the mistake happening in reverse.
Speaker 1: Now you might be wondering, are these two men related,
Speaker 1: they're not. I did find one completely unsubstantiated claim published
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three in the journal Holocaust and
Speaker 1: Genocide Studies that Norman Rockwell was George Lincoln's uncle. There's
Speaker 1: no citation. The article was a review of Frederick Simon
Speaker 1: Elli's biography of George Lincoln Rockwell, and I've read that book.
Speaker 1: It makes absolutely no mention of Norman Rockwell at all.
Speaker 1: So that strange parenthetical claim in the article that the
Speaker 1: illustrator is the Nazis' uncle seems to be just entirely
Speaker 1: made up. Norman Rockwell is about the same age as
Speaker 1: the Nazi's father, and they're both from New England, so
Speaker 1: it's a reasonable question to ask, but the answer is no.
Speaker 1: I did some of my own genealogical research on both
Speaker 1: families and I found no connection. Back in the days
Speaker 1: before Google, sometimes newspapers would have a feature that answered
Speaker 1: factual questions submitted by readers, and I found a bunch
Speaker 1: of those over the years where readers asked variations on
Speaker 1: this question and the newspaper always answered no, sometimes citing
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell himself. This association was a troubling one for
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell. His granddaughter, Abigail Rockwell, still runs a Facebook
Speaker 1: page dedicated to his memory. In a post just a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, she wrote, my father told me Pop
Speaker 1: was very upset to be sometimes confused with George Lincoln Rockwell,
Speaker 1: the founder of the America Nazi Party. He was so
Speaker 1: unsettled and perturbed by this he considered taking legal action,
Speaker 1: but was dissuaded from doing so. It's not just embarrassing
Speaker 1: to be mixed up with someone else, especially someone so unsavory.
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell wasn't just not George Lincoln Rockwell. He was
Speaker 1: against everything the other man represented. The name Norman Rockwell
Speaker 1: probably puts some images into your mind's eye right away.
Speaker 1: You might be picturing his painting of a family at
Speaker 1: the dinner table with a big turkey, or the one
Speaker 1: of a man standing up ready to speak his mind.
Speaker 1: Both of those Freedom from want and freedom of speech
Speaker 1: were painted in the same year as part of a
Speaker 1: four part series of paintings for the Saturday Evening Post
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three, and if you're only familiar with
Speaker 1: his earlier work, you might be thinking, well, Norman Rockwell
Speaker 1: was just painting the America that George Lincoln Rockwell was
Speaker 1: trying to create a whitewashed conservative America with traditional white
Speaker 1: Christian suburban family values. You're probably picturing his paintings of
Speaker 1: a white family on their way to church, a pretty
Speaker 1: blond white woman at the soda counter, a white couple
Speaker 1: at the courthouse getting a marriage license, boy scouts, soldiers,
Speaker 1: the iconic image of Rosy the Riveter, classic mid twentieth
Speaker 1: century Americana, images of peaceful suburban living, and notably images
Speaker 1: with only white faces. And that's true. Those are Norman
Speaker 1: Rockwell's most famous works. Those are things that he painted.
Speaker 1: Most of the ones you're probably thinking of were illustrations
Speaker 1: he did for The Saturday Evening Post. Over the course
Speaker 1: of forty seven years, he illustrated hundreds of covers for
Speaker 1: that magazine. According to art critic Caroline Marling, the Saturday
Speaker 1: Evening Post explicitly forbade Norman Rockwell from painting black subjects
Speaker 1: in his cover art unless they were depicted performing some
Speaker 1: kind of menial task. By the nineteen sixties, though, he
Speaker 1: felt drawn to paint the world as it was, and
Speaker 1: that meant acknowledging the struggle for civil rights, so he
Speaker 1: parted ways with the Saturday Evening Post. In the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: Norman rockw Well painted for Look magazine, and it was
Speaker 1: for Look that he created some of his most moving paintings.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, a painting called The Problem We
Speaker 1: All Live With was published in Look Magazine's centerfold. It
Speaker 1: shows a six year old Ruby Bridges flanked by federal
Speaker 1: marshals on her way to integrate her elementary school. The
Speaker 1: following year, Look published a painting called Murder in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and it was Norman Rockwell's depiction of the murders of
Speaker 1: civil rights workers James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
Speaker 1: During the same years that George Lincoln Rockwell was criss
Speaker 1: crossing the country disrupting and mocking civil rights marches, Norman
Speaker 1: Rockwell was painting that struggle. He was quietly insisting through
Speaker 1: his work that people like Ruby Bridges were every bit
Speaker 1: as much a part of the fabric of America as
Speaker 1: the subjects of his kitche classic illustrations of Suburbia. When
Speaker 1: his Nazi counterpart was making a mockery of the struggle
Speaker 1: for equality in Mississippi by sending a storm trooper in
Speaker 1: blackface into the Capitol Building to disrupt Congress Norman Rockwell
Speaker 1: was memorializing the civil rights activist who died fighting for
Speaker 1: racial justice there. In July of nineteen sixty seven, Norman
Speaker 1: Rockwell spoke at the National Press Club in Washington. Gossip
Speaker 1: columnist Leonard Lyons reported that the artist was overheard rehearsing
Speaker 1: the opening line of his speech in a hotel shortly
Speaker 1: before the event. I am not George Lincoln Rockwell. Just
Speaker 1: a few weeks later, the other Rockwell was shot in
Speaker 1: a strip mall parking lot. That bullet didn't end the
Speaker 1: confusion between the two Rockwells, but it did end the
Speaker 1: night life. Weird Little Guys is a production of Cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written and recorded by me,
Speaker 1: Molly Kunger. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: The show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan.
Speaker 1: The theme music was composed by Brad Dickert. You can
Speaker 1: email me at Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I will definitely read it, but I almost certainly will
Speaker 1: not answer it. It's nothing personal. I don't answer any
Speaker 1: of my emails. You can exchange conspiracy theories about the
Speaker 1: show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit.
Speaker 1: Just don't post anything that's going to make you one
Speaker 1: of my Weird Little Guys.