Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry • Since 1925
Historic day In Georgia
Paroles board grants pardon to Leo Franl
by Vida Goldgar
“...the State Board of Pardons
and Paroles, in compliance with
it’s Constitutional and statutory
authority, hereby grants to Leo M.
Frank a pardon. ”
With these words, which con
cluded a release issued Tuesday,
Georgia's Pardons and Paroles
Board hopes it has brought to an
end the 73-year-old controversy of
Leo Frank, convicted in an aura of
prejudice and perjury of the 1913
murder of 13-year-old Mary Pha-
gan. Despite a courageous com
mutation of Frank’s death sent
ence to life imprisonment by Gov
.John Slaton, on August 17, 19 i *>.
Frank was dragged from his prison
cell in Milledgeville, brought to
Marietta by a mob and hanged
from a tree.
The ugly wave of anti-Semitism
which surrounded Frank’s trial
struck fear into the heart of the
Jewish community and caused
many to seek sanctuary elsewhere.
In an interview published in The
Southern Israelite on March 12,
1982, the late Harold Marcus, a
nephew of Leo Frank, remem
bered being chased and threatened
as a second grader in public school.
He recalled the day that Gov.
Slaton commuted Frank’s death
sentence: “I was very fearful that
night, as were all the Jews on
Capitol Avenue and Washington
Street — afraid of the promise that
the rabble had made that they w-ere
going to do away with every Jew
on those two streets.”
Despite voluminous data col
lected, and several published
volumes clearly pointing to
Frank’s innocence, the case was
ignored until March 1982 when
reporters Jerry Thompson and
Bob Sherborne of the Nashville
Tennessean followed up on a tip
about an elderly man who claimed
he had been a witness in a murder
case many years earlier for which
the wrong man had been executed.
Located in a hospital and wanting
to “get this off my heart,” 83-year-
old Alonzo Mann told the repor
ters his story. As a 14-year-old
office boy at the National Pencil
Company, where Frank was super
intendent and Mary Phagan was
employed, Mann had stopped by
the pencil company aad encoun
tered janitor Jim Conley alone
with the limp body of Mary Pha
gan in his arms, contrary to Con
ley’s testimony at the trial. Threa
tened by Conley, “If you ever
mention this, I'll kill you,” Mann
Leo Frank
^4ever testified to what he wit
nessed. hi a sworn affidavit, in
1982, Mann said, “Leo Frank was
convicted by lies, heaped on lies. It
wasn’t just Conley who lied.” He
said, “(Frank) was always proper
with people who worked for him.
Administration notifies Congress
of proposal to sell arms to Saudis
by David Friedman
and Judith Kohn
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The
Reagan administration made its
long-expected notification to
Congress Tuesday of its proposal
to sell $354 million in sophisticated
missiles to Saudi Arabia.
State Department deputy
spokesman Charles Redman said
the package would include 671
Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, 995
of the most advanced form of the
Sidewinder, 200 Stinger shoulder
held ground-to-air missiles and
100 Haroon air-to-sea missiles.
Tuesday’s announcement to
Congress begins a 20-day period of
informal notification followed by
30 days of formal notification. The
sale will go through in 50 days
unless both the House and Senate
pass resolutions to reject the sale.
A spokesman for Sen. Alan
Cranston (D—Calif.), who had
earlier gathered some 60signatures
for a resolution opposing what was
expected to be a much more com
prehensive package, said that
Cranston expects to get most of the
same senators to support a resolu
tion rejecting Tuesday’s proposal.
A proposed $1.9 billion arms
sale to Jordan, submitted to Con
gress last October, was withdrawn
by Reagan in January when it
became clear to the administration
that Congress would reject it
But Richard Murphy, assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern
and South Asian Affairs, said at a
White House briefing for the Con
ference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations
last week that he believed there
would be less opposition to the
Saudi sale.
The administration is expected
to make a strong argument that
Saudi Arabia needs the missiles to
protect Tt from an increasingly
threatening Iran. Redman said
that it was “a valid security
requirement.”
Last year, the administration
indicated it was preparing to sell
the Saudis F-15 fighters, M-I tanks
and helicopter gunships in addi
tion to the missiles. But the pack
age was scaled down because of the
congressional opposition. Mean
while, the Saudis have ordered
Tornado jet fighters from Britain.
Cranston’s spokesman said that
the administration’s pursuit of the
sale “would seem to be an impru
dent use of political capital.” He
said he doubted it would work
since after sounding out many of
the signatories of the earlier resolu
tion there was “no evidence of any
erosion” in support of a resolution
of disapproval.
He said that even though Israel
is down-playing its opposition to
the sale since the Saudis already
have many of the missiles being
sold, Cranston believes it is a mat
ter of principle that goes beyond
the danger posed to Israel.
“It’s not the technology that’s
the issue,” the spokesman said.
“It's the principle of reflexively
arming a state that thumbs its nose
at U.S. national security interests.”
He said if the Saudis were to
endorse peace talks between Jor
dan and Israel, “we would have a
whole new ball game.”
Sen. Majority Leader Robert
Dole (R — Kan.) told the United
Jewish Appeal’s National Young
Leadership Conference last week
that he had urged the White House
to go slow on the Saudi sale. But
Capitol Hill sources said Tuesday
that Sen. Richard Lugar (R —
Ind.), chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, had report
edly recommended that the pro
posal be sent to Congress at this time.
There were witnesses who told lies
and I remained silent.” The Ten
nessean reported that Mann
passed both polygraph and psy
chological stress evaluator tests
“with flying colors.”
Earlier reports that Conley had,
on at least one occasion, possibly
two, confessed to the crime were
never widely circulated, and were
unconfirmed.
Mann's revelation brought
broad reaction in both the Jewish
and general community. A WGST
radio newspoll in March of 1982,
which asked the question “Should
the state of Georgia pardon Leo
Frank?” brought a resounding 85
percent “yes” response. A WGST
spokesman said at the time it was
one of the largest percentages they
had ever had. Gubernatorial can
didates in that election year were
almost unanimous in calling for
the state to clear Frank’s name.
It was at that time that Atlanta’s
Jewish community formed a legal
committee under the cooperative
efforts of the Anti-Defamation
League, the American Jewish
Committee and the Atlanta Jewish
Federation to investigate means
which could be taken to exonerate
Frank. For almost two years,
attorneys Dale Schwartz, David
Meltz and Charles Wittenstein
labored mightily to add informa
tion to Alonzo Mann’s testimony
and prepare a petition asking the
State Pardons and Paroles Board
to declare Frank innocent in a full
and complete posthumous pardon.
On Dec. 22, 1983, an expect. £
crowd of reporters, members of I
Jewish community and Alon
Mann gathered at the Capitol
hear the board’s decision.
As reported in The Southi
Israelite of Dec. 30, 1983: “By 3:01
on the afternoon of Dec. 22, it was
all over but the stunned, still not
quite believing, muttering of the
crowd and the tough questions of
reporters trying to discover some
logic for the typed press release in
their hands.” The pardon had been
denied.
The release included these
words: “In accepting the applica
tion. the board informed the appli
cants that the only grounds upon
which the board would grant a full
pardon exonerating Leo M. Frank
of the murder for which he was
convicted, would be conclusive
evidence proving beyond any
doubt that Frank was innocent.”
The statement also referred to
briefs submitted in opposition to
the pardon, and cited the impossi
bility, after 70 years, of recon
structing events of the day, with no
living witnesses other than Alonzo
Mann.
The concluding paragraph of
the release said: “For the board to
grant such a pardon,the innocence
of the subject must be show n con
clusively. Therefore, the board
hereby denies the application for a
posthumous pardon for Leo M.
Frank.”
See Leo Frank, page 3.
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