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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. 1986 Goal: $8.5 million Miracles Can Happen... $6,600,000 ...when you support the Atlanta Jewish Federation’s 1986 Campaign See pages 6 and 7 for Campaign update Qf’-lt ’