Spokesmen for the John Birch Society reportedly disassociated themselves here from a Boston backer of George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party, who had planned to open a “Joe McCarthy” bookshop here. The John Birch leaders took action against the bookshop plan after “amazement” over the reported tie-in with Rockwell had been expressed in a statement by the Jewish Community Council here and the New England region of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League.
The bookshop plan had been announced by Speros Lagoulis, identified by the Boston Herald as an associate of Rockwell who, in 1961, was fined $25 here for helping Rockwell register at a Boston hotel under a false name. Lagoulis had been a “coordinator” for the John Birch Society. His Birch membership has, since, been revoked, according to a report here.
The Community Council-ADL statement pointed cut that Robert Welch, leader of the Birch Society, had declared publicly: “I am not anti-Semitic, never could be, and never would allow the John Birch Society to become an agency or even a haven of anti-Semitic feelings.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
