Robert F Kennedy, South Africa 1966 

 

Prologue

David Israel Shapiro, a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sat alone in his Washington, DC office with a feeling of mounting desperation. In the four years since moving from his native New York to Washington, DC he’d met a lot of attorneys, and that afternoon he’d called them all. The hours passed, the light faded and the heap in his ashtray grew. Begging professional favours for militant fascists was proving to be an arduous business. 

 

It was February 1960 and America’s most prominent Nazi, George Lincoln Rockwell, had pushed freedom of speech to its limits and in the process provoked a fight in downtown Washington, DC. Following his arrest for disorderly conduct he contacted the ACLU knowing they believed in everyone’s right to counsel, no matter what the charge against them. In practice, things were never so simple. Shapiro’s attempts to find him counsel had come to nothing: every attorney in town was suddenly ‘too busy’. Reconciled to defeat, Shapiro put in a final call to Alan Reitman, associate director of the ACLU nationally. 

 

‘Alan, it’s no good,’ Shapiro explained, ‘I can’t find him a lawyer. No one wants to touch this case. I’m sorry…’ 

Reitman cut him short: ‘You’re a lawyer – why the hell can’t you represent him?’

 

Shapiro, a Brooklyn-born Jew, had six million reasons not to represent the self-styled Commander of the American Nazi Party. Reitman knew it, but there were principles at stake and he knew that Shapiro – then aged 32 and already a pugnacious advocate of civil liberties – shared his reverence for the Bill of Rights and would eventually respond in his distinctive forceful style. Still, the verbal arm-wrestle continued: 

‘What? Are you crazy?’ Shapiro shouted, ‘My middle name’s Israel. I’m not going to represent this sonofabitch.’

‘When was the last time you read the Sixth Amendment?’ continued Reitman. ‘Don’t you believe in the right to counsel?’

‘Sure he should have a lawyer,’ agreed Shapiro, ‘but it doesn’t have to be me!’

‘You’re the only one left, so you’re it,’ Reitman said, and put the phone down.

 

Shapiro’s choice was stark: accept the brief and the inevitable vilification that would follow, or abandon all his principles – ethical, professional and intellectual – and leave a man facing trial without counsel. Shapiro took the case.

 

The facts of the matter were straightforward, if repugnant. Earlier that February Rockwell and his sidekick JV Kenneth Morgan – Commander and Deputy Commander of the American Nazi Party – had been distributing hate literature on a street corner not far from the White House. The content was vicious and extreme; the objective was the furtherance of fascism through race-hate and violence. Indicative of the tone was one pamphlet that read: ‘When they snarl “you are Nazis,” we gleefully reply “You’re damned right, and we will shortly give you Jew traitors the gas-chamber, like the Rosenbergs!”’

 

Rockwell and Morgan had distributed pamphlets like these each Saturday for several months without incident. Then, on 6 February 1960, Irving Berman, a contractor from Falls Church, Virginia, arrived at the scene with four friends. Berman’s stated intention was to ‘observe’ Rockwell as he distributed these leaflets. Berman, described by the court as ‘active in Jewish affairs’, had previously been shown one of Rockwell’s pamphlets entitled, ‘White Man! Are you going to be run out of your nation’s Capitol without a fight?’ It espoused a crude ideology: Jews and Negroes were becoming dominant in the District of Columbia, resulting in certain deplorable conditions. The solution, the literature implied, was to resettle blacks in Africa and liquidate those of the Jewish faith.

 

In full view of three local police officers, Berman seized Rockwell’s pamphlets and a scuffle soon ensued. The police responded swiftly: they arrested Morgan and Rockwell. The entire incident lasted just seconds; its implications for Shapiro and his family, however, would drag on for months.

 

The law was on Rockwell’s side: as long as the views expressed in the hate literature were not incitements to action, they were protected by the First Amendment – the right of every American to free speech. Despite his contempt for Rockwell and the views he expressed, Shapiro could not support the suppression of such views by physical attack.

The hearing itself was a formality: it took the judge just 20 minutes to kick the case against Rockwell out of court. His job done, Shapiro began to gather up his papers.

Rockwell, however, wanted the last word. ‘Listen up, Jewboy,’ he said to Shapiro. ‘Just because you got me off, that doesn’t do anything for you. Make sure you understand that I’ll watch as you and all the other Jews go to the gas chamber.’ 

 

He’d gone too far. Shapiro, an intimidating presence even when unprovoked, launched his 200-pound frame at Rockwell and snarled in his face: ‘Step outside this courtroom and say that again…’ Rockwell was no match for Shapiro. He stood and said nothing. ‘Fuck him’ thought Shapiro; he stuffed his briefcase, reached for his cigarettes and barged his way out into the street. 

 

Then the real trouble started. In taking a principled stand for free speech, Shapiro put the basic rights of every American before his own safety and that of his family. But to the press and the world outside, this was somehow underhand – a smart lawyer contriving a clever defence for a worthless human being. Hostilities escalated. Abusive phone calls followed night and day. Jewish War Veterans marched in protest outside Shapiro’s home. During one such incident they smashed his windows, narrowly missing Shapiro’s month-old son Miles with flying shards of glass. 

 

None of the family was spared the taunting. Shapiro’s wife, Carol-Ann, who fully supported his stand for free speech, was also verbally abused. Each day’s mail brought fresh horrors. One day they were sent photos of children killed in Nazi Germany with the message ‘Who’ll protect you when Rockwell does this to your children?’

 

While the Jewish community at large shunned the Shapiros for the next 18 months, those who understood the issues at stake stood by them. Shapiro’s family were steadfast in their support. In time, colleagues and contemporaries who had been hostile at the time also came round, ultimately recognising that as a selfless – and thankless – defence of the legal profession’s noblest principles and the basic rights of free people, few parallels exist. 

 

Shapiro grew all the stronger. He had publicly established himself as a lawyer of high principle and conviction, a tough but compassionate attorney who would never abandon his client regardless of their circumstances, political hue, or potential to damage him personally.