Cardinal, Jewish Officials Discuss Artukovic Issue in ‘Friendly’ Talk

Officials of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Manning had what one ADL participant described as “a friendly exchange” Friday over the cardinal’s recent letter expressing hope that the court would show “compassion” for alleged Nazi war criminal Andrija Artukovic.

“We shall continue to be in touch with each other and continue to discuss the matter,” Harvey B. Schechter, regional director of the league, said. “We’re going to maintain contact with each other.”

There was no immediate comment from Msgr. Clement Connolly, the cardinal’s spokesman, who attended the meeting. Also present were Dr. Myra Rosenberg, president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Pacific Southwest regional board, and Maxwell E. Greenberg, the organization’s national honorary chairman.

Friday’s meeting was held despite Manning’s effort last week to ease Jewish community fears in a letter to Rabbi Alfred Wolf of Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

The cardinal, who heads the Los Angeles Archdiocese, had told the rabbi that he did not mean to pass judgment in his original missive to Artukovic’s son, Radoslav.

He said he had simply hoped that the former Croatian interior minister “would merit the compassion of the court and be allowed to return to his family pending the ultimate judgment of the court.”

Wolf and others in the Jewish community noted Manning’s long record of interreligious activities and attempts to spread mutual understanding, saying that they believe that he has clarified his position and that it is time to put their distress over the letter aside.

But Schechter insisted that the cardinal’s soothing letter to Wolf changed “absolutely nothing” and that he still wanted to meet with Manning so that he and other ADL figures could express their unhappiness in person.

Artukovic, who remains in custody at the Long Beach Naval Hospital, has been deemed by U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. to be mentally competent to help his attorneys in a hearing over his possible extradition to Yugoslavia. He is wanted in that country for allegedly ordering mass executions of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies while serving as minister of the interior in Croatia’s Nazi puppet government during World War II.