Only His Lawyer Knows for Sure

In anticipation of Detective Mark Fuhrman’s testimony in the O.J. Simpson trial, the defense camp alleged that Fuhrman had “a swastika or other Nazi-like symbol” in his possession while at work. Fuhrman’s lawyer said that the only Nazi symbol in Fuhrman’s possession was in a PAUL CONRAD cartoon he had kept on his desk.

The Times asked Conrad, who retired in 1993 and now draws for the Times Syndicate, to comment on the cartoon, which was published Dec. 2, 1992: I never thought I would make Richard Nixon’s enemies list. And I certainly never thought I’d make Detective Mark Fuhrman’s fan list.

I don’t know whether or not he is a racist; those charges are yet to be proved. If they ever are. But in light of the cartoons I have done over the years on the LAPD, I didn’t think I’d ever have a cop for a fan of mine.

Some of those cartoon topics: the beating of Rodney King, the Simi Valley trial verdicts, the police riots in Century City, the riots in South-Central. Not to mention the cartoons I’ve done of my old friend, ex-Chief Daryl Gates. As he himself says, we have a love/hate relationship.

So it was with some amusement that I learned that not only does Fuhrman have a copy on his desk of the “Out of the Ashes” cartoon, but 14 or 15 others that he has collected. Whatever could they be?

At any rate, if the meaning of this cartoon was ambiguous, here’s the intent: Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Spanish, Italian and other European workers were sent back to their home countries to create jobs for the East Germans. Out of this came the rising up of the neo-Nazis, or skinheads, or however you wish to refer to them.

My statement was in protest and anger that the downing of the Wall, hopefully producing freedom for all of Germany, had in fact given rise to the tortured thinking of the past.

There’s no way to know if Fuhrman agrees with my thinking or approves of the upsurge of the Nazi philosophy. Only his lawyer knows for sure.