Page 14-Tuesday, June 10, 1980-The Michigan Daily
Vatican papers
defend pope's
efforts to save
WW II Jews


VATICAN CITY (AP)-The Vatican
has issued a new set of documents
defending the efforts of Pope Pius XII
to help spare Jews from Nazi per-
secution during World War II.
A new book by The Rev. John Morley,
an American priest, contends the pope
made only selected efforts on behalf of
converted Jews. Others, including
German playwright Rolf Hochhuth,
author of "The Deputy," also have
questioned whether the pope did all he
could tohelp.
THE VATICAN CLAIMS in its new
Lance 's
remaining
6 es
dropped
ATLANTA (UPI) - The federal
government officially dropped the six
remaining charges of banking
irregularities against former budget
director Bert Lance yesterday, saying
the cost of retrying him and two co-
defendants was too high.
Prosecutor Edwin Tomko filed the
motion for dismissal in U.S. District
Court. The Justice Department an-
nounced in Washington last week it had
decided against trying Lance, Richard
Carr and H. Jackson Mullins a second
time.
A jury acquitted the three men April
30 on 13 of the 19 counts they had been
indicted on last year. The jury was
deadlocked on five counts of falsifying
bank statements and one accusation of
misapplying bank fund's.
A fourth defendant, Thomas Mitchell,
was acquitted of all charges.
Tomko said in his motion he would
have to sever the cases if he retried
them. He said this would take too much
time and cost both the government and
the defendants too much.
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work that, on occasion, it was unable to
get necessary information. It says, for
instance, that allied troops occupying
Rome prevented its diplomatic couriers
from getting through, delaying for
months a report supplying details on
the Auschwitz gas chambers.
But the Vatican volume contains 685
pages of diplomatic cables, letters and
memorandums taken from the
Vatican's secret archives that paint a
picture of churchmen sheltering Jews.
It also includes correspondence
describing the horrors of deportations
and a direct personal appeal from Pope
Pius to help save the Jews of Hungary.
In the past, material from the
Vatican archives could not be published
until at least 50 years after the fact. But
Vatican officials set aside the rule with
publication 15 years ago of its first
"white paper" on the war years and the
pope's role. Pius' papacy spanned the
years 1939-1958.
THE WEIGHT GIVEN by the
Vatican to countering allegations that
the pope did not do all he could was em-
phasized by a special eight-page slipout
section in the Vatican daily newspaper,
L'Osseryatore Romano.
A San Francisco-born Jesuit, the
Rev. Robert Graham,-who wrote the
special section, contends cooperation
between world Jewish organizations
and the Holy See and between papal
diplomats and local Jewish com-
munities in war-torn Europe "are
eloquent evidence that the Holy See
carried out its humanitarian mission
without regard of religion, nationality,
or race."
In an interview, Graham said close
cooperation between the Vatican and
Jewish organizations was not always
the case. "But the growing experiences
led, in 1944, to an unprecedented
collaboration with world Jewry, in the
defense of the stricken Jewish
population."
WHILE FOCUSING on the Holy See's
efforts on behalf of Jews in Romania,
Czechoslovakia, France, and Hungary,
the new Vatican publication also comes
to the pope's defense regarding a con-
troversial incident in Nazi-occupied
Rome.
On March 24, 1944, German soldiers
executed 334 Italian civilians in reprisal
for the killing of 32 German soldiers
ambushed by partisans in Rome the
day before..
Some critics claim Pope Pius didn't
do enough to stop the executions, but
the documents indicate Vatican of-
ficials were kept in the dark and
requests for information from the
Germans were ignored.

Strawberries

Poliee hold man who
elaims to be gunman
in Jordan shooting

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - The
woman who was with Vernon Jordan
Jr. the night he was shot came out of
hiding yesterday, while in Indianapolis,
police said a man who telephoned them
claiming to be the gunman was taken to
a hospital for a mental examination.
Police Sgt. William Keough said a
man identified as Willie Johnson, 25, of
Indianapolis, told police he wanted to
turn himself in. Johnson was picked up
on a technical holding charge and taken
to Wishard Memorial Hospital for the
examination, Keough said.
FBI PUBLIC information officer
Steve McVey said the agency was ex-
ploring Johnson's statements "among
numerous leads."
"You can't ignore somebody making
an admission like that," McVey said.
"There's always a chance it could be
something, but I don't know that it's
anything to get excited about."
Police said that Johnson probably
would be held in detention at the
hospital until he could appear in court
with preliminary results of the mental
examination.
POLICE WOULD not release any
details of Johnson's personal life. They
said Johnson, like Jordan, is black.

McVey said he hoped additional in-
fbrmation about Johnson would be
available today. Hospital officials
declined to comment.
In Fort Wayne,- meanwhile, Martha
Coleman said she was willing to un-
dergo hypnosis to reconfirm her lack of
involvement in the crime she feels was
a "racialwincident."
OVER THE weekend, an FBI lie
detector test had completely eliminated
Coleman as a suspect in the case, ac-
cording to her attorney Charles
Leonard.
"I am a very private person," said
Coleman, 36. "I like to keep to myself,
and the media has made it impossible
for me to do that. I was never a suspect.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong
time."
Coleman made her comments at a
news conference attended by jour-
nalists selected by her attorney.
Jordan, 44, president of the National
Urban League, was gunned down by a
sniper as he emerged from Coleman's
car in the Marriott Inn parking lot in
the pre-dawn hours of May 29.

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