Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Well deserved. Charles Winters ran arms to the Jewish Community of Palestine in the late 1940's. I linked to the story back in September: Son Seeks Pardon for Protestant Bostonian Who Sought to Arm Unarmed Jews. The link to the original article is expired, but can be found here.
George Bush has indeed included Charles Winters in his ongoing list of pardons:
...Winters, who died in the 1980s in Florida, was in the airplane business after World War II. He bought up former military cargo planes and used them to transport fruit and other products. He later started helping his Jewish friends who were shipping arms to Jews trying to found their own state in the Middle East.
Winters, a Protestant from Boston, could fly his planes in and out of the region without interference from authorities. In 1948, three of his planes left Miami, picked up weapons in Azores and Czechoslovakia and then left the planes and arms in Palestine.
Winters was convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, fined $5,000 and sentenced to serve 18 months in prison. The act is designed to ensure that financial assistance and arms are not provided to parties in foreign conflicts where the U.S. has not taken sides.
Two others, Herman Greenspun and Al Schwimmer, also were convicted of violating the act, but they did not serve time. President Kennedy pardoned Greenspun in 1961. President Clinton pardoned Schwimmer in 2000...
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