|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j6mH44rWD9yyZf_AZ7YxQDVFL7WwD958KG3O0
Bush Pardons Man Who Gave Israel Arms in 1948 War
[AP] Deb Riechmann - President Bush on Tuesday granted a pardon to a man who helped the Jewish resistance in the 1940s. Charles Winters, who died in the 1980s, was a Protestant from Boston who bought up former military cargo planes after World War II and used them to transport fruit. He later started helping Jewish friends who were shipping arms to Jews trying to found their own state in the Middle East. In 1948, three of his planes left Miami, picked up weapons in the 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. Reginald Brown, an attorney who worked on the Winters pardon, said Bush's pardon "rights a historical wrong and honors Charlie's belief that the creation of the Jewish state was a moral imperative of his time."