Chronology of George Lincoln Rockwell

"I knew I would not live to see the victory
which I would make possible,
but I would not die before
I had made that victory certain."

-- This Time The World (ch. 15), G.L. Rockwell

Below is a timeline of significant events in the life of American National Socialist George Lincoln Rockwell.

1918–1945: Early Life and Service in WWII

Rockwell with his Icelandic second wife, Thora, and children in 1958

George Lincoln Rockwell at a Nation of Islam meeting in 1962. Behind him are Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.

Rockwell confronting Martin Luther King Jr., 1960s

George Lincoln Rockwell for Governor of Virginia in 1965

Campaign flyers of George Lincoln Rockwell’s bid for Governor of Virginia in 1965

Rockwell from April 1966 Playboy interview

Rockwell during a speech at Drake University in early 1967

The New York Daily News 'Sniper Slays Nazi Rockwell', August 26, 1967

Matt Koehl (right) at a commemoration in Arlington, Virginia, in 1997 for the 30th anniversary of George Lincoln Rockwell’s assassination.

1918

• March 9 - George Lincoln Rockwell is born in Bloomington, Illinois to parents George Lovejoy Rockwell and Claire Schade Rockwell.

1919-1937

• Travels with his vaudeville parents in Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, California, but mostly lives in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

1937

• Rockwell attends a prep school, Hebron Academy, Lewiston, Maine and is introduced to liberal and communist ideas.

1938

• September 21 - Rockwell enters Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island during a hurricane.

1941

• March 15 - Rockwell enlists in U.S. Navy at Boston, Massachusetts as Seaman 2nd Class and attends flight school.
• June 12 - Rockwell is appointed Aviation Cadet, U.S. Naval Reserve
• December 7 - The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor.
• December 23 - Rockwell is commissioned as Ensign (Naval Aviator).

1942

• October 1 - Rockwell is promoted in rank to Lieutenant, junior grade.
• Rockwell flies from the USS Omaha, the Wasp, and was Senior Aviator aboard the Mobile.

1943

• April 24 - While on furlough from service, Rockwell marries his college sweetheart Judith Aultman in Barrington, Rhode Island.
• October 1 - Rockwell is promoted in rank to full Lieutenant

1944

• July - August - Rockwell was Air Support Commander at Guadalcanal and during invasion of Guam.
• August - Rockwell is stationed in Brazil with the U.S. Naval Mission.

1945

• August 15 - The Japanese surrender (VJ Day)
• October 3 - Rockwell is promoted to Lieutenant Commander.
• November 22 - He is released from active duty as Commanding Officer of SOSU-1, Pearl Harbor, having earned nine decorations.

1945–1958: A Small Businessman and Navy Commander Turns to Politics

1945

• Rockwell and his wife settle in East Boothbay, Maine.

1946

• May or June - Rockwell opens a business, Maine PhotoArt Service.
• Fall - Family moves to Mount Vernon, New York.
• Fall - First child Bonnie is born.
• Fall - Takes classes in commercial art at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.

1947

• Summer - Rockwell returns to his business in East Boothbay
• Fall - Continues studies at Pratt in New York City.

1948

• Rockwell is awarded a national prize by the "New York Society of Illustrators", for creating an ad for the American Cancer Society.

1949

• Rockwell starts "Maine Advertising, Inc." in Portland, Maine.
• Family move to Lewiston, Maine.
• Second child, Nancy, is born.

1950

• The family moves back to Portland, Maine.
• Rockwell starts "Rockwell Publishing Company, Inc." and publishes a tourist guides called The Olde Maine Guide and What Next?
• June 25 - The Korean War begins.
• September 26 - The U.S. Navy recalls Rockwell to active duty as a Lieutenant Commander. He is to report to San Diego within ten days, where he will train new pilots at the Air Support School.
• Rockwell's wife and two children move in with Judy’s grandmother in Hadlyme, Connecticut; later the family is reunited in San Diego.

1951

• April 11 - President Truman relives General Douglas MacArthur of command of United Nations troops in Korea.
• In San Diego, Rockwell is introduced to anti-Jewish political newspapers like Common Sense
• Rockwell becomes politically active in the "Draft General Douglas MacArthur for President" campaign.
• Attends a speech by Gerald L.K. Smith in Los Angeles, California.
• Reads the Protocols and finds a copy of Mein Kampf in a San Diego used bookstore.
• Becomes a National Socialist after being inspired by the words of Adolf Hitler.
• Rockwell is inspired to write his first “political” work, The Fable of the Ducks and the Hens.
• Rockwell's third daughter, Phoebe-Jean, is born in the San Diego Naval Hospital.

1952

• November - Rockwell receives orders to report to Norfolk, Virginia, and learns his next Naval assignment will be Iceland. Iceland did not permit families to join the servicemen stationed there. Judy and the children move near her mother’s home in Barrington, Rhode Island. They later divorce.
• Before going to Iceland, Rockwell tells his cousin, Pete Smyth, of "the need for an American Nazi Party".
• In Iceland, Rockwell reads Mein Kampf a dozen times
• Begins to correspond with writers published in the nationalist newspapers The American Mercury and Common Sense.
• Rockwell meets Thora Hallgrimsson at a diplomatic party in Reykjavik, Iceland.

1953

• In 1953 Rockwell is divorced from his first wife
• July 27 - An armistice is signed, ending the Korean War.
• October 3 - Rockwell marries Thora Hallgrimsson at the National Cathedral in Reykjavik. They honeymoon in Berchtesgaden, Germany (near site of Hitler's mountain retreat).

1954

• January 9 - Rockwell is promoted to the rank of full Commander, a title he would later use during his political career.
• May - Rockwell's first son, Lincoln Hallgrimmur Rockwell, is born at the base hospital in Iceland.
• August 28 - Rockwell and family are relocated from Iceland to the naval air station in Brunswick, Maine.
• October 20 - Released from active duty with the rank Commander
• December 15 - Returns to civilian life.

1955

• Rockwell, Thora, her son from a previous marriage Fridthrik (whom they called "Rickey"), and infant son Lincoln move to Bailey's Island, Maine.
• The family moves to an old plantation home in Virginia near Warrenton, outside of Washington D.C.
• September, 1955 - Rockwell commutes to Washington to work on his new women’s magazine U.S. Lady.
• They find a small apartment on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C.
• A daughter Jeannie Margaret, was born at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington. [2]
• Rockwell forms an organization in an attempt to unite the right-wing, called the American Federation of Conservative Organizations. He envisions a national newspaper based in Washington D.C. called the Conservative Times.

1956

• July 4 - the American Federation of Conservative Organizations holds its last meeting.
• Summer - Rockwell and family moves to Memphis, Tennessee
• For a several months Rockwell works for Robert Snowden’s organization "Americans for Constitutional Action".

1957

• Rockwell and family move to New York City, where he works on the staff of The American Mercury with Russell Maguire as editor. In 1957 he writes three articles for the magazine:
• "No Wonder Iceland Hates Us!" Jan. 1957.
  • "Who Wants Panty-Waist Marines?" April 1957,
    • "The Miracle at Paris Island" May 1957.

1958

• In the summer of 1958, Rockwell and future political colleague Matt Koehl work on the Alabama gubernatorial campaign of Admiral John G. Crommelin.
• Rockwell meets DeWest Hooker, a wealthy businessman, who encourages him to start a National Socialist organization and to openly attack the Jews.
• March 1958 - Rockwell's fabricates an article he titles "National Socialist Vivisection of Jews", the contents of which have no basis in fact whatsoever. He uses the pen-name "Lew Cor" (Roc Wel backwards). The unedited article appears in Sir!, a popular men's magazine. Rockwell writes the fake article to demonstrate that "the Jews would publish anything critical of National Socialists".
• May 10 - With the help of financial backer Harold N. Arrowsmith, Jr., Rockwell forms the "National Committee to Free America from Jewish Domination". He sets up the operation in a house located at 6512 Williamsburg Blvd, in Arlington, Virginia. [3]
• July 27 - Rockwell stages his first public protest in front of the White House, representing The National Committee to Free America from Jewish Domination ,with a sign which read "SAVE IKE FROM THE KIKES."[4] Similar protests occur in Atlanta outside the Constitution and Journal newspaper and in Louisville, Kentucky. These protests appeared to have been staged to impress Arab leaders in order to obtain future financing.
• July 29 or 30 - Arrowsmith introduces Rockwell to Egypt’s head of secret service.
• October 12 - The Atlanta synagogue is bombed. Newspapers allege Rockwell and his group may have been involved. [5]
• October - Harold Arrowsmith ends his finacial support of Rockwell.
• Late 1958 - Thora and the children move back to Iceland.

1959–1967: "American Nazi Party"

1959

• February 6 - Rockwell sends a register letter to Nasser of Egypt presumably to seek support for his planed activities.
• March - Rockwell forms the "World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists" and receives a 18-foot-long swastika banner in the mail from supporter James K. Warner.
• December - Changes the name of his group to the American Nazi Party and moves his headquarters to a building purchased by supporter Floyd Fleming at 928 North Randolph Street in Arlington, Virginia.

1960

• February 1 - Rockwell appears before a hearing held by the Department of the Navy, which accuses him of improperly using his Naval rank of Commander "to foster racial and religious hatred". The Secretary of the Navy had recommended he be removed from the Naval Reserves. Rockwell had two witnesses who appeared on his behalf: one was his Deputy Commander J.V. Kenneth Morgan who spoke to Rockwell’s attitude toward Blacks and the other was Benjamin Freedman who spoke to Rockwell’s views toward Jews.
• February 5 - Discharged from the Naval Reserve a few months short of the twenty years necessary to receive military retirement benefits.
• March 19 - Attends the national convention of the National State's Rights Party in Dayton, Ohio.
• April 3 - Holds his first American Nazi Party (ANP) rally on the National Mall in Washington, between Constitution Ave. and 9th Steet, between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.
• May - The National Socialist Bulletin is first issued.[6] It later becomes The Stormtrooper Magazine. [7]
• June - Photo of Rockwell at an ANP rally in Washington D.C.[8]
• June 22 - Rockwell argues before a court in New York for a permit to stage a rally at Union Square on July 4th. After the hearing, Rockwell gives a press conference and is assaulted by a gang of Jews in the presence of the news media. Rockwell is later indicted for "incitement to riot" on a warrant which remained open for years.[9]
• June 23 - Rockwell is escorted out of New York City, failing to get his permit for the rally. [10]
• July 3 - The "Riot on the Mall": Rockwell and seventeen supporters are arrested outside of the U.S. District Court building.
• July 4 - Rockwell is committed to thirty days "observation" in D.C. General Hospital's psychiatric ward. [11]
• July 26 - Stands trial in District of Columbia Municipal Court.
• August 4 - Released from psychiatric ward, Rockwell is judged "sane".
• November - John F. Kennedy is elected president over Richard Nixon in a tight election, despite apparent voter-fraud in Illinois.

1961

• January 15 - Rockwell and three other party members picket outside a Boston movie theater showing Exodus, a strongly philo-Semitic film. Police take the four into protective custody to prevent violence from an angry crowd of 10,000 protesters.[12] [13]
• March 14 - Rockwell obtains legal statue in the state of Virginia for the American Nazi Party.
• May - Rockwell begins a tour of the South, bound for New Orleans to confront the heavily-Jewish Freedom Riders, persons then travelling through the South agitating for Integration. On the sides of Rockwell's bus are signs which read "LINCOLN ROCKWELL'S HATE BUS," "WE DO HATE RACE MIXING" and "WE HATE JEW-COMMUNISM."[14]
• May 23 - Rockwell and his bodyguard Roy James fly into New Orleans to picket outside the movie premier of Exodus.[15]
• May 24 - Rockwell and James are arrested outside the theater due to pressure from local Jews. The police also arrest the remaining stormtroopers: Seth Ryan, John Patler, Roy James, Charles Beveridge, Tony Wells, Paul Dukel, Andrew Chappell, Ralph Hassinger and Robert Johnson. [16]
• June 1 - Released from New Orleans jail on bail.
• June 13 - The trial begins in New Orleans and lasts two days. All ten of Rockwell's supporters are convicted on criminal mischief charges and sentenced to 30 to 60 days in jail. The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the criminal mischief statute.
• June 25 - Rockwell and 20 other party members attend a Nation of Islam rally in Washington D.C., in an attempt to form an alliance.[17]
• September 17 - The local paper Virginian Pilot runs a major feature on Rockwell and the American Nazi Party, breaking the American Jewish Committee’s “quarantine” policy on Rockwell.
• October - The first Rockwell Reports appears.
• October 15 - Rockwell is divorced from his second wife.

1962

• January - Rockwell again applies for a permit to hold a rally (rejected in 1960) -- this time on April 20, Hitler’s birthday -- in New York City at Union Square. The permit is denied.
• January - Rockwell publishes his autobiography, This Time the World.
• Jewish pressure increases for the media to "quarantine" Rockwell.
• February 2 - Rockwell and a few uniformed stormtroopers address a jeering crowd in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
• February 25 - Rockwell speaks in Chicago before twelve-thousand Nation of Islam followers at their "Savior’s Day" convention.[18] Joseph Beauharnais, leader of Chicago's White Circle League also spoke at the gathering.
• March - Rockwell travels to Los Angeles, California and tries to organize a chapter of the ANP.
• March 8 - Rockwell is punched in the jaw by, Ed Cherry, a Jewish a student at San Diego State College during a speech. [19] [20]
• June 16 - Rockwell addresses a private audience at the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago of the Institute for Biopolitics hosted by Max Nelsen.
• July 29 - Rockwell enters England via Ireland, to meet with several National-Socialist leaders.
• July to August - Rockwell and European National-Socialists form the World Union of National Socialists.
• August 5 - The protocol known as the Cotswold Agreements is signed by National-Socialist representatives from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Belgium.
• August 7 - Rockwell is ordered deported from Great Britain by Scotland Yard but can’t be found. [21]
• August 8 - Rockwell is arrested in England and taken to Canon Row Prison. The next day he is deported. [22]
• August 28 - Rockwell travels to Montreal and announces his support for Real Caouette, the Quebec Social Credit Party leader.
• September 20 Virginia grants Rockwell a state charter in the name of the George Lincoln Rockwell Party. Earlier that year the General Assemble of Virginia rescinded the charter it had granted under the name American Nazi Party.
• October 9 - Rockwell speaks before a student audience at Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.
• October 12 - Rockwell’s stormtroopers protest the city of Philadelphia for allowing American Communist Party leader Gus Hall to speak at a hotel. Five stormtroopers are arrested for disorderly conduct and later sentenced to 30 days in jail.
• October 13 - Rockwell meets with ANP members and supporters at their Chicago headquarters.

1963

• February 14 - Rockwell speaks at the University of Virginia. [23]
• February 25 - Speaks at the University of Chicago.
• April 33 - Rockwell is turndown by the State of Virginia to get the name "American Nazi Party" officially charted and recognized. In 1962 the Assembly of Virginia prohibited the use of the name "Nazi" or "National Socialist" in any state charter. Rockwell would later have the American Nazi Party charted as the George Lincoln Rockwell Party.
• April 20 - Rockwell and others hold a memorial service at the grave of Senator Joe McCarthy in Wisconsin.
• July 4 - Rockwell speaks in front of City Hall in Richmond, Virginia.
• July 13 - Speaks in Gordonsville, Virginia, among other stops in Virginia. The purpose of these rural speeches in Virginia was to rally whites to counter-protest Martin Luther King’s “March on Washington” which was held in August.
• August 22 - Speaks in Charlottesville, Virginia.
• August 28 - Rockwell and 87 supporters gather at the Washington Monument early in the morning to protest MLK’s "I Have a Dream” speech scheduled later that day. They are not in uniform and have no signs. Rockwell is not permited to speak and returns to Arlington.
• September 11 - Rockwell is interviewed by researcher on political extremism Gordon Hall. [24]
• November 22 - Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

1964

• February 20 - Rockwell speaks at the Kansas Memorial Union Ballroom hosted by Laird Wilcox [25]. Wilcox would later become an expert and authority on all forms of political extremism.
• June - Rockwell meets with Christian Identity minister Wesley Swift and begins thinking of developing a party front group based upon Christian Identity teachings.
• September 29 - Rockwell files a law suite for libel against Ed Fields of the National States Rights Party in Birmingham, Alabama Federal Court asking for $550,000 in damages.
• October 13 - Rockwell speaks at the University of Michigan with the usual heckling and egg throwing.
• October 29 - Rockwell speaks to students a San Francisco State and receives the "silent treatment" from the audience. No one applauds or heckles or asks any questions.

1965

• January 18 - Rockwell personally confronts Martin Luther King during an NAACP voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama.[26] Both Rockwell and King agree to hold a debate later that evening. Rockwell is barred from the evening meeting because King was supposedly assaulted earlier that day by National State's Rights Party activist James Robinson.
• February 4 - Rockwell speaks at State University in Geneseo, New York.
• May 9 - Rockwell appears on Michael Jackson’s radio talk show KNX in Los Angeles. [27]
• October 31 - Former ANP party member Daniel Burros is exposed by The New York Times as being Jewish and commits suicide. As a result of this publicity, Playboy magazine seeks an interview with Rockwell.[28]
• November 3 - Rockwell receives approximately 6,500 votes in his independent run for Governor of Virginia.
• November - Rockwell gives a speech at the University of North Dakota.
• December 3 - The American Nazi Party headquarters in Arlington, Virginia is seized by the IRS for failure to pay taxes. [29]
• December 7 - Rockwell speaks before a capacity crowd of 1,400 at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

1966

• February 10 - Rockwell is arrested in New York City on an old disorderly conduct warrant, and is briefly held in the Tombs before he could speak at Columbia University.[30] [31]
• February 18 - The IRS takes the party headquarters and all its contents located on Randolph Street in Arlington. It holds an auction to satisfy a tax lien.
• April - Playboy uses black journalist Alex Haley to interview Rockwell. The interview soon appears on newsstands and attracts a flood of new members and supporters to the party. Rockwell and interviewer Alex Haley (who went on to produce the book and TV series "Roots") maintain a respectful relationship with each other for the rest of Rockwell's life.
• Summer - The ideological journal National Socialist World is first issued. Former physics professor William L. Pierce edits the party journal.
• June - Rockwell is charged with disorderly conduct in New York, and is acquitted with the help of a Jewish lawyer.
• June 27 - Rockwell speaks at Harvard University in Boston.[32]
• July 28 - Rockwell and the Black Panther Stokely Carmichael (who popularized the term "Black Power") debate on WBBM television in Chicago, Illinois.

• July 28 - The term "White Power" is used for the first time by Rockwell during the Carmichael debate.
• August 5 - Rockwell and a White group of 2,500 confront Martin Luther King’s March for Fair Housing in Chicago.
• August 21 - Rockwell speaks at a 3,000-strong rally at Marquette Park in Chicago.
• Late August to Early September - Rockwell leads supporters in disrupting and heckling Martin Luther King’s "open housing" demonstrations in Chicago. During this period Rockwell is arrested twice.
• September 10 - Rockwell organizes the "White People's March" in Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. Hundreds of whites marched under the swastika banner. Also that day he speaks at the Chicago Coliseum in Chicago, Illinois.
• October 21 - Rockwell gives interview with local radio station KPFA in Berkeley California. [33]
• November 30 - Rockwell speaks at his alma mater, Brown University.[34]

1967

• January 1 - The "National Socialist White People's Party" is formed, replacing the "American Nazi Party".
• February 8 - Rockwell speaks at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. [35]
• February 9 - Rockwell speaks at the University of Minnesota.
• February 13 - Speaks at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. [36]
• April 4 - Speaks at Michigan State University [37]
• May 15 - A Chicago jury finds Rockwell guilty of "disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and obstructing a peace officer", relating to the city’s civil rights unrest in the summer of 1966. The next day, he is sentenced to 3 months in jail and fined $500.[38]
• May 16 - George Lincoln Rockwell speaks at UCLA This speech was unprecedented for Rockwell since this time he followed a showing of the documentary film classic Triumph of the Will which was viewed by the student audience.
• June 9 - June 11, 1967 - A re-organizational party conference is held in Arlington, Virginia.
• July 1967 - The party's newspaper White Power is first issued, eventually replacing The Stormtrooper Magazine.
• August 25 - On a Friday, at two minutes before noon, George Lincoln Rockwell is assassinated by John Patler in a parking lot in Arlington, Virginia.

See also

• List of Rockwellian National Socialist organizations
• Chronology of Sir Oswald Mosley

Further reading

• Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party, by William H. Schmaltz (1999)
• American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party, by Frederick James Simonelli (1999)

External links

• This Time the World by George Lincoln Rockwell (text)