Neo-Nazi Tabloid Angers Residents

Despite residents' complaints about the distribution of a neo-Nazi newspaper in parts of Cambridge, police said yesterday that the delivery did not violate civil rights laws.

Copies of the The New Order, a bimonthly 12-page tabloid, were distributed to homes in Cambridgeport and West Cambridge last week. The issue featured such articles as "Meltdown U.S.A." and "My Aryan Family."

The newspaper also had advertisements for books like "Who's Who in the World Zionist Conspiracy" and "Adolf Hitler--The Unknown Artist," as well as swastika stickers bearing messages such as "Fight Crime...Deport Niggers," "White Power!" and "Want Oil? Nuke Israel."

Though neighborhood residents expressed anger and dismay about the distribution of the newspapers, Cambridge Detective Frank Pasquarello said the police will not investigate the matter further.

"Apparently, there wasn't anything going against anyone's civil rights...We can't press charges for literature which hurts someone's feelings," Pasquarello said.

He said the police consulted representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union before deciding to end the investigation. The police do not know who distributed the newspaper, Pasquarello said.

According to Sally Greenberg, counsel for the Anti-Defamation League of New England, the newspaper is published by Chicago resident Gerhardt Lauck, "the largest distributor of neo-Nazi propaganda in what was the former West Germany."

In an interview yesterday, Greenberg said Lauck had been arrested in West Germany in 1972 for distributing neo-Nazi literature. He was expelled from West Germany in 1974 after giving a pro-Hitler speech.

Greenberg said she did not believe the distribution violated any civil rights laws. She speculated that "the only potential illegality is that [the newspapers] were placed in mailboxes without postage."

Greenberg said that whoever distributed the newspaper probably targeted specific neighborhoods where they would "cause a sensation."

"Right now people are a little nervous. They see what's happening in Europe--skin-head riots. It puts particular fear in people that there are [neo-Nazis] right here in our community," Greenberg said.

Residents Angered

Marylou Flood, a Black resident of the Porter Square neighborhood, said the distribution of the neo-Nazi papers surprised her.

"I hadn't thought that they'd be around in this neighborhood. There are Black people in this neighborhood," Flood said. "The whole paper is offensive...I don't like to see that kind of writing because some people will be affected by it."