No Shenanigans

The ad, which ran in Atlanta newspapers last week, sounded like a joke, but it was not meant to be: ". . . Apartments for young married vets who have been crowding their in-laws since V-J Day. Average rentals less than $50 a month . . . You don't have to know Joe to get a unit. There are no shenanigans, if you want one ... Priorities: 1) Ex-POW's; 2) Purple Heart Vets; 3) Overseas Vets; 4) Vets; 5) Civilians.

"As tenants, we prefer Ex-GI's, and Marines and enlisted personnel of the Navy. Ex-Air Corps men may apply if they'll quit telling us how they won the war. Ex-Brass is acceptable only if well tarnished . . . Restricted clientele: This project is restricted to folks who understand the Sermon on the Mount, believe in the Ten Commandments and practice the Golden Rule. These apartments were built with Uncle Sam's and our dough. Neither Uncle Sam nor we want tenants who are members of subversive, anti-American hate organizations like the Ku Klux Klan . . ."

The man who placed the ad is Dr. Alfred Weinstein, an Atlanta physician who spent 3-1/2 years in a Japanese prison camp and a year recuperating in U.S. Army hospitals (where he turned out a capable book, Barbed-Wire Surgeon). Japanese prison guards fractured his windpipe, broke one of his arms, blasted his ears. A year ago, convinced that Atlanta wasn't doing enough by the veterans, he borrowed more than $600,000 (most of it from FHA), teamed with a contractor friend and built a 140-unit project. This week the first 28 tenants moved in. After the ad appeared, Dr. Weinstein got 80 congratulatory calls, and "a couple of guys called me up and tried to talk tough. I don't know whether they were Klansmen or not. I gave them my office and my home address and I told them I still had the .45 I used to shoot carabao with."

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