During Israel's War for Independence in 1948, Schwimmer helped to smuggle airplanes to the Jewish State by means of establishing various false companies, including one which masqueraded as an official airline of Panama, to obtain planes and smuggle them to Israel. He was convicted in 1950, but not jailed, of violating the U.S. Neutrality Act. The conviction stripped him of his civil rights, including the right to vote.

Israel's Prime Minister David Ben Gurion subsequently invited Schwimmer to come to Israel to start an aircraft industry, a project that grew into Israel Aircraft Industries.

Schwimmer, 83, told the Jerusalem Report in an exclusive interview that he never had asked for a pardon because "you have to express regret for what you did." However, he said, without asking him for permission, a member of the Hank Greenspun family of Las Vegas, Nev. filled out the paperwork in his behalf and sent it off to the U.S. Justice Department. Greenspun, the former Las Vegas Sun publisher who died in 1989, also was convicted of violating the Neturality Act by smuggling arms to Israel, but was pardoned by President John F. Kennedy in 1961-- 
Donald H. Harrison