Kindhearted Kareem

Warm, witty and engaging — who was that tall fellow purporting to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the other night?

No, it was Kareem, all right. Charming an audience of about 75 who came to the National Press Club to hear the former UCLA and NBA great discuss his new book, “Brothers in Arms,” Abdul-Jabbar entered the room wearing a broad smile under his bald head. He would flash the smile often.

Absent was the armor of aloofness and occasional hostility he wore before, during and after his remarkable 20-year career with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers.

Not that he doesn’t have his moments. And he is, after all, selling books. But it was still a sight to see Abdul-Jabbar loosen up the crowd with a joke about the reading glasses he needs as opposed to the trademark goggles he wore as a player.

Also a sight is the 7-foot-1 Abdul-Jabbar himself. At 57, retired since 1989, the leading scorer in league history looks terrific, as if he could suit up right now and give those clueless NBA big men a lesson in post play.

The folks in attendance — a demographer’s dream of black and white, male and female covering a wide range of ages (including a former Little League teammate from Brooklyn) — showered Abdul-Jabbar with affection, respect, admiration and, yes, even some love during the Q&A; session. All 72 books made available at the National Press Club were sold.

The audience had been cautioned on the publicity flier that Abdul-Jabbar would sign books but no sports memorabilia, an admonition repeated at the start of the proceedings. The message being, he was here not as a hoops legend but as an author. So after he read an excerpt, a white, middle-aged man with a big belly and an even bigger voice immediately seized the microphone and launched into an animated monologue praising Abdul-Jabbar for his basketball career and specifically, “a Latin term that I thought of tonight — the skysieus hooksieus.”

The skyhook.

Yikes. How would Kareem react to that?

“You’re very kind,” he said to the man, who was wearing a black, orange and green Florida A&M; cap. “Thank you, sir.”

So about the book …

Co-authored with Anthony Walton, “Brothers in Arms” is the story of the 761st Tank Battalion, nicknamed “The Black Panthers,” the only all-black armored unit to fight in World War II. Formed with the purpose of appeasing those who wanted to see the Army integrated, most notably first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the 761st was not supposed to actually fight. Eventually, it was pressed into service out of necessity and became a unit feared by the Germans.

Abdul-Jabbar, an avid student of black history, acknowledged that two other books have been written on the subject. But while attending an event in New York 12 years ago that reunited Holocaust survivors with black soldiers who helped liberate them, he ran into Leonard “Smitty” Smith, an old friend of his father’s who fought with the 761st.

It also inspired Abdul-Jabbar that a documentary film called “Liberators” shown that evening generated significant controversy for allegedly containing several gross inaccuracies. He believed the story needed to be told again.

The subject of exactly which black soldiers helped liberate which Nazi concentration camps has been furiously debated since “Liberators” came out. In what might add more fuel to the controversy, the book claims that not only did the 761st help liberate the camp at Dachau, but “Smitty’s tank was the first tank through the main gate,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

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