Justice Jackson’s Letter to President Harry S Truman
Text from www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jackson/jack08.htm
THE PRESIDENT,
June 6, 1945.
The
White House,
Washington, D. C.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
I
have the honor to report accomplishments during the month since you named me as
Chief of Counsel for the United States in prosecuting the principal Axis War Criminals.
In brief, I have selected staffs from the several services, departments and
agencies concerned; worked out a plan for preparation, briefing, and trial of
the cases; allocated the work among the several agencies; instructed those
engaged in collecting or processing evidence; visited the European theater to
expedite the examination of captured documents, and the interrogation of
witnesses and prisoners; coordinated our preparation of the main case with
preparation by Judge Advocates of many cases not included in my
responsibilities; and arranged cooperation and mutual assistance with the
United Nations War Crimes Commission and with Counsel appointed to represent
the United Kingdom in the joint prosecution.
The
responsibilities you have conferred on me extend only to "the case of
major criminals whose offenses have no particular geographical localization and
who will be punished by joint decision of the governments of the Allies",
as provided in the Moscow
Declaration of November 1, 1943, by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister
Churchill and Premier Stalin. It does not include localized cases of any kind.
Accordingly, in visiting the European theater, I attempted to establish standards
to segregate from our case against the principal offenders, cases against many
other offenders and to expedite their trial. These cases fall into three
principal classes:
1.
The first class comprises offenses against military personnel of the United States
such, for example, as the killing of American airmen who crash-landed, and
other Americans who became prisoners of war. In order to insure effective
military operation, the field forces from time immemorial have dealt with such
offenses on the spot. Authorization of this prompt procedure, however, had been
withdrawn because of the fear of stimulating retaliation through execution of
captured Americans on trumped-up charges. The surrender of Germany and
liberation of our prisoners has ended that danger. The morale and safety of our
own troops and effective government of the control area seemed to require
prompt resumption of summary dealing with this type of case. Such proceedings
are likely to disclose evidence helpful to the case against the major criminals
and will not prejudice it in view of the measures I have suggested to preserve
evidence and to prevent premature execution of those who are potential
defendants or witnesses in the major case.
I
flew to Paris and Frankfort and conferred with Generals Eisenhower, Smith,
Clay, and Betts, among others, and arranged to have a representative on hand to
clear questions of conflict in any particular case. We also arranged an
exchange of evidence between my staff and the Theater Judge Advocate's staff.
The officials of other countries were most anxious to help. For example, the
French brought to General Donovan and me in Paris evidence that civilians in
Germany had beaten to death with wrenches three American airmen. They had
obtained from the German Burgomeister identification of the killers, had taken
them into custody, and offered to deliver them to our forces. Cases such as
this are not infrequent. Under the arrangements perfected, the military
authorities are enabled to move in cases of this class without delay. Some are
already under way; some by now have been tried and verdicts rendered. Some
concentration camp cases are also soon to go on trial.
2.
A second class of offenders, the prosecution of which will not interfere with
the major case, consists of those who, under the Moscow Declaration, are to be
sent back to the scene of their crimes for trial by local authorities. These
comprise localized offenses or atrocities against persons or property, usually
of civilians of countries formerly occupied by Germany. The part of the United
States in these cases consists of the identification of offenders and the
surrender on demand of those who are within our control.
The
United Nations War Crimes Commission is especially concerned with cases of this
kind. It represents many of the United Nations, with the exception of Russia.
It has been usefully engaged as a body with which the aggrieved of all the
United Nations have recorded their accusations and evidence. Lord Wright,
representing Australia, is the Chairman of this Commission, and Lt. Col. Joseph
V. Hodgson is the United States representative.
In
London, I conferred with Lord Wright and Colonel Hodgson in an effort to
coordinate our work with that of the Commission wherever there might be danger
of conflict or duplication. There was no difficulty in arriving at an
understanding for mutual exchange of information. We undertook to respond to
requests for any evidence in our possession against those listed with the
Commission as criminals and to cooperate with each of the United Nations in
efforts to bring this class of offenders to justice.
Requests
for the surrender of persons held by American forces may present diplomatic or
political problems which are not my responsibility. But so far as my work is
concerned, I advised the Commission, as well as the appropriate American
authorities, that there is no objection to the surrender of any person except
on grounds that we want him as a defendant or as a witness in the major case.
3.
In a third class of cases, each country, of course, is free to prosecute
treason charges in its own tribunals and under its own laws against its own
traitorous nationals, Quislings, Lavals, "Lord Haw-Haws", and the
like.
The
consequence of these arrangements is that preparations for the prosecution of
major war criminals will not impede or delay prosecution of other offenders. In
these latter cases, however, the number of known offenses is likely to exceed
greatly the number of prosecutions, because witnesses are rarely able satisfactorily
to identify particular soldiers in uniform whose acts they have witnessed. This
difficulty of adequately identifying individual perpetrators of atrocities and
crimes makes it the more important that we proceed against the top officials
and organizations responsible for originating the criminal policies, for only
by so doing can there be just retribution for many of the most brutal acts.
Over
a month ago the United States proposed to the United Kingdom, Soviet Russia and
France a specific plan, in writing, that these four powers join in a protocol
establishing an International Military Tribunal, defining the jurisdiction and
powers of the tribunal, naming the categories of acts declared to be crimes,
and describing those individuals and organizations to be placed on trial.
Negotiation of such an agreement between the four powers is not yet completed.
In
view of the immensity of our task, it did not seem wise to await consummation
of international arrangements before proceeding with preparation of the
American case. Accordingly, I went to Paris, to American Army Headquarters at
Frankfort and Wiesbaden, and to London, for the purpose of assembling,
organizing, and instructing personnel from the existing services and agencies
and getting the differ-ent organizations coordinated and at work on the
evidence. I uniformly met with eager Cooperation.
The
custody and treatment of war criminals and suspects appeared to require
immediate attention. I asked the War Department to deny those prisoners who are
suspected war criminals the privileges which would appertain to their rank if
they were merely prisoners of war; to assemble them at convenient and secure
locations for interrogation by our staff ; to deny them access to the press;
and to hold them in the close confinement ordinarily given suspected criminals.
The War Department has been subjected to some criticism from the press for
these measures, for which it is fair that I should acknowledge responsibility.
The most elementary considerations for insuring a fair trial and for the
success of our case suggest the imprudence of permitting these prisoners to be
interviewed indiscriminately or to use the facilities of the press to convey
information to each other and to criminals yet uncaptured. Our choice is between
treating them as honorable prisoners of war, with the privileges of their
ranks, or to classify them as war criminals, in which case they should be
treated as such. I have assurances from the War Department that those likely to
be accused as war criminals will be kept in close confinement and stem control.
Since a considerable part of our evidence has been assembled in London, I went
there on May 28th with General Donovan to arrange for its examination, and to
confer with the United Nations War Crimes Commission and with officials of the
British Government responsible for the prosecution of war criminals. We had
extended conferences with the newly appointed Attorney-General, the Lord
Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary, the Treasury Solicitor, and others. On May
29th, Prime Minister Churchill announced in the House of Commons that
Attorney-General Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had been appointed to represent the
United Kingdom in the prosecution. Following this announcement, members of my
staff and I held extended conferences with the Attorney-General and his staff.
The sum of these conferences is that the British are taking steps parallel with
our own to clear the military and localized cases for immediate trial, and to
effect a complete interchange of evidence and a coordination -of planning and
preparation of the case by the British and American representatives. Despite
the fact that the prosecution of the major war criminals involves problems of
no mean dimensions, I am able to report that no substantial differences exist
between the United Kingdom representatives and ourselves, and that minor
differences have adjusted easily as one or the other of us advanced the better
reasons for his view.
The
Provisional Government of the French Republic has advised that it accepts in
principle the American proposals for trials before an International Military
Tribunal. It is expected to designate its representative shortly. The
government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, while not yet committed,
has been kept informed of our steps and there is no reason to doubt that it
will unite in the prosecution. We propose to make provision for others of the
United Nations to become adherents to the agreement.
The
time, I think, has come when it is appropriate to outline the basic features of
the plan of prosecution on which we are tentatively proceeding in preparing the
case of the United States.
1.
The American case is being prepared on the assumption that an inescapable
responsibility rests upon this country to conduct an inquiry, preferably in
association with others, but alone if necessary, into the culpability of those
whom there is probable cause to accuse of atrocities and other crimes. We have
many such men in our possession. What shall we do with them? We could, of
course, set them at large without a hearing. But it has cost unmeasured
thousands of American lives to beat and bind these men. To free them without a
trial would mock the dead and make cynics of the living. On the other hand, we
could execute or otherwise punish them without a hearing. But undiscriminating
executions or punishments without definite findings of guilt, fairly arrived
at, would violate pledges repeatedly given, and would not set easily on the
American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride. The only other
course is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as
dispassionate as the times and horrors we deal with will permit, and upon a
record that will leave our reasons and motives clear.
2.
These hearings, however, must not be regarded in the same light as a trial
under our system, where defense is a matter of constitutional right. Fair
hearings for the accused are, of course, required to make sure that we punish
only the right men and for the right reasons. But the procedure of these
hearings may properly bar obstructive and dilatory tactics resorted to by
defendants in our ordinary criminal trials.
Nor
should such a defense be recognized as the obsolete doctrine that a head of
state is immune from legal liability. There is more than a suspicion that this
idea is a relic of the doctrine of the divine right of kings. It is, in any
event, inconsistent with the position we take toward our own officials, who are
frequently brought to court at the suit of citizens who allege their rights to
have been invaded. We do not accept the paradox that legal responsibility
should be the least where power is the greatest. We stand on the principle of
responsible government declared some three centuries ago to King James by Lord
Chief Justice Coke, who proclaimed that even a King is still "under God
and the law".
With
the doctrine of immunity of a head of state usually is coupled another, that
orders from an official superior protect one who obeys them. It will be noticed
that the combination of these two doctrines means that nobody is responsible.
Society as modernly organized cannot tolerate so broad an area of official
irresponsibility. There is doubtless a sphere in which the defense of obedience
to superior orders should prevail. If a conscripted or enlisted soldier is put
on a firing squad, he should not be held responsible for the validity of the
sentence he carries out. But the case may be greatly altered where one has
discretion because of rank or the latitude of his orders. And of course, the
defense of superior orders cannot apply in the case of voluntary participation
in a criminal or conspiratorial organization, such as the Gestapo or the S.S.
An accused should be allowed to show the facts about superior orders. The
Tribunal can then determine whether they constitute a defense or merely
extenuating circumstances, or perhaps carry no weight at all.
3.
Whom will we accuse and put to their defense? We will accuse a large number of
individuals and officials who were in authority in the government, in the
military establishment, including the General Staff, and in the financial,
industrial, and economic life of Germany who by all civilized standards are
provable to be common criminals. We also propose to establish the criminal
character of several voluntary organizations which have played a cruel and
controlling part in subjugating first the German people and then their
neighbors. It is not, of course, suggested that a person should be judged a
criminal merely because he voted for certain candidates or maintained political
affiliations in the sense that we in America support political parties. The
organizations which we will accuse have no resemblance to our political
parties. Organizations such as the Gestapo and the S.S. were direct action
units, and were recruited from volunteers accepted only because of aptitude
for, and fanatical devotion to, their violent purposes.
In
examining the accused organizations in the trial, it is our proposal to
demonstrate their declared and covert objectives, methods of recruitment,
structure, lines of responsibility, and methods of effectuating their programs.
In this trial, important representative members will be allowed to defend their
organizations as well as themselves. The best practicable notice will be given,
that named organizations stand accused and that any member is privileged to
appear and join in their defense. If in the main trial an organization is found
to be criminal, the second stage will be to identify and try before regular
military tribunals individual members not already personally convicted in the
principal case. Findings in the main trial that an organization is criminal in
nature will be conclusive in any subsequent proceedings against individual
members. The individual member will thereafter be allowed to plead only
personal defenses or extenuating circumstances, such as that he joined under
duress, and as to these defenses he should have the burden of proof. There is
nothing novel in the idea that one may lose a part of or all his defense if he
fails to assert it in an appointed forum at an earlier time. In United States
war-time legislation, this principle has been utilized and sustained as
consistent with our concept of due process of law.
4. Our
case against the major defendants is concerned with the Nazi master plan, not
with individual barbarities and perversions which occurred independently of any
central plan. The groundwork of our case must be factually authentic and
constitute a well-documented history of what we are convinced was a grand,
concerted pattern to incite and commit the aggressions and barbarities which
have shocked the world. We must not forget that when the Nazi plans were boldly
proclaimed they were so extravagant that the world refused to take them
seriously. Unless we write the record of this movement with clarity and
precision, we cannot blame the future if in days of peace it finds incredible
the accusatory generalities uttered during the war. We must establish incredible
events by credible evidence.
5.
What specifically are the crimes with which these individuals and organizations
should be charged, and what marks their conduct as criminal?
There
is, of course, real danger that trials of this character will become enmeshed
in voluminous particulars of wrongs committed by individual Germans throughout
the course of the war, and in the multitude of doctrinal disputes which are
part of a lawyer's paraphernalia. We can save ourselves from those pitfalls if
our test of what legally is crime gives recognition to those things which
fundamentally outraged the conscience of the American people and brought them
finally to the conviction that their own liberty and civilization could not
persist in the same world with the Nazi power.
Those
acts which offended the conscience of our people were criminal by standards
generally accepted in all civilized countries, and I believe that we may
proceed to punish those responsible in full accord with both our own traditions
of fairness and with standards of just conduct which have been internationally
accepted. I think also that through these trials we should be able to establish
that a process of retribution by law awaits those who in the future similarly
attack civilization. Before stating these offenses in legal terms and concepts,
let me recall what it was that affronted the sense of justice of our people.
Early
in the Nazi regime, people of this country came to look upon the Nazi
Government as not constituting a legitimate state pursuing the legitimate
objectives of a member of the international community. They came to view the
Nazis as a band of brigands, set on subverting within Germany every vestige of
a rule of law which would entitle an aggregation of people to be looked upon
collectively as a member of the family of nations. Our people were outraged by
the oppressions, the cruelest forms of torture, the large scale murder, and the
wholesale confiscation of property which initiated the Nazi regime within
Germany. They witnessed persecution of the greatest enormity on religious,
political and racial grounds, the breakdown of trade unions, and the
liquidation of all religious and moral influences. This was not the legitimate
activity of a state within its own boundaries, but was preparatory to the
launching of an international course of aggression and was with the evil
intention, openly expressed by the Nazis, of capturing the form of the German
state as an instrumentality for spreading their rule to other countries. Our
people felt that these were the deepest offenses against that International Law
described in the Fourth Hague
Convention of 1907 as including the "laws of humanity and the
dictates of the public conscience".
Once
these international brigands, the top leaders of the Nazi party, the S.S., and
the Gestapo, had firmly established themselves within Germany by terrorism and
crime, they immediately set out on a course of international pillage. They
bribed, debased, and incited to treason the citizens and subjects of other
nations for the purpose of establishing their fifth columns of corruption and
sabotage within those nations. They ignored the commonest obligations of one
state respecting the internal affairs of another. They lightly made and
promptly broke international engagements as a part of their settled policy to
deceive, corrupt, and overwhelm. They made, and made only to violate, pledges
respecting the demilitarized Rhineland, and Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and
Russia. They did not hesitate to instigate the Japanese to treacherous attack
on the United States. Our people saw in this succession of events the
destruction of the minimum elements of trust which can hold the community of
nations together in peace and progress. Then, in consummation of their plan,
the Nazis swooped down upon the nations they had deceived and ruthlessly
conquered them. They flagrantly violated the obligations which states,
including their own, have undertaken by convention or tradition as a part of
the rules of land warfare, and of the law of the sea. They wantonly destroyed
cities like Rotterdam for no military purpose. They wiped out whole
populations, as at Lidice, where no military purposes were to be served. They
confiscated property of the Poles and gave it to party members. They
transported in labor battalions great sectors of the civilian populations of
the conquered countries. They refused the ordinary protections of law to the
populations which they enslaved. The feeling of outrage grew in this country,
and it became more and more felt that these were crimes committed against us
and against the whole society of civilized nations by a band of brigands who
had seized the instrumentality of a state.
I
believe that those instincts of our people were right and that they should
guide us as the fundamental tests of criminality. We propose to punish acts
which have been regarded as criminal since the time of Cain and have been so
written in every civilized code.
In
arranging these trials we must also bear in mind the aspirations with which our
people have faced the sacrifices of war. After we entered the war, and as we
expended our men and our wealth to stamp out these wrongs, it was the universal
feeling of our people that out of this war should come unmistakable rules and
workable machinery from which any who might contemplate another era of
brigandage would know that they would be held personally responsible and would
be personally punished. Our people have been waiting for these trials in the
spirit of Woodrow Wilson, who hoped to "give to international law the kind
of vitality which it can only have if it is a real expression of our moral
judgment."
Against
this background it may be useful to restate in more technical lawyer's terms
the, legal charges against the top Nazi leaders and those voluntary
associations such as the S.S. and Gestapo which clustered about them and were
ever the prime instrumentalities, first, in capturing the German state, and
then, in directing the German state to its spoliations against the rest of the
world.
(a)
Atrocities and offenses against persons or property constituting violations of
International Law, including the laws, rules, and customs of land and naval
warfare. The rules of warfare are well established and generally accepted by
the nations. They make offenses of such conduct as killing of the wounded,
refusal of quarter, ill treatment of prisoners of war, firing on undefended
localities, poisoning of wells and streams, pillage and wanton destruction, and
ill treatment of inhabitants in occupied territory.
(b)
Atrocities and offenses, including atrocities and persecutions on racial or
religious grounds, committed since 1933. This is only to recognize the
principles of criminal law as they are generally observed in civilized states.
These principles have been assimilated as a part of International Law at least
since 1907. The Fourth Hague Convention provided that inhabitants and
belligerents shall remain under the protection and rule of "the principles
of the law of nations, as they result from the usage established among
civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity and the dictates of the public
conscience."
(c)
Invasions of other countries and initiation of wars of aggression in violation
of International Law or treaties.
The
persons to be reached by these charges will be determined by the rule of
liability, common to all legal systems, that all who participate in the
formulation or execution of a criminal plan involving multiple crimes are
liable for each of the offenses committed and responsible for the acts of each
other. All are liable who have incited, ordered, procured, or counseled the
commission of such acts, or who have taken what the Moscow Declaration
describes as "a consenting part" therein.
The
legal position which the United States will maintain, being thus based on the
common sense of justice, is relatively simple and non-technical. We must not
permit it to be complicated or obscured by sterile legalisms developed in the
age of imperialism to make war respectable.
Doubtless
what appeals to men of good will and common sense as the crime which
comprehends all lesser crimes, is the crime of making unjustifiable war. War
necessarily is a calculated series of killings, of destructions of property, of
oppressions. Such acts unquestionably would be criminal except that
International Law throws a mantle of protection around acts which otherwise
would be crimes, when committed in pursuit of legitimate warfare. In this they
are distinguished from the same acts in the pursuit of piracy or brigandage
which have been considered punishable wherever and by whomever the guilty are
caught. But International Law as taught in the Nineteenth and the early part of
the Twentieth Century generally declared that war-making was not illegal and is
no crime at law. Summarized by a standard authority, its attitude was that
"both parties to every war are regarded as being in an identical legal
position, and consequently as being possessed of equal rights." This,
however, was a departure from the doctrine taught by Grotius, the father of
International Law, that there is a distinction between the just and the unjust
war-the war of defense and the war of aggression.
International
Law is more than a scholarly collection of abstract and immutable principles.
It is an outgrowth of treaties or agreements between nations and of accepted
customs. But every custom has its origin in some single act, and every
agreement has to be initiated by the action of some state. Unless we are
prepared to abandon every principle of growth for International Law, we cannot
deny that our own day has its right to institute customs and to conclude
agreements that will themselves become sources of a newer and strengthened
International Law. International Law is not capable of development by
legislation, for there is no continuously sitting international legislature.
Innovations and revisions in International Law are brought about by the action
of governments designed to meet a change in circumstances. It grows, as did the
Common-law, through decisions reached from time to time in adapting settled
principles to new situations. Hence I am not disturbed by the lack of precedent
for the inquiry we propose to conduct. After the shock to civilization of the
last World War, however, a marked reversion to the earlier and sounder
doctrines of International Law took place. By the time the Nazis came to power
it was thoroughly established that launching an aggressive war or the
institution of war by treachery was illegal and that the defense of legitimate
warfare was no longer available to those who engaged in such an enterprise. It
is high time that we act on the juridical principle that aggressive war-making
is illegal and criminal.
The
reestablishment of the principle of unjustifiable war is traceable in many
steps. One of the most significant is the Briand-Kellogg
Pact of 1928, by which Germany, Italy and Japan, in common with
ourselves and practically all the nations of the world, renounced war as an
instrument of national policy, bound themselves to seek the settlement of
disputes only by pacific means, and condemned recourse to war for the solution
of international controversies. Unless this Pact altered the legal status of
wars of aggression, it has no meaning at all and comes close to being an act of
deception. In 1932, Mr. Stimson, as Secretary of State, gave voice to the
American concept of its effect. He said, "War between nations was
renounced by the signatories of the Briand-Kellogg
Treaty. This means that it has become illegal throughout practically
the entire world. It is no longer to be the source and subject of rights. It is
no longer to be the principle around which the duties, the conduct, and the
rights of nations revolve. It is an illegal thing. . . . By that very act, we
have made obsolete many legal precedents and have given the legal profession
the task of re-examining many of its codes and treaties."
This Pact
constitutes only one in a series of acts which have reversed the viewpoint that
all war is legal and have brought International Law into harmony with the
common sense of mankind, that unjustifiable war is a crime. Without attempting
an exhaustive catalogue, we may mention the Geneva Protocol of 1924 for the Pacific
Settlement of International Disputes, signed by the representatives of
forty-eight governments, which declared that "a war of aggression
constitutes ... an international crime". The Eighth Assembly of the League
of Nations in 1927, on unanimous resolution of the representatives of
forty-eight member nations, including Germany, declared that a war of
aggression constitutes an international crime. At the Sixth Pan-American
Conference of 1928, the twenty-one American Republics unanimously adopted a resolution
stating that "war of aggression constitutes an international crime against
the human species."
The
United States is vitally interested in recognizing the principle that treaties
renouncing war have juridical as well as political meaning. We relied upon the
Briand-Kellogg Pact and made it the cornerstone of our national policy. We
neglected our armaments and our war machine in reliance upon it. All violations
of it, wherever started, menace our peace as we now have good reason to know.
An attack on the foundations of international relations cannot be regarded as
anything less than a crime against the international community, which may
properly vindicate the integrity of its fundamental compacts by punishing
aggressors. We therefore propose to charge that a war of aggression is a crime,
and that modern International Law has abolished the defense that those who
incite or wage it are engaged in legitimate business. Thus may the forces of
the law be mobilized on the side of peace.
Any
legal position asserted on behalf of the United States will have considerable
significance in the future evolution of International Law. In untroubled times,
progress toward an effective rule of law in the international community is slow
indeed. Inertia rests more heavily upon the society of nations than upon any
other society. Now we stand at one of those rare moments when the thought and
institutions and habits of the world have been shaken by the impact of world
war on the lives of countless millions. Such occasions rarely come and quickly
pass. We are put under a heavy responsibility to see that our behavior during
this unsettled period will direct the world's thought toward a firmer
enforcement of the laws of international conduct, so as to make war less
attractive to those who have governments and the destinies of peoples in their
power.
I
have left until last the first question which you and the American people are
asking-when can this trial start and how long will it take. I should be glad to
answer if the answer were within my control. But it would be foolhardy to name
dates which depend upon the action of other governments and of many agencies.
Inability to fix definite dates, however, would not excuse failure to state my
attitude toward the time and duration of trial.
I
know that the public has a deep sense of urgency about these trials. Because I,
too, feel a sense of urgency, I have proceeded with the preparations of the
American case before completion of the diplomatic exchanges concerning the
Tribunal to hear it and the agreement under which we are to work. We must,
however, recognize the existence of serious difficulties to be overcome in
preparation of the case. It is no criticism to say that until the surrender of
Germany the primary objective of the military intelligence services was
naturally to gather military information rather than to prepare a legal case
for trial. We must now sift and compress within a workable scope voluminous
evidence relating to a multitude of crimes committed in several countries and
participated in by thousands of actors over a decade of time. The preparation
must cover military, naval, diplomatic, political, and commercial aggressions.
The evidence is scattered among various agencies and in the hands of several
armies. The captured documentary evidence-literally tons of orders, records,
and reports-is largely in foreign languages. Every document and the trial
itself must be rendered into several languages. An immense amount of work is
necessary to bring this evidence together physically, to select what is useful,
to integrate it into a case, to overlook no relevant detail, and at the same
time and at all costs to avoid becoming lost in a wilderness of single
instances. Some sacrifice of perfection to speed can wisely be made and, of
course, urgency overrides every personal convenience and comfort for all of us
who are engaged in this work.
Beyond
this I will not go in prophecy. The task of making this record complete and
accurate, while memories are fresh, while witnesses are living, and while a
tribunal is available, is too important to the future opinion of the world to
be undertaken before the case can be sufficiently prepared to make a creditable
presentation. Intelligent, informed, and sober opinion will not be satisfied
with less.
The
trial must not be protracted in duration by anything that is obstructive or
dilatory, but we must see that it is fair and deliberative and not discredited
in times to come by any mob spirit. Those who have regard for the good name of
the United States as a symbol of justice under law would not have me proceed
otherwise.
May
I add that your personal encouragement and support have been a source of
strength and inspiration to every member of my staff, as well as to me, as we
go forward with a task so immense that it can never be done completely or
perfectly, but which we hope to do acceptably.
Respectfully yours,
ROBERT H. JACKSON
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