04 May Dodd on Torture and Nuremberg
04.05.09
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2 Comments
Invoking the legacy of Nuremberg, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) came out yesterday in support of prosecuting members of the Bush administration responsible for waterboarding. His position on prosecutions is interesting in its own right, but I want to use his comments for a different purpose — to plug a collection of letters that his father, Thomas Dodd, wrote to his mother about his experiences as a prosecutor at the IMT:
It’s a wonderful collection, and by all accounts the elder Dodd was an exceptional prosecutor — interrogating such leading figures as Alfred Rosenberg, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Rudolf Hess.
UPDATE: I have edited the post to reflect John Q. Barrett’s comment below. Never trust a publisher!
I read this just recently, it’s quite good.
Kevin, I agree strongly that Tom Dodd’s letters are a great collection well worth reading. But he did not cross-examine Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg IMT trial. Jackson of course did (as did British, Soviet and French prosecutors). The caliber of Jackson’s 3-day CX of Goering is for any reader (or viewer, for there are segments on YouTube) to assess, but note that Tom Dodd’s letters first, in real time, praise Jackson’s CX and then grow more critical as that becomes a story line in non-contemporaneous press accounts. (His overall view of Jackson’s work at Nuremberg is extremely laudatory.) [Disclosures: I helped Sen. Christopher Dodd with the book, and I am writing Jackson’s biography.] Best, John