Ask the Scholar

{
    "localId": "207523458",
    "label": "Memorandum from Charles G. Ross to Matthew Connelly, with Attached Memorandum from Justice Robert Jackson to President Harry S. Truman",
    "core": "doc",
    "dtoType": "document",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/207523458"
}

{
    "id": "207523458",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/207523458",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum from Charles G. Ross to Matthew Connelly, with Attached Memorandum from Justice Robert Jackson to President Harry S. Truman",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/207523458",
    "collections": [
        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Subject Files"
    ],
    "iiifBase": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750292/750292-01-01.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750292/750292-01-01.jpg",
    "largeImageUrl": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750292/750292-01-01.jpg",
    "imageCount": 23,
    "hasImages": true,
    "source": "import",
    "hasTranscription": false
}

{
    "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/207523458",
    "naId": 207523458,
    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 6,
            "logicalDate": "1945-06-06",
            "month": 6,
            "year": 1945
        }
    ],
    "recordType": "description",
    "ocrSource": "nara-archive"
}

{
    "seq": 9,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750292/750292-01-09.jpg",
    "mediaId": "0b91a8d303e6689a",
    "ocrText": "The President.\n- 8 -\n6/6/45.\ninquiry, preferably in association with others, but alone if necessary,\ninto the culpability of those whom there is probable cause to accuse\nof atrocities and other crimes. We have many such men in our possession.\nWhat shall we do with them? We could, of course, set them at large\nwithout a hearing. But it has cost unmeasured thousands of American\nlives to beat and bind these men. To free them without a trial would\nmock the dead and make cynics of the living. On the other hand, we\ncould execute or otherwise punish them without a hearing. But undis-\ncriminating executions or punishments without definite findings of\nguilt, fairly arrived at, would violate pledges repeatedly given, and\nwould not set easily on the American conscience or be remembered by\nto TRUMAN\nour children with pride. The only other course is to determine the\nAND\nis\nSERVICE\"\ninnocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as\nthe times and the horrors we deal with will permit, and upon a record\nthat will leave our reasons and motives clear.\n2. These hearings, however, must not be regarded in the same\nlight as a trial under our system, where defense is a matter of con-\nstitutional right. Fair hearings for the accused a.re, of course,\nrequired to make sure that we punish only the right men and for the\nright reasons. But the procedure of these hearings may properly bar\nobstructive and dilatory tactics resorted to by defendants in our\nordinary criminal trials.\nNor should such a defense be recognized as the obsolete doctrine\nthat a head of state is immune from legal liability. There is more\nthan a suspicion that this idea is a rolic of the doctrine of the divine"
}