DEUTSCHER ANSWERS A CRITIC ON VIETNAM WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL _. {In its issue of ‘September 29, the London Times published a letter to the editor from Robert Conquest concerning the International War Crimes Tribunal initiated by Bertrand Russell to investigate the atrocities being perpetrated by American imperialism in . Vietnam. This was answered by Isaac Deutscher, his letter being published in the October 1 issue of the Times. The text of the two letters follows. ] ae
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From Mr. Robert Senqueet
Sir, -- Most people will have formed their own opinions “about the probable standards of judiciousness of Lord Russell's "tribunal". But either way, he must not rely (September 21), when it comes to the supposed precedent of the Nuremberg Trial; on Justice Jackson's unexceptionable general remarks, but on what that court actually did.
Though the judges included men with greater judicial experience than Lord Russell's current selection, they cannot be seriously thought to have acted in accordance with Jackson's claim that war _crimes were being dealt with regardless of who committed them. One of the accusations was of responsibility for the Katyn massacre -which, indeed, figured as the leading charge in the category of. murder of prisoners of war.
The court dealt with this in a most superficial fashion, hearing half a dozen unsubstantial Russians and Germans, when it was _ public knowledge that witnesses including former allied prisoners of "war, neutral medical men, Polish underground leaders and others would have clearly implicated the Russians. Katyn was not directly referred . to in the verdict, but nor were the defendants cleared of this par- "bieular charge.
This singularly uhjudicial behaviour was surely linked to political compromise. (The Soviet judge, it may be remarked, had “appeared on the bench at the notorious Zinoviev Trial; and he is named by the Soviet General Gorbatov, in his mémoirs, as sentencing him to 15 years ina labour» camp at a 29-minute session at which the General testified that the evidence was based on torture.
Whatever the good intentions of the western judges, the court's conduct over Katyn may perhaps serve as a warning to less august bodies that political bias and political calculation are not readily excluded.
Incidentally the Katyn case, though it is now universally believed to have been a N.K.V.D. operation, has never been properly tried by an impartial tribunal. Perhaps Lord Russell's group might . wish to catch up on this backlog before proceeding to later investi- ~ gations.
Yours faithfully,
R. CONQUEST.
* * x From Mr. Isaac Deutscher
Sir, -- What is Mr. R. Conquest's purpose in dragging the Katyn affair into his argument (September 395 against Lord Russell on the war in Vietnam? If he merely wanted to say that that dark
affair has never been investigated by any impartial body and that the Nuremberg Tribunal administered justice in a manner calculated to suit the immediate convenience of the victors of the Second World War, I, for’ one, would ABTee » : ALL this. does not: alter the fact that the defendants at the Nuremberg. Trials were guilty of unprecedented and unparalleled crimes against humanity. The tragedy was that not a Germany risen .in-revolt. against Nazism pronounced.judgment over them, but that '-representatives. of foreign powers, entangled in their inter-allied GAphomacy , had to do it. a
‘However, two -- ora ‘thousand -- wrongs do not make a right; and to speak of Katyn and the. inconsistencies of the Nuremberg. Trial in reply to protests against the American war in Vietnam. is worse than irrelevant. The war in Vietnam, the sufferings it causes and the dangers; it casts upon the world, have not yet receded into the past; they are part.of the present and overshadow the future. Lord Russell-is surely right in reminding the American Administration which wages the war.in Vietnam: of the solemn pledge about war crimes given by American. representatives at Nuremberg. .
As Lord Russell has explained in these columns , the Tribunal which has been convened on his initiative, to consider prima facie evidence about American war crimes in Vietnam, is to be a Commission of Inquiry, claiming no official status for itself. It will perhaps resemble far. less the Nuremberg Tribunal than the Commission. of Inquiry which nearly 30 years ago sat in judgment over | Stalin's great purges, under the chairmanship of another famous. philosopher -- John Dewey. The question of the "judicial experience" of "Lord Russell's Tribunal" need not disturb Mr. Conquest, for the Tribunal benefits from the services of several lawyers, quite as eminent as: any of the Nuremberg lawyers, and completely independent.
I am one of those who, responding to Lord Russell's appeal, have joined the Tribunal, because I feel that Lord Russell and his associates speak in this "matter for the conscience of our age. Hav- -ing in the course of the past two years addressed,.in the United. States, huge audiences, inter alia tens or perhaps. hundreds of. thousands of students, eager..to protest against American intervention in Vietnam, I have no doubt that the activity of our Tribunal will meet with a wide and sensitive response on both sides of the Atlantic and, of course, in many countries of Asia and Africa. But I am appalled by the passivity and apathy of the Labour movement over so crucial and fateful an issue.
Yours faithfully,
ISAAC DEUTSCHER.