DEFENDS WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
[The following letter from Bertrand Russell was published in “the New York Times of. October 6.]
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To the Editor:
The New York Times (Sept. 10) reports from Saigon that the United States, "pleased with the effectiveness of chemical defoliation and crop destruction missions...is taking steps to triple the capability of those efforts." The Times further reports that in this year alone "1,324,430 gallons" have been sprayed...
Let me state first of all that I possess documentary evidence of the toxic character of these chemicals and of their extraordinary effects on human beings, which include paralysis, blindness, convulsions, hallucination and inability to achieve unconsciousness (to “fall asleep).
You have published a letter criticizing our War Crimes. Tribunal on the ground that the judges should not also be the accusers [July 5]. This criticism rests on a basic misconception of the nature’ ‘of the tribunal.
We are not establishing an adversary proceeding, because we cannot compel Government witnesses to appear in their own defense, although President Johnson has been invited either to come or to appoint representatives. Rather, the tribunal functions as a commission of inquiry, formed by men who have prima facie evidence of crimes and, like a grand jury, have brought an indictment.
We are not stones without feeling, oblivious to the barrage of evidence concerning war crimes in Vietnam. We are people compelled by conscience to form a tribunal because: we have witnessed the crimes against the people of Vietnam and wish to examine exhaustively their full meaning, with a view to assessing the responsibility of those who have perpetrated them.
Americans are familiar with the bringing of indictments on the basis of prima facie evidence and also with the precedent of the Dewey Commission which, composed of eminent international figures... examined fairly the evidence concerning Stalin's purge trials in oe the late 1940's.
. I suggest that those who raise procedural points in objecting to the international War Crimes Tribunal would be better occupied in assessing their own responsibility for the horrendous acts against the people of Vietnam, acts which our tribunal will examine relentlessly and exhaustively.
Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief Counsel at Nuremberg, stated:
"Tf certain acts and violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.
Bertrand Russell
London, Sept. 16, 1966
STATE DEPARTMENT