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8 An Old-Fashioned Sense of Justice WHILE AWAITING OFFICIAL information from the army on the outcome of the review and on Clay’s final decision, Everett prepared for a counteroffensive, should the outcome not be to his satisfaction, as he expected it would be. Heretofore, he had been operating largely as an individual. Now, he began to muster forces for a concerted campaign. The junior member of the defense team, Wilbert Wahler, had returned to the private practice of law in Chicago. Everett hoped that Wahler might have contacts on the Chicago Tribune and suggested “trotting up there” with information on the less savory aspects of the Dachau trials. And it might be well, Everett suggested, for Colonel Bresee, with whom Wahler had gotten along rather better than he had, to receive a letter from Wahler threatening to join Everett in exposing the “rottenness” of the prosecution’s conduct in the Malmedy case. Wahler did, in fact, contact the Tribune and discussed the case for several hours with a reporter in his North Clark Street law offices. Wahler was more circumspect in his evaluation of the Malmedy case than was Everett, a fact that was in part the result of his desire for a reserve appointment in the judge advocate general’s department. But he agreed with Everett that the Malmedy court had shown “utter lack of good faith” and that Mickelwaite’s visit to Dachau as the trial was drawing to a close probably indicated that the outcome had been predetermined.1 The reason that Everett had asked Wahler to contact the Chicago Tribune lay with a story that had been published in that newpaper on February 23. Under the headline “Nazi Trial Judge Rips ‘Injustice,’” the Tribune printed an account of an interview with Iowa Supreme Court Justice Charles F. Wennerstrum. The judge was on his way home from Germany where he had served as presiding judge in U.S. v. List, et al., one of the secondary Nuremberg trials, which had tried Field Marshal Wilhelm List and nine other German officers for war crimes, including the killing of hostages. Wennerstrum had strongly 143 criticized the U.S. war crimes trial program as vindictive and believed it had failed to live up to the high ideals originally put forward for it. Rather than contributing to their democratization, he thought, the trials were simply convincing the German people that “their leaders lost the war to tough conquerors.” Judge Wennerstrum also deplored the fact that Germans convicted of war crimes were denied a formal system of appeals, which constituted to his mind a denial of justice. Brigadier General Telford Taylor, chief counsel for war crimes at Nuremberg, publicly castigated Wennerstrum for having made statements “subversive of the interests and policies of the United States”; this rebuke made Wennerstrum, too, in Everett’s eyes, a victim of the army’s preference for politics over equity.2 Everett recognized in Wennerstrum a kindred and potentially useful spirit. He wrote to the Iowa jurist on March 8 of his enthusiasm for Wennerstrum’s stand and of his own fight, the struggle of a “Georgia Cracker lawyer” against . . . rotteness [sic], intrigue and perpetuation of Nazi tactics. . . . You would scarcely believe that such things could be carried on in the name of America. . . . Frankly I have made it so hot for the Army, from within, that they are afraid to carry out the execution of the 43 death penalties. . . . Consistently I have told the Commanding General EUCOM that I was going to the U.S. Supreme Court and the papers if they do not send the case back for retrial. Frankly I know of no way to get to the Supreme Court but have done a lot of “bluffing” along this line to force them to send the case back for retrial. Everett had done some research on Judge Wennerstrum’s religious and political affiliations. Like yourself, I am an officer of the Southern Presbyterian Church and my father was moderator. . . . But we have no reputable Republican Party here, so there is no choice. We do not feel too kindly toward the Democratic Party now. As a result I have never been active in any political work. May I conclude by saying that I admire you and respect your ability. We both think alike about war crimes trials except that I am a Rebel on the subject and you were gentle in your manner.3 144 AN OLD-FASHIONED SENSE OF...

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