The Evening Star (October 7, 1946)
Lawrence: Nuernberg principles seen indicting Soviet
‘Iron curtain’ policy compared with Nazi totalitarianism
By David Lawrence
When is a question internal and when is it international, and what difference does it make in either case if the peace of the world is threatened?
This, in effect, is what Robert H. Jackson, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the chief American prosecutor in the Nuernberg trials, said in his speech in Buffalo which in some respects was the most pointed warning against totalitarian tyranny that has been uttered since V-J Day.
Justice Jackson did not mention the totalitarianism or oppression behind the “iron curtain” in Russia and the Balkans and was properly discussing the problem in the most general terms. But the implication that can be taken from his remarks is plain, whether or not he intended it so to be construed. Mr. Jackson said:
“The victory has not ended or given promise of ending oppression and injustice which breed international discords. We conquered a country whose predominant faction was practicing terrorism in most barbaric forms and on a vast scale.
“But the defeat of one group of oppressors does not end oppression. In many of its aspects persecution of minorities is an internal matter between the government and its citizens. But its disruptive effect on the international order is so direct that tyranny on a sizable scale anywhere is a matter of international concern.”
Reiteration of a doctrine
This is a significant reiteration of a doctrine which has lately been proclaimed by Uruguay with reference to Latin America and by such groups as the Catholic Bishops of America in their pronouncement of a year ago. It is a principle which is logically derived from the approach made by the Allied governments to the problem of internal acts wholly within a nation’s sovereignty which nevertheless affect external relations and which in this instance produced the most flagrant aggression of modern history.
What Justice Jackson is really saying is that it was a mistake for the world to shut its eyes to what Hitler and the Nazis were doing between 1933 and 1939, refraining from taking preventive action because this had hitherto been regarded as strictly, an “internal matter between the government and its citizens.”
Had the world realized fully the consequences on an international scale of what Hitler was doing inside Germany, the theory of Allied cooperation and punishment which the Nuernberg trials exemplified might have been invoked before, and not after, many millions of persons had been killed and many more wounded.
“It will take time – more time than any of us will ever see–” adds Justice Jackson, “to learn the ultimate effect of the Nuernberg trial on international law, and to what extent it may deter attacks on the peace of the world and persecutions of minorities.”
Individuals also are guilty
The principle behind the trials was novel. It is that individuals, as well as nations, can offend against international ethics and law and that punishment must be inflicted upon individuals as well as nations guilty of aggression.
The world is witnessing another series of acts of barbarism and tyranny. Concentration camps exist behind the “iron curtain.” Freedom of speech and of the press is denied and anyone who dares to question the policies of the totalitarian governments is persecuted. It is estimated that many hundreds of thousands of persons are incarcerated in the Russian orbit of nations for expressing political opinions.
The iron hand of the dictators is felt in Yugoslavia as well as in other Balkan countries. American correspondents are forbidden to penetrate these countries lest the truth of what is happening behind the “iron curtain” be revealed to the world. The Russian government is apparently afraid of the truth – afraid of world opinion which will inevitably be mobilized against it when all the truth is known about present-day Communism and its excesses.
The Communist totalitarians, like their predecessors, the Nazi Fascists, insist that all this is internal and that sovereignty gives a government the right to do as it pleases within its borders. Unhappily, that is the road to internal friction which becomes international discord.