Chris Dodd in Letters from Nuremberg, by Chris Dodd

On Foreign Policy: Post-Cold War, focus on Latin America

The big human rights debates of the early 1980s centered on Latin America, where I focused much of my work. I developed relationships with key figures in hot-spot countries--Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. The US political landscape at the time was charged in a way similar to what would happen years later in relation to Iraq.

On Foreign Policy: 1980s: Tied Central American aid to measuring human rights

President Reagan reduced the many volatile political situations in Central America to what he saw as a worldwide Communist plot. In President Reagan's view, it was necessary to back those who stood against Communism, no matter their own record on human rights.

The idea of simply sending unrestricted funding to anyone fighting Communism was, as Senator Edward M. Kennedy said, "giving a blank check to death squads and despotism."

In the case of El Salvador in the early 1980s, it was clear to me that the wisest stance for the US was to send aid to that country's government only if certain conditions were met. And so, as a freshman senator, I introduced an amendment to a foreign appropriations bill that tied such support to measures of human rights.

On Homeland Security: Deeply troubling to legalize secret interrogation

The president has maintained that the US is in a state of war against terrorism, and therefore has the authority to hold enemy combatants indefinitely without trial, formal charges, or revealment of evidence against them. There was no significant challenge to them until the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld reached the Supreme Court.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said that the president needed the approval of Congress to pursue measures other than those expressly dictated by existing US laws and treaties. The president’s quick response was to propose legislation that would have Congress rubber-stamp his initial practices. He demanded a free hand in interrogation--a circumstance that was deeply troubling.

On Homeland Security: Tribunals for war criminals is the moral & legal high ground

The argument that eventually prevailed was based on two powerful ideas. By trying those who carried out a criminal war, a complete record of their actions could be shown to the world, therefore announcing once and for all that such behavior would not be tolerated by the community of civilized nations. And, in giving the defendants a chance to hear the evidence against them and to defend themselves, the Allies would take the moral and legal high ground.

On Homeland Security: Guantanamo captures the loss of American moral authority

For 6 decades, we learned the lessons of the Nuremberg men and women well. We continued to stand for the right things. We didn't start wars--we ended them. We didn't commit torture--we condemned it. We didn't turn away from the world--we embraced it.

But that has changed in the past few years. There's a sense that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." Those are not my words; they belong to former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell.

If, for 60 years, a single word, Nuremberg, has best captured America's moral authority and commitment to justice, unfortunately, another word now captures the loss of such authority and commitment: Guantanamo.

On Homeland Security: Troubled by not applying Geneva Convention to War on Terror

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said that the president needed the approval of Congress to pursue these measures. The president's quick response was to propose legislation that would have Congress rubber-stamp his initial practices--reinstating the commissions as originally structured and redefining the Geneva conventions by weakening its protections. He demanded a free hand in interrogations--a circumstance, we know from the examples of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret prisons around the globe, that was deeply troubling.

On Homeland Security: Info gained from inhumane treatment is unreliable

We were, in effect, rolling back the Magna Carta and undermining the Geneva conventions, the dramatic and humane precedent of Nuremberg.

We could regret such a move even more than we regretted our original support for the war in Iraq. I was concerned about the welfare of our own soldiers--what it would mean to those fighting this war and future wars--if we abandoned humane treatment. I was concerned, too, that information gained from unlawfully cruel treatment is not reliable. Even John McCain, whose patriotism has never been in question, admits that when things got bad enough during his more than 5 years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese he would tell his captors anything they wanted to hear.

On Homeland Security: Liberty vs. security is a false choice

I reject that reasoning. We have the capacity to balance our responsibilities to bring terrorists to justice while at the same time protecting what it means to be American. To choose the rule of law over violent revenge is to uphold the same values of equal justice and due process that were codified in our Constitution.

The Bush Administration's creation of secret military tribunals was a blatant disregard of what Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in "Hamdan vs Rumsfeld," a case decided in 2004: "A state of war is not a blank check for the President."

On Homeland Security: Torture detracts from rule of law & makes US detested

But in the end, the president got his way. The vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (some referred to it as the torture bill) was closer than I had expected, 65-34. A filibuster might have worked.

On Principles & Values: Father led prosecution of 21 Nazi war criminals

The tribunal declared as criminal organizations the Gestapo and SD, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, and the SS. The executions were scheduled in the basement of the Palace of Justice for the overnight hours of October 15-16, 1946.

The defendants who had received sentences of imprisonment were transferred to Spandau prison. As the years passed, the defendants completed their terms and were released. The last prisoner was Rudolph Hess, who in 1987, committed suicide. With his death, Hitler's tyranny ended. Ended, too, was the contribution of Thomas J. Dodd to the proof of the crimes of the Hitler regime in the long hours which he devoted to this cause of humanity at Nuremberg, Germany--the greatest achievement of his life.

On War & Peace: Crimes against humanity continue in Rwanda & Darfur

People like my father set a clear and binding standard, saying, in effect, that here precisely is what happened as a result of tyranny and that any attempt to repeat such behavior would be seen for what it is. We were naive, of course, in this view. Since Nuremberg, the world has demonstrated time and again its capacity to stun us with outrage and inhumanity--Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur. Yet there is no doubt that Nuremberg remains more than an event of historical significance--it has become a word in the language that reminds us of ultimate collective responsibility for aggression, racism, and crimes against humanity.

On War & Peace: Hoped vote for war would support UN inspections