by J. W Lateer
The defendants in the trials would be the top Nazi leaders during the Third Reich. Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court would be in charge of the U.S. portion of the prosecutions. The other countries involved in the prosecutions would be the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. Thomas Dodd had a great admiration for Justice Jackson, a man who was universally respected. Because of Dodd’s enthusiasm for the job, Justice Jackson soon promoted him to the position of Executive Trial Counsel, which made him the number two prosecutor in the United States delegation. The Nuremberg Trials involved cooperation among the four victorious powers and lasted eleven months.
Thomas J. Dodd always declined to discuss anything related to his experiences or his role in the Nuremberg Trials. However, there is much information available from other sources about the specific duties performed by Dodd. Dodd had such duties at the Nuremberg Trials as cross-examining defendants Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Walther Funk, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. In addition to cross-examining witnesses, Dodd drafted indictments against the defendants, showed films of concentration camps, provided evidence of slave-labor programs and presented evidence of economic preparations by the Nazis for an aggressive war.
Dodd showed, through his evidence, that Ukrainian Overlord Erich Koch and defendant Polish Overlord Hans Frank were responsible for the plan to deport one-million Poles for slave labor. Dodd also showed evidence that defendant Walther Funk turned the Reichsbank into a depository for gold teeth and other valuables seized from the concentration camp victims. Dodd showed a motion picture of the vaults in Frankfurt where Allied troops found cases of these valuables, containing dentures, earrings, silverware and candelabra. Dodd also showed many gruesome items of evidence, such as a shrunken, stuffed and preserved human head of one of the concentration camp victims that had been used as a paperweight by the commandant of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
All but one of the defendants had claimed innocence, including Hermann Goring, whom Dodd had charged with ordering Reinhard Heydrich to set the Holocaust in motion. In addition to prosecuting the individual defendants, Dodd demanded in his summation to the Tribunal that all six of the indicted Nazi organizations be convicted of crimes against humanity, despite the arguments that they were too large, were just part of a political party or other such defenses. These six organizations are the Leadership Corps, the Reich cabinet, the Gestapo, the Storm Troops (SA), the Armed Forces, and the Elite Guard (SS). Dodd said that these organizations should not escape liability on the grounds that they were too large, part of a political party, etc.
As a result of his vigorous prosecution of the various Nazi officials, Dodd was able to obtain a sentence of death by hanging for twelve defendants and life in prison for three more. Three were found not guilty. Dodd was apparently affected by his experience prosecuting the Nazis. Or perhaps he felt that there was some information he had as a result of his experience which might be sensitive for some reason. Dodd never discussed his experience at Nuremberg. This silence even obtained when Dodd was asked for information by reputable historians.
Dodd was given several awards in recognition of his work at the Nuremberg trials. Jackson awarded him the Medal of Freedom in July 1946 and President Harry Truman awarded him the Certificate of Merit, which Jackson personally delivered to him in Hartford in the fall of 1946. Dodd also received the Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion. In 1949, the Polish government had intended to award Dodd with a badge of honor called the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Dodd rejected the medal due to his commitment to human rights and his views that the Polish government was imposing a tyranny similar to that imposed by the Nazis.
Surprisingly, during the period after Nuremberg, Dodd repeatedly voiced his support for the theory of one world government. (CAC p. 37). He became president of Connecticut’s United World Federalist group. Dodd did this despite the fact that the theory of one-world government presented a challenge to U.S. sovereignty. Some could associate this with the movement toward the New World Order, the precise meaning of which is often unclear.
The question as to why Dodd so quickly became an ardent anti-Communist remains an interesting one. It is a fact, however, that several of those in public life who had face-to-face experience in dealing with Nazi’s after World War II, went on to became major players in the Communist-Nazi-Democracy struggle.
One such example was John J. McCloy. McCloy was High Commissioner for Germany and was, according to some, the person who, for all practical purposes, ran the Warren Commission. Another was Allen Dulles, who had negotiated with Nazi scientists and recruited the Nazi spy chief Reinhard Gehlen to serve in U.S. Intelligence. Dulles also worked closely with McCloy to run the Warren Commission. In retrospect, these duties were among the most crucial for U.S. national security in the era of virulent anti-Communism in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Upon returning to the U.S., Thomas J. Dodd began the practice of law .He practiced law privately in Hartford Connecticut, from 1947 to 1953. He also moved quickly into Connecticut politics. In the election season of 1948, Dodd entered the race for Governor of Connecticut. Dodd was opposed for that office by Connecticut party boss John M. Bailey. One of Dodd’s political handicaps was his sudden and extreme obsession with the issue of Communism and Communists. He charged that the Connecticut Democratic ticket was headed by Communists. As discussed in another chapter, the anti-Communism of Joe McCarthy could be traced to one single dinner date with some anti-Communist activists. With Senator Dodd, the root of his singular crusade against Communism is less certain.
In the 1952 election, Thomas Dodd was elected to the House of Representatives. He served two terms. In 1956, he ran for the Senate and lost. He lost that 1956 bid to Prescott Bush, father of President George H.W. Bush. In 1958, however, he was elected to Connecticut’s other Senate Seat and was then re-elected in 1964.
Before becoming a U.S. senator in 1958, Dodd was hired to lobby for Guatemala in the United States for $50,000 a year by dictator Carlos Castillo Armas. According to the North American Congress on Latin America, Dodd “had perhaps the coziest relationship with the Castillo Armas government.” After a short trip to Guatemala in 1955, Dodd urged the House of Representatives to increase aid to the Central American country. Dodd’s amendment in that regard passed and Guatemala received $415 million in US aid in 1956.
Only rarely would Dodd attend the working meetings of the major committees he had once coveted and to which he had won appointment: Foreign Relations, Judiciary and Aeronautics and Space Sciences. Dodd apparently had a strong preference for clandestine secret subcommittee work, a preference which he had in common with the Kennedy brothers, especially Robert Kennedy. Sounding the same note, Dodd stated at one point that there were only two jobs for which he would leave the Senate. The first was FBI Director and the second was head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1960, after first being elected to the Senate, Dodd launched an attack against his party leaders Mike Mansfield of Montana and J. William Fulbright of Arkansas on the grounds that they were too soft on the Soviets. As a Senate newcomer, Dodd was immediately identified as an LBJ man and was labeled by journalist Drew Pearson as a “bargain basement McCarthy.” Around the same time period, Dodd attacked TV journalist-producer Howard K. Smith of ABC. Dodd rebuked Smith because he put together a TV program resurrecting and defending Alger Hiss. In 1961, Dodd visited the Congo to investigate the civil war caused by the secession of the province of Katanga. At this time, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, leader of the Congo was on the agenda of the CIA. Lumumba was killed, but the question of who sponsored his murder has never become clear. As chairman, Dodd brought respected citizens such as physicist Linus Pauling and businessman Cyrus Eaton before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.
The following is a list of Senator Dodd’s regular Senate office staff:
Michael O’Hare, financial
Dave M
artin, foreign affairs
Gerry Zeiller, municipalities and industries
Marjorie Carpenter, secretary
James Boyd, speech writer
Doreen, dictation
For the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee, the list included the following:
1. Carl Perian, staff director
2. George Gildea (unknown title)
3. Al Morano (unknown title)
As mentioned above, Dodd never discussed his activities as a prosecutor at Nuremberg. One explanation could be that he suffered some sort of PTSD reaction. Another would be that his actions had involved trade-offs and compromises which would be hard to explain to anyone who was not involved. As mentioned in a later chapter, one key defendant whose lax treatment by the Nuremberg tribunal would become controversial was Adolf Heusinger, (one of Hitler’s top advisors). Dodd could have been involved in that question or other similar controversies.
Still another theory was that he was prosecuting Nazi’s at a time when his jurisdiction, Connecticut, was rife with Russian Fascists and other European extremists and likely Nazi sympathizers. It is not known for certain why Senator Thomas Dodd returned from Germany as an extreme anti-Communist when he had never shown any strong interest in the topic prior to that service
James Boyd in Above The Law, describes the scenario, and we paraphrase, regarding people who visited Dodd’s office for the purpose of influencing him and his staff: (ATL p. 34).
Gerry Zeiller was the specialist on issues involving local government such as funds for urban renewal. Close by was Dodd’s foreign affairs section, led by Dave Martin who was described by at least one source as having a conspiratorial look. Into Dodd’s office came such people as Black African ambassadors, persons who had fled Cuba for political reasons, bishops of the Eastern Orthodox persuasion who were distinguished by their full beards and last but not least, aristocratic pretenders from Czarist days. It is noteworthy that the leader of the Russian Fascist organization in the U.S. was Anastase Vonsyatsky who operated out of Putnam, Connecticut in the 1930’s. It was Dodd himself who had prosecuted Vonsyatsky under the Espionage Act of 1917 in 1942.
Dodd took numerous trips to Florida during his term in the Senate. The expenses for these trips were charged to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. He claimed that the nature of the trip would be to interview witnesses in connection with subcommittee hearings. These trips to Florida seemed mysterious and questionable even to his staff, who were presumably aware of his activities. Comparing notes, there was no staff person on Dodd’s payroll who knew exactly what went on in Florida. The staff considered the trips in some way suspicious.
Senator Dodd’s staff had always believed that his speech-making on the topic of anti-Communism was idealistic on his part. Eventually, though, the staff found out that Dodd was being paid handsomely by wealthy right-wing extremists. Dodd’s total estimated take as calculated by his staff over a period of five years for his anti-Communist activities was $50,000.
Senator Dodd shared with at least one person that, when he had campaigned with John F. Kennedy in 1960, he had become very uneasy about the penchant of JFK for diving into throngs of his admirers in order to shake their hands. Dodd had accurately observed that Kennedy was reckless concerning his own physical safety on the campaign trail.
According to Dodd’s biographer Boyd, (ATL p. 68), Dodd had diverted campaign funds to pay for his daughter’s wedding in October, 1963. Her wedding had cost $6,000. Boyd also reports that in October, 1963, Dodd was in financial trouble both with private creditors and the IRS. According to Boyd, Dodd owed $12,000 in back taxes to the IRS and the IRS was hreatening Dodd as of 1963 with a further audit.
Based on the circumstances surrounding this situation, it could be said that the confrontation between the Kennedy brothers against SISS and chairman Dodd reached a crescendo in October, 1963. Considering all of these facts, one could question whether the IRS was being used at this time against Dodd for political reasons. Threat of prosecution could have been part of the gunpowder leading to the explosion of hostility that was occurring in that fateful month in 1963.
Dodd staff member David Martin was involved at this time in a special effort. His task was to reach out to Connecticut’s many Eastern European ethnic groups. It was assumed by Dodd’s staff that these people of Eastern European descent were dealing with Dodd on the issue of hard-line anti-Communism.
By contrast, there were many political issues with which Senator Dodd was involved which were very pleasing to the liberal side of the Democratic Party. Examples of such issues which Dodd would champion were internationalism, support for organized labor and help for the underprivileged and for racial minorities. In order to bolster his Northern Liberal image, he put forth his record of flawless support for the progressive agenda of the Kennedy-Johnson Administration. Also on this list of liberal issues were his support of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, leadership on civil rights and also his lifelong support of the Democratic Party. He did not have to pretend to be both liberal and conservative; he was naturally fragmented.
In Connecticut, Dodd’s candidacy was supported by a mixture of both liberal and conservative groups and interests. On the conservative side were Young Americans for Freedom [YAF]. On the liberal side was Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). One of Dodd’s committees was composed of prominent liberals like Elmo Roper, Eugene Rostow, and Norman Cousins, and another one included famous conservatives like Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt, Admiral Redford, and Taylor Caldwell.
Dodd’s largest single contributor was the AFL-CIO. This situation would seem to prove that it was possible for a Senate candidate like Dodd to walk down the centerline of politics, supporting causes that were liberal as well as conservative and thus fill his campaign coffers with cash from both sides. Why wouldn’t more Senate candidates figure this out and do likewise? The answer to this question may be the following proposition: if a candidate takes money from a contributor, the contributor might react more strongly to a perceived betrayal than to perceived support. A cascading sense of betrayal may be the reason that Dodd wound up in the small group of Senators, McCarthy included, who were censured for their deeds by the Senate.
The following situation paints a remarkable picture of Dodd as either incredibly weak or lacking a moral compass. Senator Dodd had led a campaign and a lawsuit against Jimmy Hoffa. However, in late 1963, Senator Dodd did a 180-degree turnaround on the issue of Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. After late 1963, Dodd actually began to refer to the Hoffa criminal case as “persecution” of Hoffa by the Kennedys. But by then, LBJ had become the President and Dodd may have begun buttering his bread on the other side.
Immediately prior to the 1964 Senatorial election, Dodd’s staff began to covertly investigate him for the alleged reasons of corrupt financial practices. By December, 1964, the staff had proved that Dodd had siphoned off $200,000 from the campaign for his personal use. Around the same time, Dodd’s relationship with other Senators began to suffer.
After the 1964 elections, Senator Mike Mansfield, the majority leader, canceled a Congressional junket which Dodd and his wife had been planning. Dodd denounced Mansfield for this action. However, because such an attack on another Senator was a breach of Senatorial courtesy, Everett Dirksen, the minority leader, went before the Senate and threatened to publicize Dodd’s record of poor attendance and failure to attend to his other duties as a Senator. Dodd promptly apologized publicly to Mansfield.
Never in history had the Senate taken formal disciplinary action against a member for financial misconduct. James Boyd was, the speechwriter and staff member for Senator Dodd. The staff of Senator Dodd had been investigating the financial situation of Dodd. Boyd recounts some disturbing information regarding Senator Dodd and John F. Kennedy. Dodd had flown from Hartford to Washington very close to the hour of the assassination. First, Boyd relates that Dodd had claimed that President Kennedy wanted to meet him immediately after his planned arrival in Washington fr
om Dallas. Boyd discounts this part of the story as a fabrication. Dodd’s staff was, nevertheless, present when Dodd’s plane arrived at the airport in Washington on November 22, 1963. Boyd states that the reasons he and the Dodd staff were bound together in their enterprise of investigating Dodd, were the repugnant statements made by Dodd upon hearing of the JFK assassination.
After his plane from Hartford had landed, Dodd was briefed on the situation. When told that Senator Smathers had just landed wearing a black arm band, Dodd said “Smathers was a friend of the old administration…I am a friend of the new administration.… We sat in appalled silence as it dawned on us that Dodd considered this a day of victory”. Air Force One was due in Washington with the body of JFK at any moment. Regarding the assassination, Dodd made this almost unbelievable statement: “I’ll say of John Kennedy what I said of Pope John the day he died. It will take us fifty years to undo the damage he did to the U.S. in three years.” (ATL p. 106). Though biographer Boyd never said it in so many words, the conclusion is inescapable that Dodd’s staff considered him complicit in the assassination.
Senator J. William Fulbright investigated Dodd’s close friend and associate, General Julius Klein in mid-1963. Fulbright was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During the entire era of Joe McCarthy and the era of the Otepka-Dodd relationship, the focus of the anti-Communist activities was always on the U.S. State Department. Despite this long history, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had not investigated McCarthy or Dodd since 1950. In that year, a subcommittee of Foreign Relations called the Tydings Committee had investigated McCarthy. That being the case, why were the McCarthy and Dodd attacks against the State Department in the various hearings not investigated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? In 1950, the Tydings Committee had referred to McCarthy’s information on Communists as “a fraud and a hoax.” After that, Foreign Relations had lost its appetite for opposing the Red-baiters until 1963. The Senate had just created the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct in 1964. Very soon after that, they began to investigate Senator Thomas Dodd for ethical violations.