Posted on 07/06/2004 6:24:54 PM PDT by Libloather
Five decades ago, Nazi case set precedent for military tribunals
Connie Cass THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON -- A German submarine slipped through dark waters toward New York's Long Island in June 1942, creeping so close it bumped the sandy bottom. A second settled into shallows along the Florida coast. Each sent ashore four men, who dragged crates of explosives up the beaches.
They were under orders to blow up American railroads, bridges and factories. But none got the chance. All eight were arrested within two weeks. Within two months, six were executed.
They got a hasty, wartime version of justice in a secret trial -- which has become the basis for President Bush's plan to use military tribunals to try terrorism suspects who aren't U.S. citizens.
The Nazi case was a precedent for last week's Supreme Court ruling that the government can detain "enemy combatants" but must let foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, challenge their detentions in U.S. courts.
The justices have yet to rule on Bush's decision to revive military tribunals for the first time since World War II. Both supporters and opponents use the German saboteurs' case to buttress their arguments.
The team that landed on Long Island on June 13, 1942, was led by George John Dasch, a German-American former waiter with a distinctive silver streak through his hair.
Shortly after midnight, a lone Coast Guardsman walking through the fog encountered the four men, who claimed to be fishermen but were dressed strangely. He heard one speak German.
Dasch answered Guardsman John Cullen's suspicions by shoving $260 into his hand and telling him to forget what he had seen or he would be killed.
Cullen ran back to the Amagansett station. By the time his colleagues grabbed rifles and ran down the beach, the Germans were gone. But their crates of explosives and German naval uniforms were found buried in the sand.
The second German team landed undetected near Ponte Vedra, Fla., on June 17.
The saboteurs were recruited in Germany with one overriding criteria: All had lived at least a few years in the United States, so they could blend in easily.
Upon landing, they headed for Chicago and New York, buying new clothes and fancy food with Adolf Hitler's money. One of them -- Dasch -- sneaked off to Washington to betray the mission.
Duane Traynor led the FBI division that investigated reports of sabotage. On June 19, he got a mysterious phone call from a man who turned out to be Dasch.
"He said he just came back from Germany and had a lot of information," Traynor, 94, recalled recently from his home in Springfield, Ill. "I said, 'Fine, come and see me.' "
Although Traynor had been briefed on the landing of German saboteurs, he didn't suspect his caller -- until he saw Dasch's hair.
"They brought him over to my office, dressed in all that new clothing, with that silver streak in his hair," Traynor said. "I knew immediately I might have one of them."
Dasch said he had a long story to tell and wanted to tell it in his own way. Traynor let him: "For two days, we visited."
Dasch eventually offered the names and likely whereabouts of his co-conspirators. He showed Traynor his sabotage tools -- $82,000 stuffed in envelopes, a handkerchief with contacts written in invisible ink.
With Dasch's information, the FBI rounded up the other saboteurs within a week.
Dasch hoped to be put in charge of American propaganda efforts against Hitler and was devastated when he was jailed like the others.
A second turncoat, Ernst Peter Burger, hated the Gestapo because of months he spent in a concentration camp. Burger intentionally scattered evidence on the Long Island beach and aided Dasch in his plan to confess. The group's youngest member, Herbie Haupt, said he also intended to contact the FBI, saying he joined the mission only to get home to family in Chicago, where he grew up. Burger and Haupt were naturalized U.S. citizens.
Michael Dobbs argues in his book, "Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America," that -- unlike the Sept. 11 terrorists -- the Germans lacked the ideological zeal for a terror campaign. Only Florida group leader Edward Kerling "believed in the mission wholeheartedly," Dobbs wrote.
For America's leaders in 1942, there was no doubt of the Germans' guilt and the need to try them before a military tribunal, even though that method fell out of favor after the Civil War.
President Franklin Roosevelt wanted death sentences, but the Army's top lawyer said a civilian court likely would impose only two-year prison terms, for conspiracy, since no sabotage was committed.
Also, a military proceeding could be closed to the public.
"We didn't want the Nazis to know how we captured all these people so quickly," Traynor said.
It was better for Hitler to believe America's defenses and intelligence had foiled the plot. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover -- who promoted the myth that the saboteurs were hunted down by virtue of his agents' skill -- had his own reasons for keeping Dasch's confession secret.
"It was to protect the FBI's image," said Lloyd Cutler, who at age 26 served as the junior member of the prosecution team. "And, I think, from the president's point of view, to show that even though our fleet had been crippled at Pearl Harbor, we could still defend our shores."
Courts martial under the Articles of War would have provided secrecy. But by creating a military tribunal, Roosevelt could establish looser trial rules, including a lower standard of evidence, and grant himself sole power to review the verdict.
"There were things done in that trial that would never pass muster today," said Cutler, who served as White House counsel to presidents Carter and Clinton and has advised Bush's Defense Department on rules for military tribunals.
I wonder if the RAT nominees are taking this into consideration...
I beleive the FBI got a lot of milage out of this, even though the saboteurs were only discovered due to their own stupidity.
However, the author is dead wrong to suggest that the process of military tribunals "began" in 1942. Such have been used in every war America has ever fought, beginning with the American Revolution before, of course, the Constitution existed. General George Washington used such a process to try, convict and hang Major John Andre, the British handler for the intended treachery of General Benedict Arnold.
The law of war is far older than the United States of America. History tells us that there is nothing new about captured enemies and how they are properly treated.
John / Billybob
John -- As an astute North Carolinian, do you think Edwards can deliver your state to Kerry?
Thanks.
The History Channel presentation of this is that one of the saboteurs turn in the rest. He was held for the duration of the war and released after it ended.
I think captured terrorist should be treated as pirates. Pirates were traditionally shot on sight like vermin without any trial or pretense that they had any rights under the US or any other constitution. Furthermore, the US Constitution specifically provide the Congress to pass laws to punish piracy and "Offenses against the Law of Nations". This power is listed well before the bill of rights.
Article I.Section 8
......
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
Hi Congressman Billybob. How is your run for Congress going?
It would have been an entirely different outcome if they would have eliminated him.
I'm familiar with this story from a book I have about the submarine war off the east coast. I remember it talked about how much chest thumping the FBI did over it, (See, WE ARE ON THE JOB!)
It's in the attic or somewhere, and I don't remember the name of it!
So, rather than run a hopeless campaign that went right down the porcelin facility, I will NOT run until 2006, and take the time between now and then to organize effectively in both areas.
Thanks for asking.
John / Billybob
The History Channel version had it that the guy who called the FBI was the leader of the Long Island group and thus made the call to let the coast guard guy live. BTW, as I remember it, the History Channel version the FBI brushed off the guy when her first called them and he had to go in in person?
WWII History Ping!
Thank you! I read yet another version of this story, and how these guys were discovered. Hmmmmm...fascinating stuff.
I thought the guy who ratted got executed too, but maybe I'm wrong. I'll try to dig up that book tonight and get you a title.
Actually it seems that two of them were not executed and at least one wrote a book about his experiences. I found this several places on the web.
Here is longer article from Atlantic Monthly on this incident:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/02/cohen.htm
You may like reading about The Flying Crowbar.
It has nothing in common with this, except for being little known and interesting.
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