Tribunal Convicted U.S. 'War Hero' (re: 1942)

World War II military trial of 'saboteur' shows how secrecy can foster injustice, taint verdict

WASHINGTON -- He has been called "an authentic American war hero" whose acts may have saved the lives of hundreds of American civilians.

Yet George Johann Dasch was tried as a saboteur by a secret military tribunal, similar to the one President Bush hopes will try members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, al Qaeda. He was found guilty in 1942 and sent to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

The case is seen as cause for even greater concern by some -- though not all -- of the legal scholars who previously had criticized an executive order authorizing the Defense Department to try alleged al Qaeda terrorists in secret if it chooses.

The records were made public in 1980 by Atlanta Constitution reporter Seth Kantor, who said they showed that Dasch prevented seven German-trained agents from carrying out their planned attacks on U.S. territory. And he coaxed the FBI into investigating the plot.

But after the secret trial, at which Dasch was the eighth defendant and was convicted, he was sentenced to 30 years of hard labor. Another defendant was sentenced to life at hard labor, and the other six were executed.

"Ironically, he is most probably an authentic American hero, responsible for saving many lives. But fate had made him a threat to the FBI's public image," wrote former FBI Special Agent William Turner in the 1970 history, "Hoover's FBI: The Men and the Myth."

J. Edgar Hoover, then director of the FBI, blocked release of records about Dasch's deeds. Hoover declared at one point that the records "might lead to embarrassment of the FBI," wrote Kantor, now dead.

Kantor wrote that the trial transcript showed that FBI agents promised Dasch a quick presidential pardon, but it did not happen. FBI records showed that Hoover, who was considered for a congressional medal because of the way his agents blocked the saboteurs, was motivated by a desire to seize credit for "the detective job of the century," Kantor wrote.

Critics of Bush's executive order found new cause for concern when told recently of the Dasch case.

"It's extraordinary," Harvard University law professor Ann Marie Slaughter said. "The danger of trial by military commission is precisely that it lacks the constitutional safeguards that we think are necessary to ensure that the people we try and convict are indeed guilty. To the extent that may in fact not have been the case in (Dasch's case), it highlights the special danger of using such commissions today."

Slaughter noted that the government may take to the planned secret trials "individuals whose crime is no greater than to have overstayed their visas and to have had contact with others who may have had contact with the terrorist network."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., after reading copies of Kantor's 1980 articles, declared: "The lesson is that secret trials and lack of judicial oversight may be expedient, but they can also foster injustice and taint the legitimacy of the verdicts."

Duke University law professor Scott Silliman said he was more concerned that Bush's directive lacks the legal validity that a formal declaration of war or similar action by Congress would give it than about the way a secret commission appears to have mistreated Dasch in 1942.

Yale University law professor Ruth Wedgwood, an expert on international law and a former prosecutor, has said she thinks the commissions ordered by Bush are justified because of the need to protect classified documents and the urgency of stopping bin Laden.

However, Wedgwood said she has urged lawyers at the Department of Defense to draw up rules that would keep most of the proceedings public, with "some flexibility to close things that are classified."

Attorney General John Ashcroft cited the saboteurs' case earlier this week as one of several legal precedents for Bush's action.

"As far as legal authority or precedent is concerned, I would just say that this executive order does not preclude any other proceeding from taking place," White House spokesman Ken Lasaius said. "It is simply one option that could be pursued if the president thinks it is necessary."

Hoover prevailed on his boss, then-Attorney General Tom Clark, in 1944 to suppress a Department of Justice summary of the secret trial.

"There are many references throughout the summary to the telephone call of George J. Dasch to the Bureau," Hoover wrote to Clark. "There is a possibility, if such references are permitted, that the press will be curious as to the manner in which the bureau received its information."

Dasch was one of eight men put through saboteur training by the Nazi military intelligence corps soon after the United States entered the war. They were placed ashore in two groups -- four at Ponte Vedra, Fla., and four (including Dasch) at Amagansett on Long Island -- in June 1942.

Their assigned targets included aluminum plants in Alcoa, Tenn., Massena, N.Y., and East St. Louis, Ill., and a cryolite plant in Philadelphia. They were also to bomb a railroad terminal in Newark, N.J., locks on the Ohio River below Cincinnati, the Hell Gate Bridge in New York, and various railroad bridges and tunnels.

Dasch was a German citizen and legal resident alien of the United States and was married to an American woman, Kantor reported. He was swept into the saboteur training when visiting Germany before the war and agreed to take the training for the explicit purpose of sabotaging the saboteurs, Kantor reported.

Within hours after being placed ashore with three others at Long Island, Dasch telephoned the New York office of the FBI and exposed the plot, according to records Kantor reported obtaining under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. An FBI agent who took the call did not regard it as important. He wrote a memorandum about the call and filed it.

A few days later, Dasch arrived by train in Washington and went directly to FBI headquarters, carrying a briefcase filled with more than $30,000 in U.S. currency that had been provided by mission planners in Germany to help finance the work.

Still FBI agents refused to believe him, "but Dasch talked for five straight days," Kantor reported, "issuing a statement that filled 254 single-spaced typewritten pages at FBI headquarters."

Following the leads Dasch provided them, FBI agents quickly rounded up the other seven, along with explosives stashed in the Jacksonville Beach sand and $174,588 in cash. Although agents repeatedly cross-checked Dasch's statement, they could find no place where he had lied, Kantor wrote.

Dasch served two years in the Atlanta penitentiary, then was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he was housed with "hardened Nazis who regularly threatened to kill him," Kantor said. In 1948, he was paroled by President Truman and deported to Germany. He has since died.

On Sept. 29, 1780, the British secret agent John Andrew was convicted of charges that he had collaboarated with Benedict Arnold. He was later hanged.

During the Mexican War, 1846-'48, Gen. Winfield Scott ordered punishment for violations of the "law of war" committed by U.S. forces in Mexico. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a colonel for the unnecessary seizure of goods in a military campaign in Mexico in 1846.

During the Civil War, the Union army conducted at least 4.271 trials by military commission, which reflected the civil disorder of the time. In 1864, 13 residents of the coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania were convicted of draft resistance and of organizing a mine strike for that purpose. They were imprisoned in a POW camp.

In 1856, John Yates Beall was convicted of spying for the Confederacy, attempting piracy on Lake Erie and trying to derail a train. Robert C. Kennedy was also convicted of spying and of attempting to set fire to New York City. Both men were hanged.

In 1942, a military commission sentenced to death German marines who sailed submarines to Long Island and Florida planning to sabotage military facilities. In 1946, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita of Japan was convicted and hanged for wartime torture, rape and slaughter of Philippine citizens.

And different version of the same incident:

Dasch had expected to be hailed for preventing the bombings, but he and Burger were imprisoned. Paroled after the war, Dasch returned home but was ostracized when German newspapers reported his wartime story.

And another version of the incident:

On May 26, 1942, the first group of four saboteurs left by submarine from the German base at Lorient, France, and on May 28, the next group of four departed the same base. Each was destined to land at points on the Atlantic Coast of the United States familiar to the leader of that group.

Four men, led by George John Dasch, age 39, landed on a beach near Amagansett, Long Island, New York (see map at left), about 12:10 a.m., June 13, 1942. Accompanying Dasch were Ernest Peter Burger, 36; Heinrich Harm Heinck, 35; and Richard Quirin, 34.

The Long Island group was less fortunate; scarcely had they buried their equipment and uniforms, in fact, one still wore bathing trunks, when a Coast Guardsman patrolling the shore approached. He was unarmed and very suspicious of them, more so when they offered him a bribe to forget they had met. He ostensibly accepted the bribe to lull their fears and promptly reported the incident to his headquarters. However, by the time the search patrol located the spot, the saboteurs had reached a railroad station and had taken a train to New York City.

Dasch's resolution to be a saboteur for the Fatherland faltered -- perhaps he thought the whole project so grandiose as to be impractical and wanted to protect himself before some of his companions took action on similar doubts. He indicated to Burger his desire to confess everything.

On the evening of June 14, 1942, Dasch, giving the name "Pastorius" called the New York Office of the FBI stating he had recently arrived from Germany and would call FBI Headquarters when he was in Washington, D.C., the following week. On the morning of Friday, June 19, a call was received at the FBI, Washington, from Dasch, then registered at a Washington hotel. He alluded to his prior call as "Pastorius" (of which Headquarters was aware) and furnished his location. He was immediately contacted and taken into custody..."

LOL, I guess a case could be made that Hilter was an "Hero" because he never actually invaded NA.

"The danger of trial by military commission is precisely that it lacks the constitutional safeguards that we think are necessary to ensure that the people we try and convict are indeed guilty.

I thought all this had been thoroughly vetted MONTHS ago -

- are some of these guys taking us for saps with short memories?

There was a list comparing the statistics in civil trials versus military trials/tribunals - and as I recall there were *fewer* convictions in the military trials ...

World War II military trial of 'saboteur' shows how secrecy can foster injustice, taint verdict
WASHINGTON -- He has been called "an authentic American war hero" whose acts may have saved the lives of hundreds of American civilians.

Duh!

He originally headed to our shores intent on killing men women and children -

- and had fears that one of his own comrades was going to turn HIM in!

This looks to be cowardice in the THIRD DEGREE and a far cry from 'heroism' of ANY kind!

Have we lost all perspective of right and wrong and ulterior motive in this country?

Get a grip people ...

Dasch was not a saboteur, once-sealed government documents show.

Okay - let's say I believe this dribble ...

Dasch was one of eight men put through saboteur training by the Nazi military intelligence corps soon after the United States entered the war.

... and for the sake of argument let's say I believe this too.

Now I face a contradiction - court records show he was *not* a saboteur yet he *was* trained as a saboteur by the Nazis ...

Can anybody help?

Anybody from a 'school of journalism' care to explain this?

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